Life coaching evolved out of executive coaching, which itself drew on techniques developed in leadership training and management consulting. Life coaching also borrows from disciplines such as sociology, psychology, career counseling, mentoring and other types of counseling. Coaches may apply mentoring, behavior modification, behavior modeling, values assessment, goal-setting and other techniques in their practice.

Some say that life coaching is similar to psychotherapy, but without restrictions, oversight or regulation. The State legislature of Colorado disagreed, and ruled that coaching is unlike therapy because it does not focus on examining nor diagnosing the past. Life coaching focuses on changing the client’s current and future behavior. Neither does life coaching delve into diagnosing mental illness or dysfunction.

According to a survey of coaching clients, “sounding board” and “motivator” were what they were looking for most in a coach. The desire that their coach “really listen to them and give honest feedback.” Time management, career and business are the top three areas in which the surveyed clients sought help.

Before travelling too far down the path to becoming a life coach, you should first decide on a specialty, or a focus for your practice.  Besides the three areas already mentioned, you could also specialize in finance, health, relationships, career management or a variety of other areas.  Decide on your specialty, then pursue further training in that field.

Next you should attend a life coaching seminar.  This will give you a good overview of life coaching in general, and you will have the opportunity to see how coaches interact with people in the crowd.  A seminar may have one or several speakers.  Approach one of them after the event and ask how best to break into the field.

After attending a seminar, you should have a pretty good idea of whether or not becoming a life coach is something you really want to pursue.  You want to be sure of that before you invest your time and money into life coach training.

There are hundreds of coaching training programs that range from $100 home study programs, to $15,000 two year life coach certification.  The value and cost of life coach training varies widely and is something you should research thoroughly.  The most comprehensive list of coaching courses and schools can be found at www.peer.ca/coachingschools.html

It is important that you pursue a program of instruction that results in accreditation.  Without a coaching credential you will have a difficult time convincing potential clients that you are the real deal.

You are now armed with a basic outline of how to become a life coach.  Make sure you invest plenty of time in researching the topic further before you open your wallet.

To Your Optimum Joy in Life, Your London Life Coach

When preparing your own goals, it’s important to first understand that every goal you set must be realistic and readily achievable, given an appropriate amount of time and resources.  For example, setting a goal to earn $25,000 per month within three months, when your present earnings are less than $1,000, is probably unrealistic. On the other hand, setting an ongoing goal to increase your earnings by 5% or 10% per month is not only realistic, but more likely to be achievable.

Once you’ve defined a goal you believe you can accomplish, the next step is to break it down into smaller, manageable tasks and scheduling them in sequence (assuming one task depends on the completion of another). Before defining the target date the overall goal must be completed, be certain that each task is given a reasonable amount of time for completion and allow the sum of the tasks to define the completion date, rather than arbitrarily selecting one.

Depending on how far into the future your goals are planned for, it’s very helpful to schedule regular progress reviews, even if you’re the only one involved. For example, scheduling time every Friday afternoon to review your progress and make any necessary adjustments will keep your goals current. Don’t be surprised if something unexpected interferes with your scheduling from time-to-time. That’s normal and you will simply need to identify some way to compensate for it.

Another artificial barrier to actually meeting your goals is the process itself. Be careful to avoid implementing a goal management process that consumes more time than the goal itself. On a smaller scale, a simple spreadsheet will often suffice to meet all of your management needs. For larger scale management, a variety of goal management software exists, usually scalable for most organizations.

Aside from actually working the process towards eventually realizing your goal, the final step is to take some time to evaluate the overall process and your performance at the end. This should be done objectively and embraced as a learning opportunity, one that will help you to improve your performance the next time.

With proper planning, setting realistic goals can only benefit you and your business in the long run, especially if you streamline the goal management process for yourself. If you think of it as an evolving process focused on continual performance improvement, over time you will see a measurable improvement in everything you do!

To Your Optimum Joy in Life, Your London Life Coach

The physiological changes caused by poor breathing habits throws off our pH balance, the ratio of O2 to CO2 in the bloodstream, diminished energy and of course a feeling of anxiety or poor health in general. Although we naturally breathe autonomously, over the course of our lifetimes we actually learn to breathe incorrectly. It’s a behavior that can be unlearned given time and effort.

