Happiness – Career and Life Coaching

What Does Christmas Mean To You?

Published on December 1, 2014February 29, 2016 by Allison FisherLeave a comment

Christmas day does not have to mean the traditional large family, turkey, ham and beautiful summers day. Christmas isn’t like that for many and who is to say what is the best kind of Christmas anyway? Having expectations of what things are “supposed” to be at Christmas can create disappointment and dissatisfaction. Also the mind will start comparing what others do and have, and ask Why aren’t we like them!! Not great for confidence! This Christmas you decide what you want it to be and with who.

So here are a couple of things to remember at this time of year –

a) What you see in others isn’t necessarily what is real. Read the glossy gossip magazines and everyone seems like they have such happy families and going to have an amazing Christmas. Really??? I think not – often what is portrayed is the good stuff not the hard tough, tragic stuff that happens within families.

b) Love what you have. This isn’t the time to wish for a different life/family/mother/house/ in law etc. This is the time to acknowledge what you do have, whether it’s the love of a wonderful friendship, your gorgeous puppy or a lovely spouse.

c) What can you do with what you have? How about deciding how you would like your Christmas to be this year. Forget about “supposed to” and think about wants. What is the food you can afford and would like? How can you make it interesting? Who do you really want to spend Christmas day with and where would you like it to be? On the beach, at a cafe, in the bush?

This year make Christmas special for you in whatever way that is.

What ever you do wherever you are, have a merry Christmas day and may 2015 bring all you wish for and all the love you need.

Warmest

Allison

Contact Allison Fisher, Career & Life Coaching to discover and achieve what you want in 2015.

What is Really Important to You?

Published on August 7, 2014February 29, 2016 by Allison FisherLeave a comment

We live in a sophisticated, complex world with so much on offer and opportunities to grab. If we choose we can be involved in a variety of sports, hobbies, learning, and possibly have careers in politics, science, IT and psychology to name just a few. But all of this can become confusing and over whelming if we don’t know what is important to us. Important in our day-to-day life as well as our futures. So consider for a moment in life what is most important to you? What are your top 5 on an importance list?

Here are a few areas to consider:

Your children
Partner
Music
Travel
Caring for the elderly
Running a successful business so that others can have jobs
Feeding the poor
Clean water in our rivers and lakes
Being fit
Your religious or spiritual beliefs

And just check they are your top 5 on the list not what you think you should have.

If our lives can be based on what is important to us, making choices in life can get a whole lot easier. Only when we know what is most important to us can we make some good decisions about our life path.

Give Allison a Call to discuss what is important to you.

www.allisonfisher.co.nz

What do you Wish for?

Published on July 24, 2014February 29, 2016 by Allison FisherLeave a comment

“Sometimes you’ve just got to give yourself what you wish someone else would give you.” – Dr Phil

No matter what you think of Dr Phil I do think he has some good insights to human nature and behaviour, and like this statement can make us pause a minute and reflect on ourselves.

I really like this quote because sometimes we can get stuck about not having something while perhaps we can simply give it to ourselves. We can find ourselves wishing someone would call us first, wishing we could have a quick nap in the middle of the day, wishing we got more hugs from our partners, wishing, wishing, wishing. So what might you wish for that you could give yourself? It’s a bit like giving to yourself first. Sometimes we get so good at giving to others we forget or don’t have enough time for ourselves and what we want.

The next time you find your self wishing for something ask yourself is it something that I could give myself this time? And call that friend for a coffee, give a hug when you want one and read that book you’ve been dying to read.

So don’t wait around wishing whatever you wish for, find a way to give it to yourself.

Contact Allison Fisher Career & Life Coaching to create your wishes!

What is Happiness?

Published on April 30, 2014April 25, 2016 by Allison FisherLeave a comment

Life brings with it all sorts of things to change how we feel about our lives and how happy we are.

Some we can control like our positive or negative mind-set and our judgements and some we can’t like death and grief.

The Wikipedia definition of happiness is:

“Happiness is a mental or emotional state of well-being characterized by positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy.^[1] Philosophers and religious thinkers often define happiness in terms of living a good life, or flourishing, rather than simply as an emotion.”

Happiness can be a cocktail of emotions we experience when we do something good or positive. When these emotions occur we experience a flood of hormones released in the brain.

Is happiness created from within ourselves through acts of kindness and giving, generally being a better person or is happiness derived from what we have or accumulate, for instance money, excitement of a new car or travel? Strangely enough perhaps it can be both as without some money it’s difficult to be able to give.

Is a person who uses cocaine every day “happy?” If feeling good all the time is the definition of happiness, then the answer would be “yes.” However, recent research suggests that an even-keeled mood is more psychologically healthy than a mood in which you achieve great heights of happiness regularly – after all, what goes up must come down.

Furthermore, when you ask people what makes their lives worth living, they rarely say anything about their mood.

They are more likely to cite things that they find meaningful, such as their work or relationships or children.

Does it mean if we are happy we have no pain? If only!

In life we often hold both. An example of this is the joy of a new baby into a family and the grief of a grandparent dying in the same week. Or acrimoniously divorcing while your son celebrates his 21st birthday.

And does winning lotto really make you happier? There are often stories of lotto winners and other wealthy people who say money is a worry, it creates anxiety having to manage the issues and pressure that go with having a lot of money.

