The Hard Truth About Coaching, Competence, and the Power of Tools The first-rate coach, Katrin Charlton, made a post earlier this year which inspired me to think about quality in coaching. As with so many things in life and business, caveat emptor—buyer beware—applies with striking force to the world of coaching. While coaching has rightly gainedContinue reading “Caveat Emptor”
Tag Archives: personal development
Positive Psychology in the Workplace
Fuelling Engagement Through Well-Being There was a time when work was discussed almost entirely in terms of performance, output, and efficiency. The language was mechanical, and the focus transactional: you did your job, received your pay, and the system continued to turn. Yet over the past two decades, a quiet revolution has been taking placeContinue reading “Positive Psychology in the Workplace”
The Three Colours of Motivation Revisited
In the winter of January, 2010, I wrote a blog called “The Three Colours of Motivation”. Little did I know at the time that this would become my most popular and searched-for blog! What I think surprises me so much about this is that the blog is not “informative” in the same way as many other articles I write for this Motivational Memos series, but more symbolic. Actually, more poetic. To me this suggests something very hopeful and important indeed: that people want more poetry and beauty in their lives! As we enter another (dreadfully cold) winter, after a very trying and strange year, I thought it would be good to revisit this blog; hopefully, it will give you some motivation, or even inspiration, to make it through to next year!
MOTIVATION & THE CENTIPEDE or ‘taking care of the details’…
In the words of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, “It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.” We see this time and time again where one small overlooked element causes the whole house of cards to come crashing down. It is often in the small things that the telltale signs may be read about the state of an organisation or relationship’s health. We have to get the small details right, and in doing so, will often fix the big things.
UNLOCKING MOTIVATION PART 3: THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN’
Understanding how motivators change, and specifically how your motivations in life have shifted over time, is a great way to re-evaluate what you might deem as past ‘mistakes’. It is a great way to understand how you got from then to now, and why you may have made certain choices.
Transforming The Self
As a motivational mentor I encounter people with many issues and these always divide along the lines of the three core life elements: achievement, relationship, or self growth. Paradoxically, sometimes the more the serious the issues, the easier they are to support and help. People who believe they are doing all the right things sometimes cannot change, and therefore cannot transform their Self.
Three Tools for Personal Development
All growth and personal development begins with self-awareness: the self being aware of itself, becoming aware of dissatisfaction with its self, and projecting, therefore, changes that will enable it to ‘improve’. In other words, to engage in a creative process with itself. There are three primary and creative tools of personal development that follow from this self-awareness.
A New Model of Leadership
As we approach Chapter 8 and getting near the end of my book, ‘Mapping Motivation’, from Routledge (http://amzn.to/2eqdSQq ) we find the topics become ever more serious and vital. Motivation has this tendency to become ever more involved in key aspects of human life and work. We have dealt with things like performance, teams andContinue reading “A New Model of Leadership”
Mentoring and Its Four Dimensions
Sometimes I am asked, what is the single most powerful tool that facilitates personal development? This is a tricky question because of course any answer must be contextual; one factor might be speed. How fast do you want the personal development to occur? If speed is the issue, then clearly you may choose a processContinue reading “Mentoring and Its Four Dimensions”
Why Leaders Need Personal Development
What is leadership? As Dr Johnson observed about light, it’s easy to see what light is, but not so easy to say what it is; so with leadership – we can easily see its positive presence – and the dire consequence of its absence – but to say what it is proves more tricky.
The Mapping Motivation Series 