LifeCircle 2012: How did you do?

We all had actions, which we set ourselves two weeks ago. The deadline was, handily, two weeks. (There's method in my madness, see?) This week is all about how we got on with those actions, and how we feel about it.

I know I didn't tell you what my actions were, but I'm pleased to report that I completed the ones I set myself and I feel quite proud of that as I have had to push myself slightly to do so. Setting the actions were a big push, in the right direction of course. And do you know what? I feel really good. It has made me feel more in control of a lot of things, beyond the areas I took action. I've had a little blip these last few days - think it was the January blues finally kicking in a bit late - but I have been able to snap out of it to some extent.

LifeCircle: Introduction

So, this week, we're just introducing ourselves. Who we are, what we're about, where we're coming from, and where we're headed. Why we're here. What we want to achieve out of joining LifeCircle. My turn first.

Hopefully, you know me, if not in person, then courtesy of this blog. I am Kate and tomorrow, I turn 47. That sounds bloody terrifying actually - more so than turning 45 or 40 etc. I am married, my husband works in the NHS. I have two lovely children, that you've probably read about before - Monkey will soon be 7 and Missy Woo will be 6 in the summer.

For over 20 years, I worked in a variety of jobs in IT. In 2009, following a TUPE transfer and seeing the writing on the wall, I took redundancy. Since then? Well, I've been at home, doing odds and bits but also being mummy to Monkey and Missy Woo. Since Missy Woo started school, I've been looking around seriously for something I can do that fits around them and it's not easy, partly because of hubby's NHS shifts which mean that if I were to get a job and arrange regular childcare, it wouldn't be necessary half the time. After not being sure what I really wanted to do, I finally decided to try and make a go of being a virtual assistant and I've been lucky enough to get work doing just that, with a slightly more technical bias thanks to my IT background. Technically, I have a business which I call Jellybean Business Support. I'm doing quite well with it - my clients are happy with my work and there is a possibility of more work based on my clients' recommendations to others. I do need to increase the chargeable hours I work so that we can put our finances on a more even keel. I don't necessarily want to be very rich, just not have to think about whether we can really afford certain things.

Why am I here and what do I want to achieve? I need that push to take me onwards in 2012. I've got stuck with losing weight and feel I'm putting weight on again so that has to stop and I need to adopt healthier eating habits, I need to promote my business a bit more and secure more work on a regular basis. I want to do some more work on the house but I need to be able to afford it first! And obviously, LifeCircle was my idea so I think it's a great way to get that group support and push myself a little bit.

Now it's your turn. Tell the world about you and what you're hoping to do this year. Did you get anything out of writing the post? Let me know in the comments if you haven't already mentioned it on your post.

Don't forget to come back on Saturday, when I'll have another task for you to tackle next week. Onwards and upwards, friends. We're off on a journey.

Life Circle - TGROW and Week 6

Topic - My goal to be a size 12 by Christmas


Goal - to work through my lack of progress

Reality - I have lost weight before. I know I can do it. I am just one of these people who has to have their head in the right place to do it successfully. At the same time, it is frustrating as a little part of me does want to do it. I also think I'm out of the routine on keeping my food intake in check. I know that it might take a few weeks of living through a bit of hunger first to adjust and get back into it. Which is worrying as that will take me into December and only a couple of weeks before my target date. Because of this, I am beginning to think that this is now not an achievable goal at all.

Options - (Remember all options are presented here, even if I know they are slightly mad) 1. Crash diet 2. Surgery (them's the unrealistic ones). 3. Join a group like Slimming World or Weight Watchers. This is an option but I have never really been into the group dynamic before, although I know it works for a lot of people and they find it very successful. 4. Start to record food intake and exercise again in My Fitness Pal, which I've used before. 5. Give up and start again after Christmas. Whilst this is an attractive option, I am scared to do this in case I put too much weight on.

On reflection, I feel that the best option is to take option 4 but also readjust the target date of my goal. I don't think a dress size before Christmas is achievable now.

Will / Wrap up - After some reflection, I've decided to commit to recording my food intake for at least 5 days out of 7 over the next fortnight in MyFitnessPal - by the end of which, I should be more into it and be ready to continue doing the same. I think I need to give myself 3 months to get down to a size 12 but with Christmas in the middle, I need to add a fortnight to that. All this means my new target date needs to be 1st March.

Action agreed - record food intake and exercise for 5 days a week over the next fortnight.

How did you get on with this? I realise this is quite a tough task on you, partly because it can mean admitting faults about yourself and we don't like doing that. If you need some support in this task, do feel free to get in touch and we can chat about it.

Because I've been quite tough on you this week, I want to set a lighter task for next week. We're going to be Celebrating Success!

