Taking inspiration from our surroundings

No matter where we find ourselves, taking inspiration from our surroundings is an option always available to us and one worth taking up.

With so much pressure on us to conform to a standard set by society through advertising and the like, taking inspiration from our surroundings is an approach offering a personalized, unique perspective on life.

It says much about how we are feeling towards ourselves and our environment when we are able to go about taking inspiration from our surroundings. The input the moment gives us could be that missing ingredient we need to ensure the day is experienced to the full. Letting things merely drift by, on the other hand, might mean we miss out on that something special.

With travel such a key daily feature for many people nowadays, the concept of taking inspiration from our surroundings is virtually only limited by our imagination. Each location offers something new, exciting, unique, characteristic or whatever word we wish to use as a description.

Connecting with this resource is a task made easier through practice. And as we get into the habit of taking inspiration from our surroundings, it might become a source of regular input for us, whether we are here, there or any point in between.

Thanks for reading this ‘Taking inspiration from our surroundings’ post.

Kindest regards.

Brian.

About Brian

Brian Groves DipM MCIM Chartered Marketer, Coach, Trainer and Author, supplies professional and personal development to a portfolio of corporate and individual clients.

As an Adjunct Professor at the Catholic University of Milan, Italy, Brian taught a postgraduate course, using four characters taken from dramatic texts as coaching clients, to examine various work-related performance matters.

Brian’s goal is to support through coaching, training and writing all who wish to live their potential, in education, work or life in general.

You can contact Brian via e-mail (brian@bgdtcoaching.com), by clicking on the icons or leaving a comment below.

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Shining bright even on a rainy day

As many of the posts here have attested, our outlook is very much a personal one and there are few reasons not to go about shining bright even on a rainy day.

Very few instances are ever made better by giving in to the temptation of blaming external factors on our outlook on life. That some people prefer to act as if the whole world is against them is another matter.

Anyway, returning to the issue of shining bright even on a rainy day, we can list three basic considerations to support the idea.

1) Given life is testing for us all, why not attempt to lighten it a little by shining bright even on a rainy day?

2) Our ‘light’, that passion we have for life and the way we demonstrate this to the world need not be conditioned by dynamics beyond our control, especially the weather.

3) We risk to never shine brightly if we decide to wait for perfect outside conditions. Life is lived in the present, not at some unspecified time in the future.

Or not. To join the conversation here and share your thoughts on the topic of shining bright even on a rainy day, please leave a comment below.

Brian.

About Brian

Brian Groves DipM MCIM Chartered Marketer, Coach, Trainer and Author, supplies professional and personal development to a portfolio of corporate and individual clients.

As an Adjunct Professor at the Catholic University of Milan, Italy, Brian taught a postgraduate course, using four characters taken from dramatic texts as coaching clients, to examine various work-related performance matters.

Brian’s goal is to support through coaching, training and writing all who wish to live their potential, in education, work or life in general.

You can contact Brian via e-mail (brian@bgdtcoaching.com), by clicking on the icons or leaving a comment below.

How nature provides us with ongoing encouragement

We only need to look around us – wherever we are – to appreciate how nature provides us with ongoing encouragement. The sky, clear and blue or grey and overcast, reminds us of both the changing character of nature and the inspiration it offers us.

In a similar fashion, trees, plants and animals have their seasons of initial growth, development and transformation. Overall, we are surrounded by examples of how nature provides us with ongoing encouragement and it is our responsibility to be aware of it, tap into it and embrace our day accordingly.

With the colour red dominating this month’s posts, we should not ignore the inbuilt energy of not only this colour but how nature provides us with ongoing encouragement also through this and other ‘living’ colours. Without such shades, life would be a dull affair, devoid of any stimulation.

What we look for determines to a great extent what we find and giving myself the task of seeking out red items has been an exercise in confirming how nature provides us with ongoing encouragement by way of this colour. That red happens to be a favourite colour, along with black and white, is by the by.

Right now, in what manner are you noticing how nature provides us with ongoing encouragement?

Brian.

About Brian

Brian Groves DipM MCIM Chartered Marketer, Coach, Trainer and Author, supplies professional and personal development to a portfolio of corporate and individual clients.

As an Adjunct Professor at the Catholic University of Milan, Italy, Brian taught a postgraduate course, using four characters taken from dramatic texts as coaching clients, to examine various work-related performance matters.

Brian’s goal is to support through coaching, training and writing all who wish to live their potential, in education, work or life in general.

You can contact Brian via e-mail (brian@bgdtcoaching.com), by clicking on the icons or leaving a comment below.

Being aware of possible challenges before us

 

Being aware of possible challenges before us need not, in any case, stop us from proceeding with our efforts to be the best we can be.

Carrying an element of attention along with us can ensure our endeavours are undertaken with sufficient caution in terms of us being aware of possible challenges before us. We may decide to avoid certain difficulties and tackle others. Our decision will be based on a number of factors including how confident we feel in ourselves and our abilities to overcome this or that.

As with most things in life, we need to distinguish between what is within our capabilities to be dealt with successfully and what, based on our knowledge, common sense, or intuition, is beyond us. Being aware of possible challenges before us is perhaps the first step but not the last.

The path we choose to walk as we attempt to live our potential is personal, as is the responsibility for decisions made along the way. Right now, I wonder to what extent we are being aware of possible challenges before us?