Perhaps the definition of happiness needs to be left to you as an individual and as long as you allow yourself to be who you are, believe in yourself, know what you want and whats important to you then happiness will occur. As Albert Camus aptly said “But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?”

Contact Allison Fisher, Career & Life Coach, specialist in supporting adults and teenagers in career and life choices.

Career Coaching | 8 Ways to cure Boredom at Work

Published on April 1, 2014February 29, 2016 by Allison FisherLeave a comment

Are you bored at work? Unhappy but due to personal circumstances can’t leave just yet? Or like your job, but don’t want to leave, trouble is the same excitement when you started just isn’t there?

If either is true you will need some ways to make work interesting in the mean time. And anyway even the most exciting job can go a bit stale after we’ve been in it a while. Once boredom has taken hold it affects how we feel about our job, our career and life as a whole. We may become a little less happy and we lose our career drive and even our drive for life.

Here are some tips that should help lessen the boredom:

Action a review. If you looked in on yourself, your job and your life, what do you see? What would others see if they looked objectively? Removing yourself for a little while from the daily routine and looking at everything with an objective mind will help you find things you could change.
What excites you? Part of number 1 is to check what interests do you have outside of work? What really excites and motivates you? After all you are so much more than just your career. Find a new hobby. If you find your personal life isn’t very exciting, explore, try some hobbies or join new groups and find something you really enjoy.
Change daily routines. Maybe you could start with a different task, mix things up a bit, change the time you take a break, make your calls in the morning, don’t check emails for 2 hours, etc. Just think of the little things you could change to break up the daily grind. Perhaps drive a different way to work or on the way home. If your job allows you to be flexible, then think about mixing this up a bit more. You could maybe decide to work from home some days to break the cycle.
Make new friends at work. You could try to meet other people, from other work areas. Start looking around. Is there maybe someone or a group of people who you like the look of? Find a way to introduce yourself and see how things go.
New Projects. Ask for new tasks or a new project that could broaden your areas of responsibility.
Learn something new. A great way to fight boredom is to study a new and exciting thing related to your job. Have a look at what’s new in your area of work and start studying it. You might even find a course to go on. Building skills is a good career investment.
Volunteer. A good way of expanding your job role is by volunteering to do things that are outside your current job scope. Find out what the company is doing both internally and in the community. See it as an opportunity to learn new things and meet people in a different area.
Re-frame the Mind Talk. Through this time check what your mind is saying to you. Now that your being proactive you can start to turn around negative comments. So when your internal mind goes “I’m bored and frustrated” remind your self that you are being pro-active and list the things you have done so far to manage it.

So come on no time like the present choose one of the above and control the boredom!

Contact Allison Fisher, Career & Life Coaching, to discuss your career.

Back at Work Blues?

Published on February 25, 2014February 29, 2016 by Allison FisherLeave a comment

So how is it back at work post-Christmas holidays, children returned to school and routines well established? Are there some quiet questions in your mind about your life or your work? Is there some introspection taking place?

It is really important not to avoid these queries but to face them and bring them up to the surface to explore. If we avoid this exploration it is quite likely they will still be there in a year’s time, 5 years time or 10 years time by which time you could be very fed up and this may well undermine your confidence and belief in yourself and stop you from getting what you do want. So have a mind check is there some of the following musings going on in your head?

I’m bored
Same old same old
Wish I was somewhere else
Wish I worked at ….
I really don’t like my manager
Gawd this again..

To open these up and find out what is going on, here are some useful questions to ask yourself: What would be my opposite of boredom? If I could choose anything at all, what would I be doing? Where would I be? What sort of people would I prefer to work with? What am I really interested in? What am I really good at? These might take a while to answer. Get some help ask friends about your strengths, what they see you being good at. And ask them when do they see you really engaged in something? Everyone deserves to have a fulfilling job, having some belief that you can is the first step. Call or email Allison Fisher Career & Life Coaching to talk about how you can get out of the boredom and identify what job is ideal for you.

What is important to you this year?

Published on February 10, 2014February 29, 2016 by Allison FisherLeave a comment

In my last blog I discussed writing an Obituary. This is about identifying what your wants are in life. Could be what you want to achieve, could be who you want to be, behaviours you want to develop or what you want to create in your life.

The next step now that you know what you want is to make this into specific GOALS. So thinking about the year ahead, look at your Obituary and decide what are the priorities for you in 2014 that will help you achieve what you want in life. Ask yourself what is really important to me this year? What would make my life interesting, purposeful, exciting and fun? Write those ideas on a large piece of paper then follow the 6 tips below to create clear goals:

Write goals as if you have already achieved them e.g. ” I run twice a week” or “I have a loving intimate relationship”.
Be specific – how will you know you have achieved the goal?
Check – how much do you want this goal on a scale of 1 to 10? If a 5 or 6 rating then ask yourself is it important enough? Is there another goal that is more important.
Small bites – if you want to run a marathon maybe the first thing you need to do is buy new shoes? So plan one bite and one step at a time!
Check are there any obstacles to achieving your goal? If there are how can you circumvent this or perhaps ask for help to climb over the obstacle.
And finally chunk the goals to achieve each month. So in February what are the actions I need to do to work towards my goals? Make a list and tick them off as you go. Then set the next actions for March and so on.

If you would like to begin 2014 clear and focused, then call or email Allison Fisher, Career & Life Coaching to discuss your way forward.