These are the steps:

1. Leaf or scroll through your 2017 diary, looking a month at a time

2. Say to yourself, “I accomplished this………..” “I did that…………………..” Write a
list if that helps

3. Close out each month

4. Think about what you are going to leave behind (physically & emotionally)

5. Think about what you want to take forward into the new year

6. Go through each month until the end of December

7. Once you have brought your year to a close you will be ready to move in to
2017. Wrap up the old and open the new!

8. Book your ‘Kickstart 2018’ coaching series with Daphne
Tel: +44 (0) 20 8473 0261

Long-time no speak!

It’s hard to believe that the first day of summer has been and gone already.  I’ve read some reports of a scorching summer but, frankly, I’ll believe that when it happens.

Half way through the year and I can hear the corporate groans because it’s appraisal time. I often hear mini-groans when it comes to 1:1s. If you have a moment, here’s a quick webinar that will give you a few ideas. If not, some Top Tips below.

What will you be doing to recharge this summer? I shall be watching cricket and cycling amongst other things and I will definitely be switching off from the outside world for a few weeks. I do this regularly, with clients in meetings – we set our phones aside, breathe a sigh of relief and enjoy a hassle free day of clear-thinking.

Do keep in touch; I’d love to hear how your year is going.

Daphne

5 appraisal top tips

1. Make a review date and stick with it. What message are you sending when you cancel/postpone.
2. Nothing will ever beat on-going quality conversations with your team.
3. A sound relationship can survive candid feedback.
4. Learn how to have honest conversations.
5. Be consistent. Be fair.

Plan some time away from work!

A few websites to help you book that all important annual leave.

Travel Zoo

www.travelzoo.com/uk
- check out top 20 deals and local deals

Bownty

www.bownty.co.uk
- a daily deals aggregator that gives you a good glance at top holiday offers

Explore

www.explore.co.uk
- last minute holidays offering an experience

Secret Escapes

www.secretescapes.com
- some great deals on upper end holiday packages

Try this exercise either in your office or in front of the fire with a glass of wine.

It is designed to be a helpful review of the year and an opportunity to celebrate your successes.

These are the steps:

1. Leaf through your 2015 diary, looking a month at a time
2. Say to yourself, “I accomplished this………..” “I did that…………………..”
3. Close out each month
4. Think about what you are going to leave behind (physically & emotionally)
5. Think about what you want to take forward into the new year
6. Go through each month until the end of December
7. Once you have brought your year to a close you will be ready to move in to 2016. Wrap up the old and open the new!
8. Book your ‘Kickstart 2016’ coaching sessions with Daphne. Tel: +44 (0) 20 8473 0261

Enjoy taking some refreshing time off over Christmas and the New Year and I’ll see you in 2016!

Very best wishes,

Daphne

If you’re in Austria, give me a wave; I’ll be cycling for a week along the Tyrolean valleys. Well, enjoy your summer and I’ll see you for some coaching in September.

Daphne x

P.S. *If you haven’t booked a holiday, we definitely need to work together!

Summer reading 

Amongst all the recent media frenzy around Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman, the Man Booker longlist was announced on Wednesday.  I haven’t read any of these yet but if you’re looking for a new book, maybe one of the contenders will spark your interest:

Bill Clegg (US) - Did You Ever Have a Family
Anne Enright (Ireland) - The Green Road
Marlon James (Jamaica) - A Brief History of Seven Killings
Laila Lalami (US) - The Moor’s Account
Tom McCarthy (UK) - Satin Island
Chigozie Obioma (Nigeria) - The Fishermen
Andrew O’Hagan (UK) - The Illuminations
Marilynne Robinson (US) - Lila
Anuradha Roy (India) - Sleeping on Jupiter
Sunjeev Sahota (UK) - The Year of the Runaways
Anna Smaill (New Zealand) - The Chimes
Anne Tyler (US) - A Spool of Blue Thread
Hanya Yanagihara (US) - A Little Life

Outdoor cinemas

If you’re looking for a relaxing night out, outdoor cinemas are an option.  A few links:

Luna Cinema (UK)
Rooftop Film Club (London)
Pop-up Screens (London)
Somerset House (London)
Cult Screens (UK)
The Nomad Cinema (London)
Kew Gardens (London)

From my office wall

“Don’t fit your self-care around your life, fit your life around your self-care.”  Thomas Leonard

Everyday app

Red Cross has launched a free first aid app. Might come in handy on your travels!

Cool app

Send personalised postcards and greeting cards with Touchnote.

If you’re looking to treat yourself today, try switching off digitally for 30 minutes, to allow yourself a break from all the noise.  You can also turn the volume down on your day with gadgets like Bose’s QuietComfort 25 noise cancelling headphones.  I don’t have these but friends are rating them.

Finally, special thanks to my client Jane for allowing us to do a case study on performance coaching.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

While you’re waiting for Santa to arrive, have a look below at 100 things that annoy him. Mark the ones you share with him and email me your top 3!

