Coffee hangover

Been giving all this well-being and wellness so much thought and have been struggling where to start. In fact I've really been pushing it all too hard, trying to make sense, trying to get clarity, trying to find the next step.

Have decided to stop pushing and let it go and believe it will flow.

Started yesterday off with a splitting headache and it never left. Started off not knowing what it was. Worked out as the day went on that it was lack of coffee!

I don't drink much coffee at all and can go for days without but on reflection I've been upping the intake recently - again not much but for me, much more than before - now it's catching up on me and my body's saying 'no'. It's still with me today and that's after drinking loads of water yesterday, chilling last night and having an early night. I have to listen.

Do I want to go through this again and be under par for 48 hours? I think you know the answer. I'm drastically cutting back and keeping the odd cup for a big treat.

Wellbeing? Wellness?.....

Which is it?

My experiment regarding my own wellbeing or wellness is not quite flowing but actually that's ok. It's not flowing because I'm not clear, so how and why would it flow? I'm not even sure what definition to work too so I'm exploring.

I went out walking this morning with the specific goal of sorting out all the thoughts in my head regarding what I was trying to do. I walked in wonderful sunshine through parts of Epping Forest on a walk I love and I sat on an old tree trunk for 5 minutes just being. Am I clearer? Well, a little and what I have done is accepted that this is all part of the journey.

There is a reason for me being in this state or at this stage.

Why do I want to sort out my wellbeing or wellness? I was 50 on my last birthday and I look and feel much younger. My philosophy re age is that it's just a number and we all know 25 year olds going on 50 and 77 year olds who have as much energy and joy de vivre as many who are in their twenties.

I'm in good shape, I walk miles, I'm positive but in my mind I'm not as fit or toned as I could be. I don't eat as well as I could, I'm still seeking the balance I crave and the calmness in my life ....so I've decided to go seek it and I believe that great things will happen as a result.

I was meant to come to this place and the lack of clarity is testing me as will all the things I aim to do over the next while. In fact I've been on this journey since I turned 50. It's been a year of challenge and has called for persistence and determination and I've struck with it so far.

It's exciting and it's scary and I need your help , guidance and support as I follow this path. I'm going to blog, tweet, talk and mostly do recording the ups and the downs and ask loads of questions and as I'm drawn more and more to work on wellness and wellbeing with wonderful women and use my walking as an integral part of it all, this experiment will teach me so much.

Short and sweet but powerful!

"It takes 64 seconds to retrieve your train of thought after interruption by e-mail, one study shows.

That means if you check your in-box every 5 minutes, you waste 8.5 hours a week. Try intervals of 45 minutes, and turn off the "new e-mail" pop-up alert."

Source: Thomas Jackson, PhD, Loughborough University.

Well that surely gave me food for thought, what about you?

Do it Kenny's way.

When I'm coaching, either in 'walk and talk' sessions, over the phone or in my Business Manager capacity, I'm working with wonderful women in business who need to present ideas in meetings or communicate projects, developments at conferences. Some are just concerned about how they tell people what they do in a simple and clear way.

My philosophy is 'why reinvent the wheel' when others have explained how you do this so well. In this case, a dear friend and colleague Kenny Harris http://www.headsurfing.com/ who is writing here about staying on top of your material– without over-reliance on notes or (hopefully not!) a script......

Hard Work warning. You have to learn it, and you have to rehearse it. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve shared a stage with an ‘internal’ or industry speaker who stumbled over their material, or lost their way. Afterwards, they’ll often say something like “but you make it look easy”. It may look easy, but only because I’ve put the work in (and the same goes for most other professional speakers).

Here’s how you make the hard work a bit easier.

As soon as you know you have to speak, put a few pages in your notebook aside for that event. Start with an outline of what you want to say, do, or achieve.

Over the weeks or days before the event, keep notes in your book whenever an idea comes to you about a point to make, or a story or example to use.

When it comes to writing, start with the opening, and the ending, and learn those off by heart.

Have a full rehearsal during the weekend before. And whenever you have a moment (in the car, on the train, or while grabbing a coffee) have a run through of different parts of the speech in your head. Do a full walk through (yes, on your feet) the day before. And then again during the evening before (and early in the morning of the event too if it’s possible).

Finally, by all means use short notes or bullet points, or a mind map – but don’t get tied to them.

Kenny's an inspirational and entertaining speaker, consultant and workshop leader on creative thinking, innovation, and humour. He works with leading companies, public organisations and small businesses to help them get more ideas and better ideas, more of the time. He's the creator of HeadSurfing, a radical programme of creative thinking for individuals, teams and organisations.... and he's a brilliant guy too.

If you can imagine it....

"If you can imagine it, you can achieve it; if you can dream it, you can become it." ~ William Arthur Ward

I working hard on this.

Have a great day.

No camera, how sad.

When I walk I so often have my camera but neither yesterday morning first thing nor on my 'walk and talk' session today, did I have it with me.What a shame.

Yesterday I seemed to come across oodles and oodles of bright pink peony roses and I also met people like Mandy and her daughter Amy, whom I hadn't seen for ages.

Today, no peonies but Knighton woods in Buckhurst Hill was full of wonderful pink and purple rhododendons, yellow water lillies, birdsong and ducks. In the middle of our session, Hannake and I took time out to stop, listen and watch and there were so many different bird sounds.

Now I'm back in the office, the birds are still singing this time in the garden and tomorrow morning, I'm taking the camera.

Just one of the joys of walking.

Monthly review throws up 'gems'

At the start of each month, I take some time to review the one that's just passed. It was working my way though a terrific book called 'Simple Abundance' that inspired me with the idea and no matter how often I read and re-read the book, the gems of wisdom still appear.

Today as I sat in the sun, this one re-surfaced.

"There is an old Indian proverb or axiom that says that everyone is a house with four rooms, a physical, a mental, an emotional and a spiritual. Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time, but unless we go into every room every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not a complete person."

I love this. Does it resonnate with you?

All in a weekend.

What a wonderful weekend I've just been blessed to have. The weather was glorious so we spent every moment we could in the garden. We ate there, entertained, relaxed, did a little gardening and I also continued with my clearing and de-cluttering - a journey I've been on now for about 18 months.

The length of time could lead you to believe that my house is full of clutter. Not true at all but in my experience it all takes time. I've been working on it bit by bit when the time is right and often the clearing out brings up other things that need action.

An example of this is time spent in the attic where you often unearth things you didn't know were still there. In the attic were also a number of things that Ellie had outgrown and records of Al's , some of which could be worth some money. So the de-cluttering stopped as we photographed item and wrote them up to sell on ebay.

More recently I've been clearing books from the office and was able to start selling some of those to colleagues and people new to the coaching field. Over the weekend, I spent many pleasant hours on the sun lounger or in the hammock seat reading and looking through books to work out whether they should be kept or passed on.

Work in the office is in it's early stages. I have a clear image of how I want it to be and a book I found on Feng Shui will definitely help.