Three Gold Medal Winning Strategies To Power Up Your Life

Harriet's done a guest blog at Coach Colin Hiles' brilliant site, www.midlifemaverick.com

Here's a taster, and a link to the whole shebang:

This is a very personal article: I’m sharing three of my favourite strategies – three quirky, surprising ones which after a decade of Executive Coaching I found refreshing and particularly invigorating in my own life. I hope you find them as helpful as I have.

1. Use Bullshit Filters

I used to waste a heck of a lot of time worrying about what other people think. Do you? What impact does that have? Stress? Opportunities missed?… Ben and the crew used the strategy of “bullshit filters” – filtering out unhelpful information and focussing on what’s useful. The first step is to spot the difference between fact and opinion. When other sportsmen said they were too old or not fit enough, they realised this was pure opinion. When their loved ones tried to protect them by saying perhaps they should forget about their dream and get a proper job, they realised it was pure opinion too.

I have found this simple distinction between fact and opinion SO liberating. For example, we mums get bombarded with advice and judgement about what we should be doing. Now when I get the judgemental look from a fellow shopper (when I’m in the supermarket queue and my kids are running riot) I can pause before getting wound up. Is the other person really judging me? Is that a fact or my guess? And if he does think poorly of me, well that’s his opinion based on two minutes observation– he doesn’t know anything about us or what kind of day we’ve had – I can reflect on what’s useful about his opinion and then choose how to act.

read the rest of the article at: http://midlifemaverick.com/three-gold-medal-winning-strategies-to-power-up-your-life/

Take care

Hx

Bullshit filters: 10 tips for filtering out unhelpful information

How many times have you been told ‘you can’t’, ‘you shouldn’t’ or ‘it won’t happen’? How much is bullshit is holding you back?

Ben Hunt-Davis and his crew were told they were too inexperienced, not good enough, too weak, but decided these criticisms were bullshit and went on to win Olympic Gold. Here are 10 tips for filtering the bullshit out:

1. Separate facts from fiction: Treat facts as facts and opinion as opinion. When the judges give their feedback on the X Factor it’s just opinion, when your boss tells you you’re not ready for promotion, it’s just opinion. When the voice in your head tells you you’re not good enough, it’s just opinion. 

2. Don’t confuse a feeling of certainty with truth: Have you ever felt absolutely certainthat you left your keys on the table and then found them in your pocket?! In the same way, just because you feel certain about a negative opinion doesn’t mean it should influence you. Beware of conversations (especially your own internal dialogue) riddled with ‘it is’ or ‘I know’ or I’m certain’. Filter out potential bull**** and unlock other possibilities by asking ‘really?’ or ‘what if…?’ or ‘what would happen if we did…?’

3. Find a useful meaning: Whatever happens, figure out the useful interpretation. For example, Ben and the crew made sure they celebrated whatever the weather. If it was sunny and calm they’d think ‘Great, this means perfect rowing conditions’; if it was windy they’d think ‘Great, this means the other crews are going to be put off by worrying about the poor conditions’. Finding the useful meaning helped them to unlock their potential come rain or shine. There are multiple interpretations to every situation so work actively to find useful ones.

The rest of this article appears at the Recruiter site.  Check out: http://www.recruiter.co.uk/bull-filters-10-tips-for-filtering-out-unhelpful-information/1010207.article

We'd love to hear your feedback. Post a comment....tweet to your networks.....

All the best

Harriet x

10 Olympic-winning tips for building UNSTOPPABLE momentum

Have you ever got de-motivated when implementing a project? Or stuck when pursuing a goal? Ben and the British Men’s Rowing crew were passionate believers in building momentum – building a force that would keep them going despite hiccups along the way.

Their momentum took them from disaster in 1998, where they came 7th in the World Championships, to Olympic Gold two years later at the Sydney Games. Here are 10 of their strategies which can be used to build momentum in people’s business lives and beyond:


Believe in Better
The crew believed there were better, easier ways of doing things and they looked for specific references to remind themselves they had huge untapped potential. For example, remember a time when you started a new job or acquired a new skill? You’ve learnt and developed before so surely you can do so again?