That said, we first need to become aware of our breathing habits, by actually listening to ourselves breathe. We need to time how many breaths we take per minute and if that number is much over 12 in a relaxed state, we need to think about how we can best re-learn to breathe normally.

The first step is to avoid holding the stomach in, preventing the diaphragm from working properly. Relax your stomach muscles and inhale slowly through your nose to a count of 3. Now hold that breathe for a second and then exhale to a count of 6. Repeat that three times and then allow yourself to breath normally. The entire exercise should have taken you 30 seconds.

Since a good 70% of your body’s waste is eliminated through exhaling, you’re going to always attempt to double the time spent exhaling compared to inhaling. This allows your body to balance its metabolism and pH levels and well as increase the amount of energy produced. In stressful situations, your body will literally relax as you do it and your fight or flight response will quickly recede.

As a quick fix, this type of breathing technique works wonders for calming yourself down, but does not address the larger issue of learning to breath this way all of the time. To do this, you need to remain aware of your breathing habits and continually remind yourself to stay in control of your breathing.

Over time, you will develop the habit, but meanwhile, you may need prompting. One solution is to set a timer (for example on a digital watch) to beep every 3 to 5 minutes as a reminder to check your breathing. This helps because as we submerse ourselves into a given task, we can easily lose track of our breathing without realizing it.

You may even find it helpful to repeat a phrase during your practice like, “I’m breathing in”, “I’m breathing out”, to help you establish the proper rhythm. Your goal is to allow your body to take over autonomously with proper breathing habits as a result of your practice.

If you condition yourself to breath properly, especially in stressful situations, you will alleviate the stress and anxiety of it and remain calm and rational. Good breathing habits are learned, so training yourself beginning today will get you back on track to a happier, healthier you!

To Your Optimum Joy in Life, Your London Life Coach

And what might that big benefit of time management be, you ask?

Happiness!

Think about it for a moment.  Why is it that when you can’t seem to drag yourself out of bed at 7:00 to get to work by 8:00, you will jump out of bed with great enthusiasm on a weekend at 5:00 to spend a day in your favorite hobby or pasttime?  Because the leisure activity brings you joy.  You are motivated to get out of bed because you know the day will bring you happiness, as opposed to the workday that brings misery.

So, in order motivate yourself to exercise effective time management, you must use the carrot of the Big Benefit of Time Management rather than the stick your boss likely uses–increased productivity.  Remember, the more time you can free up, the more time you will have for your favorite activities.

To develop effective time management skill, begin with what motivates you.  Don’t worry about mundane tasks or activities that increase productivity, but rather think about the things you love to do.  Think about the things that drive you to try and earn more money so you have more money to spend on them.  Then make those things your priority, schedule them first, and schedule other things around them.

There are many places on the internet you can download a daily planner template or a free printable daily planner.  Don’t get too caught up in what tool to use.  A legal pad or wall calendar is enough for now.  The important thing is you get into the practice of planning your time and writing it down.

Let’s say the activity that brings you the most enjoyment is camping.  First, decide how many days this year you want to spend camping.  Then decide what times of year you want to use those days.  Now that you have the number of days and the season, take a look at the calendar and begin planning which days specifically you want to spend camping.  Block those days out on a calendar.

Now you must evaluate what you need to accomplish to be able to spend that time camping.  If you’re going to be gone for a week, what must you do prior to being able to be gone for that week?  Consider the “must do” items only, write them down, and then schedule the necessary time for those activities.

This is a simplified example, but you will notice how much more motivated you are to schedule other tasks when you first schedule your favorite activities.  You are motivated because there is a reward of the Big Benefit of Time Management.  Happiness!

To Your Optimum Joy in Life, Your London Life Coach

Things you feel that you have no control over can be upsetting.  But remember that it’s not the situation, but how you deal with it that’s important.  You can’t control everything that happens to you, but you can choose how you handle stressful situations.

Here are some tips for relieving your stress:

Focus on your breathing and breathe slow, deep and deliberately.  Picture a peaceful scene in your mind.

Exercise regularly.  Exercising releases tension from your body.  Find something you enjoy that gets the major muscle groups going.  Jogging, walking, swimming or bicycling are all excellent choices.

