Life is short - Seize the day

*Please read this blog bearing in mind the intended respect of the author for all mentioned below*

If you, like most of us, often procrastinate... saying that you will achieve your aim on a mythical 'tomorrow'; start your plan next week or maybe consider doing something next year... this weekend has been a quick, short, sharp and tragic reminder of how short life is. 

This weekend, we have been rocked by the death of those in Oslo and of the young people on Utøya island, the China rail crash, escalating emergency situation in Somalia... as well as the surprising (yet sadly, not so surprising) death of Amy Winehouse. These incidents were the result of very different factors... yet undoubtedly have a common message... that life is fleeting. 

So, what does that mean? How will these sad reminders of our mortality affect us? The possibilities are endless:

Not at all

It may be sad... but what has happened to these people has nothing to with you, or how you live your life

Stop for a moment

You'll spend 48-72 hours reeling from this weekend's news... and get straight back to your daily routine. No one's claiming there's anything wrong with your daily routine... but when you think about it, it is amazing how we can often go from being so moved... so affected... yet soon suffer amnesia in respect to why we felt that immediate and powerful reaction

A more lasting impact

Make a decision to truly live each day to the full. Plan, set goals and act on them... start the process today. 


This weekend... I choose to take a few moments to reflect on recent events and, while I didn't have the priviledge of knowing any of these young people - send my condolences to their friends, families and loved ones. 

And tomorrow, I will respect their legacies... and take some actions towards creating my own.... a bid to avoid resonating with the words ''If I had my life to live over again."

Carpe Diem... Seize the day...

Hacked off?... Change your state

In the past week, for those of us in the UK, it would have taken a miracle to escape the furore over the News of the World phone hacking scandal... which took an exceptionally ugly turn when it became clear that not only  celebrities were affected, but much more disturbingly, so were families experiencing tragedy relating to murder cases and acts of terrorism.

The UK public is hacked off... and the management decision to close century and a half old newspaper will only displace / create a slight diversion to the problem... not make it go away.  

From the national news agenda to a much more personal one however... being hacked off - in the annoyed sense of the term - is not something that can be described as unusual. How many of us also recognise that we create a problem distraction... instead of meetng it head on?

As varied as all of our lives, jobs and experiences are - in any given week, there is some common ground:

• The intense dislike of Monday mornings (my mother instilled in me to rarely if ever use the word 'hate' but this may be the most appropriate word in some cases!)
• being annoyed with our boss / the employee / the colleague
• that 'floundering' / slightly lost feeling
• doubt about whether in the right industry / role
• motivation depletion: the desire to have more get-up-and-go
• the internal debate over whether to indulge in that snack
• the want to change a situation we're in (i.e. a moment of wondering whether there's any more than this)
• the reminder (be it through watching news, speaking to a friend etc) that there are people much worse off than we are, and the related sense of guilt about the (sometimes unnecessarily) negative view of our own situation
• the Friday celebration ritual
• living for the weekend
• the feeling that the weekend craved has sped by wayyyy to quickly 

... and it's back to Monday where the cycle continues.

Any of this sound familiar? 80... 90... 100% of it? Thought it might. 

However, blessed by being someone who always focuses on the full half of the glass, my optimistic streak was enhanced when I attended the National Achievers Congress in London on 2-4 July.

With an awesome (albeit all male) line up which included Richard Branson, Lord Alan Sugar and the piece de resistance for me, the world's most renowned peak performance coach Anthony (Tony) Robbins - this 3-day congress has truly had an impact on not just how I see things, but about how I do and will take responsibility for making decisive actions... and in this blog, I'll spend the next few weeks and months sharing some of the lessons I learned - so please stay tuned.

For now though, I'll leave you with a video of the inspirational Tony Robbins, delivering just one of the messages that he explored at NAC2011 - the concept of 'changing your state' to create the focus and energy needed to achieve your goals.

This is not 6 minutes of procrastination... it's 6 minutes of inspiration. Change your focus... you will change your achievements. It's that simple. Check it out...