Brian.

About Brian

Brian Groves DipM MCIM Chartered Marketer, Coach, Trainer and Author, supplies professional and personal development to a portfolio of corporate and individual clients.

As an Adjunct Professor at the Catholic University of Milan, Italy, Brian taught a postgraduate course, using four characters taken from dramatic texts as coaching clients, to examine various work-related performance matters.

Brian’s goal is to support through coaching, training and writing all who wish to live their potential, in education, work or life in general.

You can contact Brian via e-mail (brian@bgdtcoaching.com), by clicking on the icons or leaving a comment below.

Focusing effort on specific areas of development

We may wish to grow ‘generally speaking’, yet focusing effort on specific areas of development offers us a greater probability of success.

The idea of focusing effort on specific areas of development is perhaps linked to the way we would approach a garden, vegetable patch or allotment – the modern day British equivalent of the victory garden.

Taking the space before us as one large plot could mean we over tend certain parts whilst giving insufficient attention to others. Life is pretty much the same. Knowing when to step in and when to stand aside is a key skill to apply in the fields (pun intended) of personal and professional development.

Focusing effort on specific areas of development can act as a catalyst for such noted benefits across the whole spectrum. The work we give to receiving technical knowledge might be paid back when we need to apply the newly acquired know-how in other areas. Learning for one specific area, therefore, helps us in subsequent endeavours.

The mental discipline of focusing effort on specific areas of development rather than scattering time and energy as a ‘hit and miss’ basis is itself a talent worthy of enhancement. Being able to direct our input with pinpoint precision gives us the chance to use our resume for the best effect.

Thanks for reading this post today. If you’d like to share your input on the issue of focusing effort on specific areas of development, please leave a comment below.

Kindest regards.

Brian.

About Brian

Brian Groves DipM MCIM Chartered Marketer, Coach, Trainer and Author, supplies professional and personal development to a portfolio of corporate and individual clients.

As an Adjunct Professor at the Catholic University of Milan, Italy, Brian taught a postgraduate course, using four characters taken from dramatic texts as coaching clients, to examine various work-related performance matters.

Brian’s goal is to support through coaching, training and writing all who wish to live their potential, in education, work or life in general.

You can contact Brian via e-mail (brian@bgdtcoaching.com), by clicking on the icons or leaving a comment below.

Remembering yesterday for the benefit of today

Without wallowing in the past or getting caught up in the revival scene, it can be valid on occasions to go about remembering yesterday for the benefit of today.

By ‘yesterday’ we may wish to look back beyond the last twenty-four hours to a period of time worthy of investigation and remembrance.

Our ‘Golden Age’ could be one in which we were engaged in challenging activities yet felt tremendously alive.

Then again there may be valuable input from recalling a moment in our personal history in which things were not so good. Remembering yesterday for the benefit of today would include taking insight and learning also from such negative moments in our personal history.

Making comparisons between ‘where we were’ and ‘where we are’ can open our eyes to our actual situation. Appreciating what we have nowadays, be it loved ones around us, possessions, career opportunities or whatever, may well be the result of a focused instance of remembering yesterday for the benefit of today.

Regardless of how you feel towards the issue of remembering yesterday for the benefit of today, thanks for taking a few moments to read this post.

Brian.

About Brian

Brian Groves DipM MCIM Chartered Marketer, Coach, Trainer and Author, supplies professional and personal development to a portfolio of corporate and individual clients.

As an Adjunct Professor at the Catholic University of Milan, Italy, Brian taught a postgraduate course, using four characters taken from dramatic texts as coaching clients, to examine various work-related performance matters.

Brian’s goal is to support through coaching, training and writing all who wish to live their potential, in education, work or life in general.

You can contact Brian via e-mail (brian@bgdtcoaching.com), by clicking on the icons or leaving a comment below.

Appreciating the spectacle nature offers us

Appreciating the spectacle nature offers us is a free activity providing an incredible return. There are few sights more inspiring than the sky splashed with colour or the waves breaking against the shore.

Giving ourselves the time to engage in appreciating the spectacle nature offers us is also a gift we all surely deserve on occasions. And regular indulgence will, unlike other treats, be endlessly advantageous to us too.

Heightened imagination, creativity and a sense of being part of this wonderful world are just a few of the benefits we receive as we go about appreciating the spectacle nature offers us.

On the other hand, certain actions – polluting the sea with plastic, fracking and unregulated building, for example – are ways we destroy the chances for future generations of appreciating the spectacle nature offers us. Awareness of our actions would be a good first step to changing our ‘less charming’ habits.

But then you already know such things and so I will stop now so we can continue going about appreciating the spectacle nature offers us.

Kindest regards and thanks for being here today.

Brian.

About Brian

Brian Groves DipM MCIM Chartered Marketer, Coach, Trainer and Author, supplies professional and personal development to a portfolio of corporate and individual clients.

As an Adjunct Professor at the Catholic University of Milan, Italy, Brian taught a postgraduate course, using four characters taken from dramatic texts as coaching clients, to examine various work-related performance matters.

Brian’s goal is to support through coaching, training and writing all who wish to live their potential, in education, work or life in general.

You can contact Brian via e-mail (brian@bgdtcoaching.com), by clicking on the icons or leaving a comment below.