Count to ten slowly and deliberately.  This helps you to pause and relax before reacting to a stressful situation.

Do some stretching exercises several times during the day.  Stretching relaxes the muscles and reduces tension.

Have a friend massage the back of your neck, shoulders and upper back.  These muscles get especially tense when you are stressed.

Take hot showers and baths.

Listen to relaxing music.

Talk to your family and friends about what is causing you stress.

Seek help when you need it.  If you have recurring headaches and neck or upper back pain, and are having problems sleeping, you should see your doctor.

Learning how to relieve stress, and putting these methods to use are critical your overall health and happiness.  Try to learn to accept what you can’t change.  Not everything is going to happen the way you want it to.  Train yourself to look for the good in what appears to be a bad situation, talk to others about your troubles, and try to mentally remove yourself from the situation then evaluate it from the outside looking in.

To Your Optimum Joy in Life, Your London Life Coach

The underlying difference between yourself and that person is simply this – they understand and practice a very simply concept – Task Management.

Regardless of the actual scope of work involved or the timeframe to completion, every project can be broken down into smaller, easily managed tasks that are readily completed over the short-term. As each task is completed, it contributes towards the completion of the project itself, in due time.

More often than not, each task itself can then be broken down into a fixed schedule, allowing you to steadily and consistently work at it over a number of days or weeks. Depending upon the type of task, it may even be possible to work on several tasks concurrently, by spending a relatively small amount of time on each, every day.

The watchwords of Task Management are diligence and consistency, but tempered with flexibility. A given task may need to be paused if it is dependent upon the completion of another task or an unexpected issue presents itself. With flexible scheduling and a willingness to adapt to these unforeseen barriers, the project itself will continue while you explore options to resolve them.

Those whom excel at project management do so because they are able work in such a way that each and every day they make some degree progress on one or more of the tasks involved. This may mean spending as little as 10 or 15 minutes per day or up to an hour on each task. At different milestones within the project, the amount of time spent each day will inevitably vary.

It is for this very reason that project managers are often able to take on multiple projects simultaneously and not become stressed over their workload. Managing several projects at once actually breaks up the monotony of working on one single thing at any given time. It provides a way for you to step back from each project for a short time and then resume it the next day with a fresh perspective.

While we can never lose sight of the overall project itself, by focusing on Task Management, careful scheduling and consistency in how we approach our work, we can easily increase our Personal Productivity without unduly frustrating ourselves or becoming stressed about our workload.

To Your Optimum Joy in Life, Your London Life Coach

Scholarships

As in traditional colleges and universities, there are scholarships available to help you pursue your dreams of becoming a life coach. There are a number companies willing to help you as long as you meet their qualifications and discplay the necessary level of desire and determination.

One approach you can take is with your current employer. You can inquire whether or not they have scholarships or other programs available that would meet your needs. Many companies offer incentives for their employees to further their education, especially if it’s in an area that would benefit the company, such as life coaching.

If no such progam currently exists in your company, you could suggest it to the appropriate department head or your supervisor. There are many companies that fund 100% of continuing education.

Another approach is to apply for a scholarships with the top coaching academies. One of these institutions is the International Coach Academy.

International Coach Academy is one of the top schools in the world for coach training. They provide top notch, affordable and accessible training. Their Certified Professional Coach Program is fully certified by the International Coach Federation. What may be of special interest to you is they offer a number of 50% scholarships for their program.

Find A Mentor

Another method of obtaining affordable life coach training is by finding a mentor. If you have the necessary desire and motivation, you can look for someone already working as a life coach who is willing to take you on as an apprentice. This may not be formal training but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be less effective. Someone currently working in the life coaching field may well be a better teacher or trainer who has been in the classroom and isn’t an actively practicing coach.

Of course it’s going to require some work to find someone willing to become your mentor. You will need to gain their trust as well as demonstrate a high level of desire and determination to become a life coach. While you should attend some sort of formal training later to attain life coach certification, the lessons you will learn from studying under a personal mentor will likely prove to be far more valuable than anything you will learn in a classroom.

Self-Training

If you are unable to find a mentor or are unable to afford formal life coach training, then your last resort is going to be self training. One source of self training that is widely available is books. There are many books on the subject of life coaching, but you don’t necessarily need to buy them yourself. Find the ones available through your local library and start with those.

