16 Guidelines for Life

I had the wonderful experience of spending my last weekend in a workshop facilitated by Alison Murdoch, one of the authors of “The 16 Guidelines for Life”. If you ever come across an opportunity to attend this workshop, I would highly recommend that you take it.

The 16 Guidelines for Life are values that, when put into practice and internalized in our life, lead to a happier and more meaningful life. They are simple to understand, practical and straightforward, yet it is precisely because of their simplicity that we run the danger of ignoring them. While it is beneficial to learn and understand them, their real value lies in applying them in our daily lives.

The 16 Guidelines are grouped into 4 themes – how we think, how we act, how we relate and how we find meanings in life. Understanding how we think provides us with a choice to discard our negative and unskilful thoughts, and to embrace positive and skilful thoughts that lead to positive outcomes for all concern.

Through some very simple yet powerful exercises, the facilitator led the participants into realizing for themselves the judgmental habits of their mind. Thus, by paying attention and being aware of our thoughts, we are empowered with a choice we did not know we had before – the choice of changing our thoughts or mental habits.

At this point, I was reminded of the definition of insanity that a friend had given me. He said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting the outcome to be different. So we have been living insanely with the same pattern of thoughts for years, and then we wonder why our lives stay the same.

The moment we change the way we think, we start to act and relate to others differently. We begin to see things from a different perspective, and in doing so we change our experience of life. Nothing outside of us has changed but the way we perceive them has. The end result is that we change our lives.

Using the 16 Guidelines, the change we experience is positive, affirming, empowering and meaningful.

For more information about the 16 Guidelines, go to http://16guidelines.org.

5 Reasons Why You Should Become a Coach

I have been running regular Personal Transformation and the Law of Attraction workshops but only recently have I considered becoming a personal coach. This thought came about because of a request by one of my workshop participants. After thinking about it and considering the benefits of coaching, I finally started coaching this year. Here are 5 reasons why anyone who wants to improve himself or herself should consider becoming a coach:

1. Coaching supports your own personal growth

If you are keen on self improvement, coaching is one of the best places for you to be. By becoming a coach, you commit yourself to grow, acquire knowledge and skills, and internalize them into your own life. After all, you need to lead by example. You have no choice but to walk your talk.

2. Have fun working with and helping people

This is especially true if you enjoy working with people. Whenever you contribute in some small ways to help another person improves himself or herself, you feel a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. It can truly brighten up the day. As you get better at helping people grow, you also grow in self confidence, self esteem and general well being. You become a happier person.

As you get better at helping people grow, you also grow in self confidence, self esteem and general well being. You become a happier person.

According to Abraham Maslow, the need to contribute to the well being of others is one of our basic human needs. Being a coach helps you to fulfill that need.

3. Contribute to lifting human consciousness

Each time you help someone become better than he or she was before, you are indirectly contributing to the uplifting of the human race as a whole. You expand global consciousness and make this community, society, country and the world a better place too.

4. Support your love for learning and sharing

If you are going to improve yourself, you will find that learning and sharing the things and skills that you have learned is the best way to internalize them into your life. Before you teach, you have to make sure you know your stuff. It will spur you on to master the things you teach and to know them in greater depth. Just knowing superficially will not do when you are teaching.

I am constantly reminded of the philosophy of the 5 P’s whenever I need to teach – “Prior preparation prevents poor performance”. Thus, being a coach commits you to lifelong learning and that is a good thing.

5. Challenge your creativity

Coaching is a challenging job. You will do well if you have your client’s interests at heart and if you are creative. What I mean is that you have to think out of the box and open your mind to new possibilities. Learn to see things from different perspectives. Often, all it takes to change a negative experience is to see it from a fresh perspective.

If all these reasons appeal to you, then you should seriously consider becoming a coach. It is really not as difficult as you may think. Here’s a good report on coaching to get you started.