Unskew the scales
Recognise the costs of not doing anything. We might weigh up the pros and cons of a possible course of action, but do we weigh up the pros and cons of things staying as they are? It can be incredibly motivating to fly forwards and imagine what you’ll miss out on in the coming weeks and years if you don’t take action now.

Make the journey enjoyable
Yes of course we’ll feel great when we’ve achieved our dream weight or brought in the project on time and on budget, but what’s going to make the journey enjoyable? Whether it’s going for a run with a friend or holding project update meetings in a café, think of options which will liven things up. And if you can’t make it fun, how can you make it bearable? Ben and the crew endured some painful weights sessions, but tactics such as counting down the reps, encouraging each other and daydreaming of standing on the podium helped them through.

The rest of this article appears at the Recruiter website: http://www.recruiter.co.uk/10-olympic-winning-tips-for-building-unstoppable-momentum/1010584.article

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Harriet x

What relevance does sports psychology have to business?

With the first tranche of tickets sold and the opening ceremony under a year away, Olympic hype is well and truly underway.  But aside from the sales and sponsorship opportunities the Games present, what relevance do the Games – and sport in general - hold for business?

Five of our favourite examples are:

1) Clarity of Goals

2) Strong Belief

3) Controlling the Controllables

4) Bouncebackability

5) Bullshit Filters

Clarity of Goals

Ben and his crew were absolutely clear on their goal – Olympic gold- and they translated this into yearly, monthly and daily goals. How often in the corporate world do we have an ill-defined sense of where we’re going – and how often is this confusion multiplied by different interpretations amongst managers and staff? When everyone signs up to a clear, compelling goal we can make sure every ounce of effort is directed in the same direction. Clear goals are like magnets, pulling teams together and focussing energies through current challenges towards future success.

The rest of this article appears in the online Training Zone magazine.  It's free to register and view at:

http://www.trainingzone.co.uk/topic/going-gold-how-sports-philosophies-can-help-business-world/159917

Enjoy!

How to build a high performing team

Yay! We're the top featured article at CEO Magazine.  Check out:

http://www.the-chiefexecutive.com/features/feature123200/

It's all about how to build high performing teams in the Corporate sector

Will It Make the Train Go Faster?

I did bedtime stories with the kids last night, hunted for a toy plastic snake to put into the bed to calm the 3 year old down, dealt with a call back from 3 year old who had changed his mind and no longer wanted the toy plastic snake ..... rushed to pack bags, and then headed off to the train station to go to London for some coaching I was doing today.

Only to find the train was cancelled.

Next one was over an hour's wait and would get me in well after midnight.  Should I hang around or change my plans and drive instead?  A pretty dull, petty decision, but one in years gone by I would have expended a HUGE amount of angst about. What I love about the "Will it make the boat go faster" approach is the simple way it cuts through the dross and focusses you on what's important:

What's my goal? Get to London the night before to get a decent night's kip so I can deliver a good day's coaching tomorrow
What will make the boat go faster? Drive there, don't hang around in the hope the signalling problems will clear up.
What's good about this? I can't do the work I was planning to do on the train, this is two hours of enforced 'me' time.

So here I am after one relaxing car journey, a good night's sleep and a rewarding day's coaching, thanks to a couple of very simple, very powerful questions.

We've done it! The joy of goals...

I'm sitting next to a large tower of hot-off-the-press test copies of Will It Make the Boat Go Faster? 
How am I feeling?

Nervous - that I'll spill a cup of tea over them and Ben will kill me, and anxious that when the book is properly printed and launched on 1st June that people won't love it. BUT, in the main, chuffed to bits. 

One of my key learns from writing the book is the huge satisfaction that comes not just from achieving a goal, but also pursuing it. I've always wondered what Ben would have been like if he hadn't got Gold, would he be bitter and twisted and resentful? (I'll ask him and post his reply), but my experience from writing the book is that I would have been even more bitter and twisted if I hadn't tried.

This isn't becuase I'm a addicted to following goals for the sake of goals, it's mainly becuase the goal was very aligned with my values and interests. When have you felt 'in the zone', 'firing on all cylinders'? I wonder what values and skills were showing up then and I wonder what goal would help you to feel like that more often?...

Right...off to move that dangerously placed cup of tea
Harriet