Another good source of information is the internet. The information superhighway has an incredible amount of information on life coaching. Just make sure you exercise some caution on where you get your information.  Choose sites that are credible sources of information regarding life coach training.

To Your Optimum Joy in Life, Your London Life Coach

While it’s true in nature that opposites attract, in real life nothing could be further from the truth. Positive people tend to draw towards other optimistic people, and of course negative people cluster together like schools of baitfish. The difference between the two groups is that the optimistic ones tend to simply stroll through life knowing that whatever challenges they encounter they will quickly and easily overcome.

A good example of these behaviors is in reviewing two identical technical support requests with diametrically opposite results.

In the first case, the positive customer is experiencing a problem installing a piece of software. Quickly realizing that the problem is beyond their skill level, they call the support hotline confident that resolution to the issue will be forthcoming. They cheerfully and courteously explain the problem they are experiencing and patiently worked with the support staff to correct it, which happens in a mere 10 minutes.

In the second case the negative customer is experiencing a similar problem. Frustrated and angry they call the support hotline and immediately launch into a belligerent tirade about the quality of the product and the company that produced it. While the support staff attempts to help the customer, they quickly become frustrated at the customer’s refusal to provide the needed information.

The customer insists upon escalating problem to a supervisor or manager where the tirade continues. After 45 minutes of arguing with various supervisors and managers and live no resolution in sight, the customer or threatens to sue or file legal complaints and hangs up without resolving the installation problem.

Optimistic people never worried about encountering problems with anything. They understand that things happen, more importantly they also understand that there is a solution out there somewhere. Their goal is to simply resolve the issue as quickly and efficiently as possible, which they know they will be able to do some way, somehow.

It’s for this reason that those who think positively and optimistically are far more likely to be successful in both their business and personal lives. They can’t help but know that everything is going to work out the way they expected to, if not even better.

To Your Optimum Joy in Life, Your London Life Coach

1. Plan your day’s schedule – know what needs to be done and follow the timeframe you’ve allotted for each task. Every time you veer away from the schedule and postpone your work, you pile up impending work and will require more time to finish.

2. Number your tasks according to which needs to be done first – you need to set rules by which you number your impending tasks. The more immediate ones will naturally require more attention. To know which is more important, you will have to weigh the repercussions you’ll create if you don’t complete them.

3. Know when to delegate work – the people you know may have the skills needed to help you and relieve you from stress.  Passing on work to someone else is not always wrong.  You just have to know what you need to do yourself and what others can do.  Reward them if needed and make them feel appreciated.

4. Limit distractions – some people work better with the radio blasting. If you’re one of them, then go for it. Just surround yourself with things that’ll help you with concentration and will inspire you to be more productive.

5. Know when to take a break – if we labor on our tasks nonstop, we will eventually break down. Vacations are there for a reason: it refreshes our bodies and minds and reenergizes us to go back to work in top form.

Everyone has their saturation point.  If you reach yours, this is in no way an indication of weakness. It simply tells you that you are like any other person – in other words, you’re only human. Just know that you have to surround yourselves with people who can give you the support that you need. Aside from that, you must learn to stand on your own two feet. With strength and the right support system, stress no longer needs to be a scary word.

Know that reaching your goal is the best thing that can happen to you. When you succeed, you will realize that going through the emotional and physical rollercoaster is all worth the prize. When this happens, reward yourself for a job well done. Look at the big picture, know where you want to go, and strive forth. When you complete each task, congratulate yourself and let this serve as your inspiration to complete the next thing on your to-do list.

To Your Optimum Joy in Life, Your London Life Coach

Mentoring generally involves a closer and deeper relationship than is seen in coaching.  The leader and follower in this relationship are most commonly referred to as mentor and protege.  The mentor is often older than the protege, and is certainly more knowledgeable, wise, and more experienced in the ways of the world than the protege. The mentor’s task is to be the guide for the inexperienced protege, with the desired result of the protege growing closer to mentor’s level of knowledge and experience over time.

The mentor-protege relationship is as old as history itself, and is often glorified by pop media. There are many variations of the mentor-protege relationship the modern world. For example, when a new employee first enters a company or business, he or she is generally adopted by someone who has been in the company or business for a long time. Because the new employee will likely at first feel uncomfortable or disoriented, or might not be prepared for the rigors of the new workplace, the mentor serves as a buffer and guide, making the transition easier for the protege, and accelerating the process of integration and becoming a productive employee.

