by ballyboes

Career Changers-Yoga Me Happy

Drinking in the sun high on a café terrace in the hilltop Village of Casperia in Italy, Eliza and I had a session to look at Eliza’s ideal career life. In her personal life, Eliza was deliriously happy. However, her work life left her feeling unfulfilled. On paper it looked like Eliza had everything going for her, a well-paid job in London as a marketing manager of major shopping centres and retail property clients. In actual fact, she loved the clients and the team around her and yet there was a gaping hole within her in terms of work satisfaction.

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 by ballyboes

When Death Deals us a Blow!

What do death and careers got in common?
Sarah is a young single Mum of 28 years. For many years now she has been grappling with career choice. Internally, she feels stuck going back and forth between two choices of Business and Health Sciences.

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 by ballyboes

Ten Ways to Keep Moving in the Right Career Direction

In attending the Inspired Entrepreneur Programme in London with Nick Williams I picked up some of the following tips and adapted them:

1. Create a Vision of Where You Want to Be in Your Life

Imagine your ideal life, your ideal work. What do you want it to look like and feel like? What would you like to hear yourself saying about your ideal life situation? Transcend your current situation, worries and cares and think about where you want to be long term. Create a ‘vision board’ containing pictures, words and images of what you want, or write a paragraph on your dream life.

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 by ballyboes

The Power of Baby Steps

James (not his real name) wants to get into a course that requires over 500 points. Thinking about the points required for the course and the effort needed overwhelms him. James feels it’s like he’s trying to scale an insurmountable mountain.

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 by ballyboes

Let’s help John

John has graduated with a Law Degree from Trinity and gone on to qualify as a solicitor. John was thrilled to get a good position in a small law firm doing conveyancing. Things were going really well initially and he loved the feeling of having money and going for drinks with his colleagues in Temple Bar on a Friday evening. Only six months into the job, John was let go due to the downturn in property market. He was gutted as he had just bought a new BMW on hire purchase. He didn’t know how he would ever make the repayments.

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 by ballyboes

The Element – How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything

Author: Ken Robinson

Penguin Books 2009, 260 pages

This book is aimed at anyone interested exploring their own potential and the potential of those around them. It is about how passion, imagination, creativity, values and luck influence on career decision-making.  Sir Ken Robinson is one of the world’s leading speakers on the development of education, creativity and innovation.  In his book he shares a wide range of stories of how people such as Paul McCartney, Paolo Coelho, Meg Ryan, dancer Gillian Lynne and screenwriter, Matt Groening found their ‘element’.  He describes ‘ the element ‘ as ‘the place where the things you love to do and the things you are good at come together’.

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 by ballyboes

Sherlock Holmes of the Past

Ray was a construction worker who had been unemployed for four years. Understandably, when we met, he was feeling very low. He said that when he first arrived for Guidance he felt “tearful”. He said that he had expected his visit to Guidance to be a form-filling session, however, he found it like Counselling. After the session, Ray said “it was the best thing” he had done in years,  “as I would still be in the town scratching my head, still trying to make up my mind about the future”.

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 by ballyboes

High Dreamers – Returning to Learning as an Adult

I recently worked with a group of adults returning to learn I.T. Skills. They ranged in age from 20-67 years. On their first day, they were understandably both excited and scared. We teased out their concerns by using a format devised by Alan Richardson called ‘High Dream/Low Dream’.

I asked the group what their ‘high dream’ would be; what would the successful completion of this course mean for them? How would they feel afterwards? How might their lives be different?

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 by ballyboes

GRATITUDE: Counting my Blessings

An ‘attitude of gratitude’ can raise our happiness index and sense of well-being.   A few months ago, I made a decision to cultivate an attitude of gratitude, to count my blessings and keep a written record of them.  The act of gratitude allowed me to savour the present moment  and things such as:

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