What I want you to do is to look back over the time since we started the Life Circle and I want you to reflect on the positives - what you have achieved in that time, what things you have done that you had hoped to get out of it; or even that you hadn't expected. How do you feel about the process? How has doing Life Circle helped you mentally? How has your mindset changed for the good? And what differences, if any, have others noticed about you? These are only a few questions you could ask yourself - whatever positive things you can say about how you've changed because of Life Circle, make sure you include them. If you're not feeling positive, do try. Why? Because the more positive you act, the easier it becomes. Even if you don't totally believe them, you gradually become more positive. This is the theory behind affirmations - having positive personal statements that describe the person you want to be, even if you are not totally that person right now. And don't forget to tell us how you intend to celebrate your success so far. Think about how you can celebrate success in future - maybe set yourself some rewards that can help you achieve your goals. How would you celebrate achieving them?

Write your post, then come back and link up next Thursday. If the option to post a link has disappeared, then do by all means leave a link in the comments. Don't forget when writing your post to include the badge or a link back to the Life Circle page on the blog so that your readers can find the other posts - and possibly join in too.

By the way, I'm thinking of relaunching Life Circle in January to fit in with the New Year, New You vibe that happens then. This may mean we revisit some of the tasks we've done before - although some are meant for revisiting from time to time. However, if I feel you might not want to repeat a task, I'll provide an option for the class of 2011. Don't worry, there will be room for all of us!

Best of luck. Get celebrating!

Life Circle: SMART goals and Week 5

Hello and welcome back to Life Circle, which is back after an extended break. Apologies if you came looking for this last week - it was just a post too far so I decided to postpone it until this week. This, of course, has given you another week to get reviewing those goals.

Looking at my goals from Week 3, they're pretty good - I tried not to be, but the SMART criteria are stuck in my head now so I find it difficult not to do it. They're specific, as they stipulate exactly what I want to do. They're specific enough to be measurable so that I will know when I've got there. As for achievable, I think so - perhaps I'm not totally sure and the losing weight one is not really going anywhere fast, which will probably make it a prime contender for next week's task, which I'm going to set below. They are all realistic - none of this "I'm going to win the lottery tomorrow" business and I feel they are relevant to my life and the way I want it to go. And they are all timebound because I have given myself deadlines to achieve them. Even if I don't make those deadlines, they'll be nagging at me so I have a better chance of getting them done.

Reviewing your goals regularly is extremely useful. Situations change and a goal may no longer be relevant, or needs a minor tweak. Keep the SMART criteria in mind when you're reviewing its suitability and it can't go far wrong. Clear goals that fit these criteria are easier to commit to because they are as real as you can make them without actually achieving them. Read them regularly and try to picture achieving them and how good that feels, especially when you need motivation to get moving in whatever way.

Don't worry if you have a long list of goals but do review them with the SMART criteria and consider grouping several smaller ones down into one big one, and the smaller goals can then become part of your to do list that all contribute to achieving that one thing. A clear picture of the desired end result will help you get started and the smaller tasks done.

Moving on now, I'm going to set the task for week 5. We're going to use a model called TGROW that is used in coaching to pick up apart an issue. It can be any - my suggestion, although you don't have to take it, would be a goal that you feel you're not progressing with or feel less committed about than others. If not, take a more general issue that you feel is the most important issue affecting your life that is holding you back and one that would give you most benefit if you were to resolve or at least take action on it.

Let's go through what TGROW means and what you need to ask yourself. It might help to scribble notes d1own under each heading when you start. Although the model is presented in a sequential linear fashion, it can be circular because if something comes up that might affect your earlier thoughts, it's OK to go back and reconsider. I don't want you to force your thoughts into an unnatural way of thinking - nothing is set in stone f you think of something else later on.

T stands for Topic or Theme. In other words, what you want to deal with. Think carefully and scribble a few notes why it's so important to you to work on this at this point. What is it that is bothering you? What about it do you want to address? What issues lie behind this? What does this particular topic mean to you?

Next, move on and set a Goal for this topic. If you're considering a goal here, I don't mean that particular goal - I mean, set out what you want to achieve by taking this through this process. What do you want to happen as a result? How will you know if you've achieved it? You can look in both a wider sense - of how the topic or theme you have picked out fits into your overall goals - or you can just look at what you want to get out of this exercise.

Then, we get down to basics. We look at the Reality of your current situation in the context of this topic and goal. Where are you in relation to achieving your goal? If it's a more specific issue, what is causing the problem and how does it manifest itself? What progress have you made recently? How do your current skills and knowledge fit in with this? What, if anything, is holding you back from progressing towards your goal or resolving your issues? Why, indeed, do you need to set this goal in the first place? This is the meatiest part of the whole process and requires you to be completely honest with yourself. Working with a life coach would mean you would find this quite challenging as they would ask a lot of questions. Don't be afraid to challenge yourself here, although you might find that this is quite an emotional part of the process if the issue is very personal. As always, when it comes to writing your post, only share with your readers what you want to share but remember that you can always email me if you wish to work through you feel uncomfortable sharing on your blog.