Another example from the workplace is an existing employee who might show potential as someone who could one day be a supervisor, a department head, or excel in a completely different division of the company. A person experienced in the company could informally take on this employee and be his or her mentor. In this relationship, the mentor will teach the protege the necessary skills to advance in the workplace, so that one day the protege might take the mentor’s place, advance elsewhere in the company, or move on in a greater capacity to another company altogether.

The concept of coaching, on the other hand, is quite different from mentoring. In coaching, a method is employed in which a leader or overseer directs the movements of one person or a group. The instruction and training given are done with a specific end goal in mind. The methods of directing people’s movements and actions might include giving motivational talks. The coach may also train people to make them perform better, such as through seminars or workshops, or through practice such as done in sports.

In mentoring, a mentor teaches a protege how to live better or how to function better. In coaching, perhaps better seen as a more specific method of mentoring, the coach guides an individual or a team to achieve an end goal. For sports coaches, this would be winning a game or event. For marriage coaches, the goal would be a stronger marital bond. For family coaches, it would be a stronger familial bond, between parents and children, or possible amongst the children themselves.

There are many different kinds of coaching and mentoring, and many different techniques associated with each as well. Whether a coach or a mentor is more appropriate for your particular situation is entirely up to you.

To Your Optimum Joy in Life, Your London Life Coach

Buzan’s iMindMap is designed by Tony Buzan who many consider the father of mind mapping.  An obvious benefit of choosing iMindMap is that you are linked in to Buzan’s techniques and innovations.  For those unfamiliar with the process, there is flash movie explaining the concept.  There are also a number of flash video tutorials explaining how to use the software.  There are three editions of iMindMap: Elements, Professional and Ultimate.  The software is compatible with Microsoft Office and OpenOffice.

NovaMind is another excellent example of quality mind mapping software.  While you don’t get the Tony Buzan stamp of approval, NovaMind does have some unique features not found in other programs.  For instance, NovaMind is one of the only mind mapping software programs with a free layout mode where you can put branches anywhere you like.  It also has rainbow coloring, an integrated branch suggestion system, and a special module for screenwriters.  NovaMind also comes in three editions: Express, Pro, and Platinum.

The iMindMap and NovaMind mind mapping software both work on the Mac and Windows operating systems. You will find both systems workable and easy to use. The price structure is similar, so your choice will boil down to which features are more important to you as a user.

Before you purchase any mind mapping software, make sure that you first identify your needs. You should also consider your budget, and whether you can upgrade for a discount within the same family of programs. Once you’ve identified your needs you can start comparing the different mind mapping systems.  Many programs come with a free trial which will greatly assist you in making an informed decision.

Most people who invest the time necessary to learn the mind mapping process become lifetime converts.  Trying to accomplish the process on paper can be extremely frustrating and time-consuming.  Good mind mapping software pays for itself very quickly in terms of saved time and frustration.

To Your Optimum Joy in Life, Your London Life Coach

The difference between achieving formal goals versus informal goals is one of motivation. Quite often with formal goals, we may make progress towards our objective, but not have a clear understanding of the process required – and we often see a decline in our motivation to continue or to continue effectively.

This is perhaps most often seen in group work environments, where one or two members of the group seem to “Get It”, while others just sort of follow along, contributing as asked and simply waiting for others to ensure the goal is achieved at some hazy future point.

Yet as individuals, we are often able to accomplish our own informal goals almost subconsciously. Each and every day of our lives, we plan, act upon and accomplish innumerable short-term goals, while simultaneously working towards longer-term goals, by establishing patterns of activity.

For example, you may get up a 6:00 AM each weekday, shower, dress, have breakfast and drive to your place of employment. Odds are you’ve done these thousands of times without giving it a second thought and yet, you are in fact achieving five goals every morning.

You’re able to do this for several reasons – first of course, you understand the primary goal of getting to work on time each day at the task level. Next, your motivation for doing so no doubt includes the desire to avoid being fired for continued tardiness. Another motivation is simply a need to demonstrate being a reliable member of the organization.

