Being Organised, a Hundred Years, Being Emotionally Strong and Influence versus Control
Published: Sun, 11/15/15
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It's not my side of the family but still heartening to know that if I follow in her footsteps I have longer left in this world than I've had already ;-)
Today has been a day of 'jobs'. Doddsy fixed our big TV screen to the wall - twice (I thought it was too high the first time - that went down well as you can imagine!). Little Doddsy is practising the piano as I write this ready for her exam next month. And I'm in the midst of editing my podcast, still planning to launch this week.
So, my plan is to send a reasonably short newsletter today (it may have got away from me a bit by the end though!) and send another later in the week as an announcement when the podcast is live. Hope that's ok!
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Being Organised...
One of the jobs today was to create a load of laminated labels for Little Doddsy to use to label the cupboards and drawers in her bedroom. The cupboards are all uniform in appearance and I'm sure that doesn't help when she's trying to tidy up as it's hard to tell what goes in each drawer without looking (and tidying not being one of her strong points thus far - but that's normal for a 9 year old isn't it?!).
She chose bright red stars outlined in blue and a rather funky font. I'm hoping that the labels will be the start of something beautiful in her room ;-)
But I'm reminded of a book that I recently 'read' on Blinkist called 'The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up'. I'm definitely going to be reading the full length version soon but in the meantime I've got a quote for you that I think
will demonstrate that the aforementioned labels will likely have no effect whatsoever (given they were my idea and I made them!).
“Order is dependent on the extremely personal values of how a person wants to be."
You see, Little Doddsy doesn't actually want or need to be tidy (except, that is, briefly when I'm having a go at her!) and she is extremely happy wallowing in a veritable pig sty! So, according to the above quote I need to lower my expectations of the value and potential effect of the labels...but hey, at least they'll look great to me (if I can see past the clutter and 'rubbish'!).
This is another quote from the book "The purpose of tidying isn’t just to keep things clean and organized. Rather, your goal is to create a space that improves your body and mind."
I love that quote!
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8 Ways to be Emotionally Strong in your Relationships
This article was really popular on my social media shares a few weeks ago so I thought that I'd share it here too. 8 Ways to Be Emotionally Strong in your Relationships
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A couple of weeks ago I saw a post on Facebook quoting Helen Mirren saying "you can't control how other people see you or think of you. And you have to be comfortable with that". The person who quoted it said that she loved her but disagreed with the sentiment because she thinks we have a HUGE influence on how others see us.
I don't often respond to posts where I disagree with what's been said - I don't really do controversial or public disagreement - but in this case I felt compelled to make the point that there is a big difference between 'influence' and 'control'.
In this day and age of social media and personal branding we can certainly do a lot to 'influence' how others see us but, bottom line, we can't 'control' any of it, as many brands and employers are finding out - to their cost!
So, I do think Helen Mirren was making a very true, valuable statement for us all to bear in mind.
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Happiness and Achievement Islands
We played charades tonight after tea. An oft played game in our family - the children love it!
I chose Watership Down as my contribution and couldn't remember why. Then I remembered it was about to be mentioned in this week's newsletter! And this is another recommendation borne out of my Blinkist reading (I try and read one Blinkist book - a very good quality ten minute précis of a business book - every morning as part of my 'wake up regime'!).
In the book 'Living the 80/20 way', Richard Koch talks about 'happiness islands' and 'achievement islands'.
He talks about indentifying your happiness islands (the times when you feel happiest) and achievement islands (the times when you are the most creative or productive). And then talks about how you should maximise your output by focusing on those islands.
He then goes on to explain that Richard Adams, who wrote Watership Down, did just that. He was a civil servant and saw his job as boring but found his island of happiness relating stories to his daughters. He focused on this and eventually wrote down the stories and they became the best-selling book Watership Down.
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Get It Done Mum Podcast
To finish I'd like to recommend a new podcast created by former clients of mine from New Zealand, J9 and Jo of Get It Done Mum. They launched their new podcast just last week and have already hit the 'New and Noteworthy' section in iTunes. And I'm really pleased to say that J9 will be appearing on my podcast soon (and hopefully Jo will be joining me too at a later date). You can listen via iTunes or Stitcher or via their website, so please do go there and give them a go!
Until later this week...