Even if you do find this difficult, the next stage should help. I want you now to consider your Options. Think of as many ways as you can to move forward. Don't just think of one idea. Consider all the options. Ask yourself what you would do if anything was possible. What has worked before? What do others do in the same situation (if relevant) and how successful are they? Once you've come up with as many options as you can, consider their relative pros and cons. Which option seems the best? Which one are you most committed to? Considering your commitment to each option is probably the most effective way of picking out what you are going to do to move forward. Do this by scoring yourself out of 10 if you like. Putting a numerical value, a bit like in the Wheel of Life, does make you think really hard which option you like the best.

As we select this option, we seamlessly move into the final stage, which is known as Will or Wrap-up. Wrap-up sounds a bit final but the point of this stag is to summarise what this process has taught you and what you are going to do next. The Will part is important - what WILL you do to move forward? What actions will you take next to move towards your longer term goal? If it's not a goal you've chosen to work on, what actions will you take to start resolving this issue? Consider briefly also what might prevent you from moving forward, which should help to determine your commitment to the action. Out of this stage, you need to be coming up with 1 or 2 specific actions to take away and start working on NOW. They should start to move your forward to achieve your goal on time or resolve any issue that you have that might be holding you back. Remember the SMART criteria - be specific about what you do, make it measurable, achievable, relevant and realistic, and most importantly, time-bound. In coaching, you might be seeing a coach once a week or once a fortnight and they would expect that these actions would be completed in the time between sessions and you would return to the next session to report how you had got on with those actions and whilst they might not be 100% completed, progress on all of them of some sort would be expected.

Over to you now. Don't spend too long agonising over this. A life coaching session is typically 45 minutes to 1 hour (which would include a recap of previous actions in later sessions) so you shouldn't need to spend any longer than this working it through. Then blog your results as much as you want to share, add the badge, and come back and link to my next post in a week's time.

If you're new to Life Circle, click on the tab above to learn more about it and see the previous tasks. If you want to join in, then please do. Either start at the beginning (although you'll have to link up by leaving a comment for now) or just work on this task only. You'll get the most out of it if you take it from the beginning, but feel free to do what makes you feel most comfortable.

I look forward to reading what you've come up with for this week and wish you luck with the new task.

Life Circle - Goal Setting and Week 4

Been a bit of a hard think this one, but here are my goals based on what I've learned from these exercises so far.

1. Lose weight - to reach a size 12 by Christmas.
2. Earn £300 per week within a year.
3. Complete redecoration and repairs on the house within 18 months.

They are a slight mix of things but looking back, they really reflect what I want to focus on for the moment. They are all medium term goals. I've not listed any longer term goals, because personally, I think it can be a mistake to have too many goals that you feel you're working on all at once, as there is a danger of feeling overwhelmed. I'm committed to these goals, although these goals may need some refinement.

The Life Circle - The Life Plan and Week 3

So, this week, we're all writing our life plans. I'm going to share with you as much of mine as you will read. Remember, it's our ideal lives we're talking about so it's all going to be good, right? Right?!

Starting from furthest away, we'll start with five years from now. By then, Monkey will be 11 and Missy Woo 10. Monkey will have just started at high school, one that we believe is right for him. Missy will be in Year 6 and due to follow her brother the following year. (And yes, it's my life and I've started talking about my children; they are an important part of my life).

Life Circle - Week 1

So, here we go. If you don't know what this is all about, have a read of this post first. I was overwhelmed by the number of people that read and commented on it so I know there is a real appetite for something like this. That also adds to the pressure I feel to deliver something of use to you all, not just me!

I know that quite a few people were a bit hesitant about getting involved in case it's too much of a commitment. Well, I promise to ensure that it's not too onerous to get involved - it will only take a lot of time if you want to put that time in.

Introducing the Life Circle - who's joining me?

Image: Gregory Szarkiewicz / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

What with September being the start of the new school year, parents everywhere start making plans for what they are going to do this year now that their children are back in a daily routine. Personally, I'm taking a long hard look at myself. Why? Because this time last year, I wrote this post. And you know what? I feel pretty ashamed as a lot of those things I haven't really achieved. It's like I've been drifting, for months.

That's not entirely true, as things HAVE changed. I have a client for my business, who is very happy with the work I've been doing and has been gradually giving me more tasks to do. I've also potentially got another client or two who need help which I'm excited about, because I now believe I can make it work for us and it's work that is flexible, allowing me to work from home without needing childcare. I've been able to do lots of things where I'm not just someone's mummy - but then, that's mostly what this blog is about, even if I do blog about my family.

But the rest? I've let it slip. And it has to stop.