On a longer-term basis, we often plan for and follow through on everything from vacations and holidays to paying off our mortgages and other debts. Here again, we have plenty of motivation to do these things and we do them subconsciously. And yet we often meet or exceed these goals with little or no effort.

What’s most interesting about this is that in our personal lives, we rarely use any elaborate system to track and complete these tasks. No software, no systems and at best might scribble down a reminder not to ourselves and stick it on the fridge.

If you really sit down and think about it, there’s no reason why you could not apply the same approach to your business or work related goals. A task is a task, whether it’s having to meet with a teacher at 2 pm or having to ensure a critical order was placed and is being tracked.

If you can find your motivation for staying on top of things at the office as you do at home, you’ll never again have any serious difficulty meeting your business goals!

To Your Optimum Joy in Life, Your London Life Coach

When it comes to work, you have to ask yourselves if it’s all worth it. If your efforts bring a promise of triumph, then by all means, push yourself forward. Giving up is probably one of the biggest mistakes you can ever make when you strive to win. Every trial surpassed is a step closer to your goal.

Now, if you’ve made up your mind about going forward and overcoming all the hurdles, here are a few helpful tips that will make your mission easier:

1. Focus on what needs to be done – with the amount of work you still have to do, you need to know which elements are your priorities. Lower priority tasks can be rescheduled while you concentrate on the higher priority tasks.

2. Break down your schedule and allot a reasonable amount of time for each of the tasks – this applies more to the smaller tasks. While you cannot let go of and forget about the trivial matters, you only need to give a fraction of the overall time completing the less important chores.

3. Eliminate clutter – if you find yourself working in a chaotic environment, you will soon see that you also become less productive. Clutter distracts your mind, and if you need to clear the space before starting anything, then by all means, do so. In the end, you can concentrate better and finish your work faster.

4. Set goals – without goals, you simply drift through life like a fish that follows the current of the sea. Goals give you the adrenaline that you need to complete what needs to be done. Attaining your objectives will make you happy, and one way to get to this happy place is by working towards it.

5. Focus – make sure that you set up a corner in your house where there are fewer distractions. Don’t give in to temptation and position your work station beside the television. Be strong, be firm, even with yourself.

6. Know when to pamper yourself – spoil yourself and give yourself small rewards. The gratifying portion of your day does not have to be elaborate. In fact, a simple neck message or a cup of herbal tea will do.

7. Ask for help – know that even the heroes in movies needed help at some point. For us normal people, we would most likely need it even more. Seek the advice of friends and know that you can also delegate tasks to the people in your life.

If you continue to stress about everything, your health is bound to fail. It’s not a choice between your job and health. It’s simply a matter of balance, in knowing when to say no and let go. If the amount of work reaches the point wherein your health and relationships are affected, then maybe it’s high time to do sit down and consider rethinking what you’re doing.

To Your Optimum Joy in Life, Your London Life Coach

Life is made up of two types of people: the positive and the negative. The positive tend to win all the time because they also take responsibility for their failures by embracing them. The negative, on the other hand, simply walk away and point their finger at everyone but themselves.

How do you win in life? How do you become a productive person while being able to keep a very busy work schedule? The first thing you must know and accept is that you simply cannot win every time. It’s what you do when you fail that counts. Here are some helpful tips to know and follow so that you can go through trials and misfortunes as smoothly as possible:

1. Don’t blame other people for your failure – to blame them is to pass on your responsibilities. This is tantamount to throwing your arms up in the air and saying, “I give up!”

2. When problems arise, deal with them accordingly – plan what you need to do. Ask for help if you need to and let failures serve as lessons learned.

3. Never forget – remember what caused you to create the mistake in the first place. Keep these in mind and avoid situations wherein you’ll be forced to make the same mistake twice.

4. Never let anything stop you – as you strive for success, there will always be hurdles to face. These hurdles simply slow you down, but that’s all they will do.

5. Plan your life – make a careful schedule for each task to be done. No matter how many tasks there are, each undertaking achieved allows you to cross something off your list of things that have yet to be done.

6. Know that you are in control of your life – have a firmer grip on your responsibilities. Familiarize yourself with each objective and do research if you must. The more you know about something, the easier it will be for you navigate your way through it.