1. Fleas on my reindeer
2. Having someone in my life who always tries to tell me what to do
3. A desk full of stacks of papers
4. Clients who cancel appointments at the last moment
5. Being overweight
6. A constant need for home maintenance and repairs
7. Not enough storage space for all my office files
8. A phone battery that dies too quickly
9. Not enough time scheduled for dreaming and thinking ‘big picture’ for my business
10. A web page that needs updating
11. Not enough time on the golf course
12. Being crabby a lot
13. Investments that should be re-evaluated but haven’t been
14. Not working out at least three times a week
15. Not getting enough deep belly laughing every day
16. Sex life? What sex life?
17. Working at a job I don’t enjoy
18. Not having a coach because I can’t afford one
19. Having to pay to park outside my own home
20. Too much e-mail
21. My boss!
22. A guest bedroom that needs cleaning up (it looks like a storage room)
23. A co-worker who has more tolerations than I do and spends all day talking about them
24. Not enough time spent in the garden
25. Doing without an office assistant even though I need one
26. Not saving money every month
27. Facebook
28. A client who changes appointments frequently
29. Telemarketing calls at inconvenient times
30. A web site that doesn’t reflect me
31. Being easily overwhelmed and trying to act like I’m not
32. A garage that is so full you can’t get into it
33. Loving to travel and not knowing when I’ll next be able to take a trip somewhere
34. Not having a spare key for the car
35. Tripping over my dog’s toys throughout the house
36. Having to get up each morning before the sun rises
37. Negative attitudes of people with whom I work
38. Needy relatives
39. Being the office dumping ground because I’m such a good listener
40. Low levels of reserves
41. Knowing all my debt will not be paid off for another 10 years
42. Inadequate retirement fund
43. A former spouse who does not contribute time or money to raising our children
44. Mildew in the grout of the tiles in my shower
45. Spiders webs in the corners
46. Stuff on top of my fridge that has not been put away since I had that Christmas party 10 years ago
47. A dining room table currently covered with stuff not related to dining
48. An inherited chest of drawers that has a broken piece of veneer
49. A cat that lies on my wrists when I’m working on the computer
50. Having a nice attic but not being able to get into it because the steps are falling apart
51. Cleaning supplies that won’t fit under the sink
52. Spending eight hours a day in a room with no window
53. Having a sugar and caffeine addiction
54. Wearing only what’s comfortable even if I don’t like the way I look
55. Having become very good at acting patient and hating every minute of it
56. House that needs to be repainted
57. Having so many talents and interests that I’m constantly being pulled in lots of directions
58. Hair that doesn’t look good
59. Knowing that I’m the only reliable sibling and that when the time comes that my parents need to be cared for, it’s all going to fall on me
60. Having boxes of things that need to be donated but that I haven’t taken to the charity shop
61. Having more books than bookshelves
62. Not knowing how to ask for space from people without getting snippy because I’ve waited too long to ask
63. Not knowing how to tell someone in my life to stop hurting my feelings without hurting his or her feelings
64. Being designated the keeper of the peace in the family
65. Being really sentimental
66. Not having a friend in the same town that I can just call up on the spur of the moment to go out with to do something
67. Living with a constant inner sense of deep frustration
68. The lack of sunlight in winter
69. Living in a dangerous area
70. Beating myself up because I can’t seem to apply all the things I know to myself
71. Having brains and talent but not knowing of any means of making a living from them
72. Not having a life plan that seems doable
73. The pile of stuff on top of the dresser that I can’t seem to throw away
74. A brown splotch on the wall from where I killed an insect
75. A partner who chews food noisily
76. A partner who hates where we live
77. No reserve of income
78. Not taking a holiday every year
79. Not visiting friends or family as often as I’d like to
80. Having old, worn-out shoes
81. Living on a noisy main road
82. Underselling myself
83. Shelves waiting to go up
84. Carpet that needs cleaning
85. Weak networks
86. No fun opportunities
87. My spouse’s tone of voice with me
88. My frying pan–everything sticks
89. Too much television
90. A lack of communication with my spouse
91. A lack of an up-to-date business plan
92. A lack of clients
93. A messy studio/home/bedroom/other room
94. Cooking dinner every night when I don’t want to
95. Not having a car I enjoy driving
96. Holding on to some stocks that have lost me a lot of money
97. Not getting enough sleep to feel rested
98. People who criticize me
99. Not making enough money to afford what I want
100. Haven’t been out on a great date for months

We humans have learned to tolerate a lot. We put up with, accept, take on and are dragged down by things in our physical environment like disorganisation, messes, broken stuff and other things like people’s behaviour, situations, unmet needs, crossed boundaries, incompletion, frustrations, problems and even our own behaviour.

You are tolerating more than you think. So what are you tolerating? Please take a couple of minutes to write down the things you sense that you are tolerating, if they aren’t on this list.

Do you have to do anything about them? No, not really. Just becoming aware of and articulating them will bring them to the forefront of your mind and you’ll naturally start handling, eliminating, fixing, growing through and resolving these tolerations. Enjoy this exercise!

If you’d like coaching around reducing your tolerations, I’d be delighted to work with you.
Either give me a call on +44 (0) 20 8473 0261
or drop me a line, daphne@cliftonconsulting.com

Time, friends, environment, energy, family and even your fridge ….these all require reserves.  Much of my coaching work focuses on this tricky area, which is all too easily lost in the hamster wheel of work and life.  If you want to create some awareness around your reserves, email me for a simple exercise.

Have a great autumn,

Daphne

Many of my clients have difficulty negotiating or taking their career to the next level.  I imagine there will also be a few players disappointed they didn’t make the England Team.   Coaching will give you the skills needed to sell yourself better and improve outcomes when negotiating.  Drop me a line to find out more!

Come on England!

What’s it all about?

If you’re interested in what performance coaching can do for you, have a look at Ben’s experience and results.

World Cup Schedule

On Leadership

A mate of mine, Mike Carson has recently launched a new book called The Manager.  I haven’t had a chance to read it yet but here’s a few reviews:

A book that aims to dig deeper, including “behind-the-scenes” interviews with more than 30 managers, must be welcomed … Carson does well to avoid the kinds of clichés that blight so many other books on football (Financial Times)

Mike Carson takes a different approach in his compelling examination of 30 managers, treating his subjects as savvy businessmen as much as sports gurus … It’s impossible to interview such people and not come away with some peerless insights (Observer)

Cool Apps

MyFitness Pal

-recently added new languages

MiCoach

-great for helping with motivation!

World Cup 2014

-has built an app to keep fans updated