Want to climb Kilimanjaro?

I am delighted to recommend this to you. Simon Madrell, the co-founder of Excellent is a past client of mine and in fact the setting up of Excellent came out of the coaching work that we did.

Simon is one of the most trustworthy people I've ever met, full of integrity and I have followed his charity all through it's existence and delighted in the achievements they have made including increasing their fund raining income year on year and winning a number of awards for their work.

Join the Excellent Development Kilimanjaro Challenge. This is your opportunity to climb Africa's highest peak and raise money for Excellent Development. You will then have the opportunity to go to Kenya and spend a week with a community building a sand dam.
The 2010 expedition leaves on 14th September and they will be signing people up over the next few weeks. However, if you can't make it this year, do not despair as next year's trip leaves on 9th September 2011.


To find out more visit - http://www.excellentdevelopment.com/kili2010.php

Use walking to fix it.

Those of you who have followed me for a while know of my love of walking and how I use it in my work. This is a technique I urge you to try - visualise as you walk, it's a great mood fixer. So if you have some concerns and anxieties and can't seem to move on, get out of the office and go for a walk. See your anxieties been ground into the earth under your feet as you move.

Works for me every time.

You can exercise in a busy schedule

Did you know that walking briskly for only 10 minutes several times a day is just as beneficial for you as doing 30 minutes once a day. For many of us these, small bouts of exercise may be easier to fit into our busy schedules.

What do you think?

Fitness incorporated

An Irish study suggests that walking up stairs & escalators for average of 6 mins per day, can make you 10% - 15% fitter.

Try it out.

How's your year developing?

Can't believe that it's the second week in February already!!

The first few days of January always seem to go slow and then they become turbo charged and whizz through. I'm so trying to make the most of every day this year, really trying to keep on top of stuff and not let time just pass. For us and our business, January was a great month and as I didn't plan to go far over the first few weeks the snow didn't really affect me. I'm planning on February being the same.


It used to be the month I disliked. Unlike many others who dislike January, I find January inspiring and that great new start with the blank canvas and the chance to put things right. I am always energised and looking forward with great intentions. February however tended to be for me, cold and dreary. What was there to look forward to? Spring wasn't on it's way and the excitement of the new year had passed. Stupidly I often found myself picking that month to detox in when I should be nourishing myself and taking a lead from nature and hibernating. One year when I detoxed, I got so depressed and was sensible enough to learn a lesson so no more of that until later on.

Last year I decided to take more action and found a range of different ways to keep upbeat and now it's as good as any other month. In fact today feels rather springlike. The sun is shining out of a beautiful blue sky, in fact it's streaming in the window and I will have to do sometihing to keep it off the computer screen. I can see the days being longer and there are buds appearing on trees and the daffodils and crocus are poking up out of the earth. It's all aking me a little poetic....

Would love to hear how 2010 is working out for you? Tell me how you are coping and let's share some of those strategies and if it's not working too well, has my writing given you any ideas of what you could do differently? I do hope so.

The Quintastics - are you one?

One of my dear friends, member of my mastermind group, fabulous 50+ woman and owner of Midlife Matters - http://www.midlifematters.co.uk, Karen Knott has just alerted me to this fabulous article - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/7084717/Quintastic-50-is-the-new-30.html

Let me know what you think.......

Are you a Quintastic?

Clear your head in 30 minutes

Sneak more exercise into your day and go for a 30 min walk at lunchtime. It clears the head, recharges your batteries batteries and gives you a break from the computer and the office.

A new year and at last I'm where I should be.

Oh dear, well the blog went a little out the window at the end of last year which I'm not very proud of but I figure it's happened so no point in beating myself up about it. It's a case of getting over it, moving on and planning to do better in 2010 and that's exactly what I intend to do.

It's been an interesting start to the year with all the snow which I initially enjoyed. I hadn't planned to go far so hiding in the warm, cosy office at the bottom of the garden was great. It also gave me a chance to get on with the planning that I needed to do to get 2010 off to a good start. So that is well under way now, hence the reason for starting to blog again.

As this new decade starts, I'm really in a great place. For the past few years I've known that I wasn't quite in the right place. I was still coaching, running the walking business and exploring how I could move with that but the fit wasn't quite there. I knew I was out of alignment but I wasn't clear what to do to get back in there. Quite often I was really frustrated and unfulfilled and at times I thought I might have to stay like that - not a great vision.

However, I stuck with it, I read and tried to put it all into practice and went with my intuition which said it would all be OK and voila!

At the end of 2009, I was a much happier person, I felt calm and at peace and very blessed and I still feel like that. I know that now I'm in the place I want to be, the place that uses my skills totally and honours all those values and it feels great, it feels better than great but I'm not sure I can find the right words, there are so many.

So what am I doing?

I'm combining working with my husband as his Business Manager, he is a professional speaker - http://www.alanstevens.net/ and also runs http://mediacoach.com/ with my walking business which I have now made much more local in terms of the services it offers - http://www.walkerscoach.com/ and it's working well.

My walking is one of my passions but I cannot spread myself thinner and in this way I can really work with the ladies who want to get the best out of walking in the area that I live and I can also provide my 'walk and talk' sessions to the coaching clients who have wonderful small businesses in my area. In terms of trekking, I'm still off doing that so I can train local people but of course the site and the newsletter which will start again soon can be accessed by many more.

Working with Alan is something I would never have envisaged but it works well and I use my coaching, my relationship building, my organisational skills on a daily basis and I love it.

Is there a message? Well a couple - don't give up hope. If you feel that things are not right, don't put up with it, keep exploring, keep believing that you can find the right place to be and you will. The persistence is necessary, even when you feel like giving up and finally read some good books. For me, the one that really helped was a book I have recommended before - 'Simple Abundance' by Sarah Ban Breathnach. It's interesting that last year I managed, at last, to get through the entire book. Perhaps I should have achieved that earlier.

....and I'm still walking.

I can honestly say that I cannot quite believe how happy and content I feel. I feel blessed and very abundant.

If I can help you get to that place, please get in touch for a chat.