7. Think positive – this may be the most important thing you can ever do. Believe in yourself and in your abilities. You simply have to meet achievers to know that these people are the ones who believe in themselves the most. Success is not so much about talent, but more on the idea that with effort and an optimistic attitude, you can do most anything.

Productive people are those who know what they’re doing. You can be one of them if you simply work on honing your talents and abilities. It’s a matter of fine-tuning and letting yourself be more in touch with the aspects in your life.

Remember, nobody is excused from making mistakes. The fact is, every living person has made many of them. You simply have to figure out what you need to do to attain every single dream that you have.

To Your Optimum Joy in Life, Your London Life Coach

If you need to take some time off to become the kind of person that oozes out confidence and that brings warmth to everyone, then by all means, do so. Take a step back and reevaluate your life if you must. If the work you do makes you an angry person, then maybe it’s high time that you rethink your career path.

Strive for happiness with the following steps listed below:

1. Write down the things that make you happy – make an inventory of all your dreams, ask yourself how you can achieve them, and start working on them now. The tendency to procrastinate is what gets you into trouble. The longer you sulk, then the bigger the problems become.

2. Have a healthy outlet for your anger – you need to let your frustrations out. Talk to someone if you must or go to the gym to pump out those happy hormones. Studies show that people who exercise are more readily able to find solutions to their problems.

3. Have a support system – with great friends and a caring family, the burden doesn’t have to entirely rest on your shoulders.

4. Be thankful for what you have – the saying, “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade,” is sheer genius. Life may not be all that you wanted it to be, but you also need to know that you are blessed with other things as well. Face the problem head on and see the good that comes out of it.

5. Pray – believing in a higher power has gotten many people out of even the toughest of situations. The idea that there is someone out there looking over everyone is sometimes enough for people to continue on and pursue their goals.

Being too hard on yourself can sometimes hinder you from being victorious. What stops you from pursuing your path? If it’s because you just don’t believe in yourself that much, then you need to know that mistakes can only slow you down. You still can move on after you slip-up because at least then you’ll know what you shouldn’t do. It’s not how many times you fall that counts, but the number of times you got up despite the hard fall.

To Your Optimum Joy in Life, Your London Life Coach

What most of us take for granted are the good things that we encounter as we move forward with our lives. We’re simply so preoccupied with the bad things that we often forget to look at the good. We count all our misfortunes; keep track of all our failures.

We need to remember what we live for, lest we become bitter human beings. Avoiding problems is all very well in theory, but many of us have worries that we simply can’t resolve, and statistics reveal that one in every twenty people suffer from panic attacks.

The idea here is not to attain permanent happiness. We all know that we will stumble along the way as we learn life’s lessons. This article, for all intents and purposes, is meant to teach you how to deal with the issues that we face so that by the end of the day, we can still give ourselves a pat on the back and say that we are happy with our lives despite all the negativity happening around us. Here are just a few things we might want to keep in mind should we feel overwhelmed at everything happening to us:

1. Avoid situations that aggravate anger – this is a classic case of fight or flight. If we see ourselves heading towards a dark corner of the street, we simply have to turn around and take another route. Unfortunately, not every situation offers us a way out. When we have to deal with a difficult boss or a stubborn colleague, we cannot always solve the situation by going the other way. The best solution to this is to have something that helps soothe our nerves – a stress ball, some exercise, a few minutes to ourselves, or anything that gets us to shift our momentary unease.

2. Reprogram your mind – there are several books in leading bookstores that offer us guidelines. These reading materials have been helpful to many, and knowing that these are “experts” sharing their views, it somehow reassures us to know that they are knowledgeable with what they are talking about.

4. Think positive – as simple as this sounds, the task can be daunting. It’s especially difficult when we come face to face with something that we simply do not like. The trick here is to exercise out minds. It is only through practice that we can perfect this skill.

In the end, we have to know that we’ll survive. Life isn’t always about winning. Most of the time, it’s about getting up when we’re down. It’s the ability to continue and move forward as we go through life’s processes. Know that problems don’t kill us. We are in control of things of our destiny, and if we let these inconveniences get in the way, then we definitely will lose. We always have a choice, and we should always choose to be good to ourselves.

To Your Optimum Joy in Life, Your London Life Coach