by Una Hearne. How much money you have. How many friends you have in reality, or on facebook. Failure. Success. Your qualifications or experience. Your children's achievements. What you look like. How nice your home or your car is. What other people think of you. How long it takes you to do anything. Whether you are in love and/or have a partner. Your holidays. Your work. The state of your health. How many obstacles your perceive and overcome. Your level of confidence and self belief. Whether you have a dream and whether it manifests. I could go on... Are you arguing with me in your head? Have I upset you? Excellent, read ...
by Una Hearne. On a rerun of the sublime TV show QI (don't you just love Stephen Fry and Alan Davies?) they were talking about the 'half life of facts'. That is, how half of the 'facts' that medical students learn in college will be considered to be untrue in 10 or 12 years time. And how facts given on QI itself are just as subject to contrary proof over time. We like to think that scientific facts are in fact, facts - and to some extent they are - but they are constantly changing ...
by Una Hearne. So, if you know my work, you'll know it's all about living our best lives. I'm all about re-connecting with who you really are and what you really want. And making Visions and plans to create the best life you can experience. I also talk a lot about gratitude, about being grateful for everything we already have. I am sometimes asked if this is a contradiction "If I'm happy now, won't I just sit back and not bother doing anything else?" As if unhappiness is the only motivator for doing anything! Unhappiness ...
by Una Hearne. It is in our nature as human beings, to compare ourselves to other people. We live in relation to others. Observing how other people behave, what they have and what they achieve can galvanise us into learning, action and achievement for our own benefit. For example we can be influenced by another person's character and develop our own kindness, leadership, professionalism etc. Or we can be motivated to go out and get something we see other people have or to try new things. When we are inspired by comparison to improve our own quality ...
by Una Hearne. Keeping a gratitude journal is one of those deceptively simple practices which can have real and profound effects in your life. I've written and spoken many times about the importance of refocusing our attention from the negative to the positive. This is so that we balance our natural negative bias and also so that we focus our attention and effort on what we want to create in our lives, and not on what we don't want. The reason it's important to think of it as a practice is that it needs to be a ...
by Una Hearne. In one sense it's easy to be a hero in a war - just turn up. (No, I'm not saying war is easy I'm saying in an emergency doing anything makes you a hero automatically!) It's a lot harder to feel like a hero if your life seems ordinary to you. This is not because you are not a hero, this is simply because we don't give medals to ordinary people or celebrate our ordinary lives. Being an everyday hero often means not being noticed, or being taken for granted - by ourselves ...
by Una Hearne. So here I am sticking my neck out. Publicly. I am in business officially two years and my first business plan didn't work. I made very little money and had to borrow to keep going and try the next plan. I have invested over 200k in education and sacrificed earnings in the past 10 years at a rough guess. I've invested many thousands of hours in my learning, development and my work. I'm earning now but it's not quite sustainable yet. I could run out of money. This kind of financial uncertainty unnerves me ...
by Una Hearne. What if you just don't know what you want? What if you're not sure who you really are? Lots of people will say you need to know the answers but then can't tell you how to figure it all out. These are key questions, you can't go after what you want if you don't know what that is. And you can't know what you really want if you don't know who you are and what makes you happy. I specialise in this area because I could never resist the big questions. I have developed ...
by Una Hearne. How does any human being make anything happen? How do you get to work in the morning? How do people get married and have children? How do you operate your mobile phone? How did you eat your last meal? How do you put your socks on? How do you figure out what you want to do with your life? Believe it or not the unconscious process by which you make anything happen works in the same way for every one of these things: You decide what you want You plan how you will make it happen You ...
by Una Hearne. Some definitions: Non performance of something due, required or expected Subnormal quantity or quality (of crops for example) Non functioning (of machine for example) Unsuccessful person or thing. Ok, I can accept a human being can fail to do something. I can see a crop can fail and I get that a machine can fail to work. And I know there is a feeling of failure when something does not work out the way you planned - I've felt that! (Of course a feeling is a feeling, not a fact.) But the more I examine failure in relation ...
by Una Hearne. 'You just need a bit of will power'. Common cry. Well, what if I'm no good at will power? And I can assure you, I'm not. What then? Will power, at best, only works for short periods of time. It is only useful in that couple of seconds when you are choosing between immediate temptation and long term benefit. While it can be useful to help you make the right choice or get you back on track when distracted, will power is not a sustainable or reliable force over time and it takes ...
by Una Hearne. There are thousands of planning theories, methods, models and templates. And there is one very good reason why no particular way of planning works for everyone - human beings are not robots. Most of the theories, methods, models and templates have merit and will work for some people. Usually people who are like the person that designed that particular way of planning. There are basics that need to be in any plan and the more people involved in implementing a plan, the simpler and clearer it needs to be. Everyone involved ...
by Una Hearne. In a previous blog I wrote about how inappropriate giving unsolicited life advice is. I want to look at another aspect of advice in this blog. The times when we want and need advice. In particular, expert advice in an area we don't know about, or a second opinion in our own area. Our greatest resource besides ourselves is other people. Getting help along the way in work and in life is part of being human and can be anything from useful to essential. Additionally, one of the greatest pleasures ...
by Una Hearne. (Note I always use the word vision - if you don't like this word or it doesn't resonate with you please substitute whichever of the following you prefer: goal, dream, outcome, mission, objective, desire, aim, target, intention, destination). It is good practice to have a vision for your life. To be a conscious participant in creating your life. The important thing is to have a specific direction to set off in. The next most important thing is not to be too rigid about the outcomes. Hold your vision lightly, be prepared to adapt ...
by Una Hearne. In my last blog I wrote about having a vision to motivate you. I want to talk about another good reason to have a clear vision for yourself. (Note I tend to use the word vision - if you don't like this word or it doesn't resonate with you please substitute whichever of the following you prefer: goal, dream, outcome, mission, objective, desire, aim, target, intention, destination.) Our subconscious or unconscious mind uses metaphors (symbols, pictures, concepts) to make sense of the world and to shape ...
by Una Hearne. What are your core values and why would you need to know them? Definitions of values tend to cover two broad concepts. One is the principles or moral values we stand for, or will stand up for (like freedom, respect, honesty etc). We have a deeply ingrained set of beliefs about right and wrong, value judgements which drive our thinking and behaviour. The other is more about the things we value in our lives (relationships, lifestyle, environment, contribution etc). These can be tangible or intangible and are also drivers of ...
by Una Hearne. I spend a lot of time as a coach and trainer trying to crowbar people's minds open long enough to allow them to dream for themselves. We are brought up to be deeply suspicious of dreams. Not the dreams we have when we sleep, but the dreams we can imagine for our future in the real world, beyond our current experience. We often react to each other's dreams for the future as if they are nonsense - as if we are completely mad to think bigger for ourselves. And yet, imagining ...
by Una Hearne. Edison said 'I have not failed, I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work!' Perseverance is one of the characteristics of successful human beings. Sometimes in the face of overwhelming odds. Sometimes sheer bloody-mindedness when all around you would have given up gracefully and are just waiting to cart you off to the funny farm, is just the ticket for success. It is a judgement call. Most of the big decisions in your life are choices with no guarantees. If it is a decision about your career / business / ...
by Una Hearne. By authentic, I mean right for you, in your life. And by dream, I mean dream, vision, aim, outcome, goal, plan, wish, desire - whatever word works for you and means 'the way you want you and your life to be'. Like all life choices, whether to pursue a dream or not is a personal judgement call. However, over the years I have learned there are some key characteristics by which you can recognise if a dream is authentic, the more of the following that apply the more likely you should ...
by Una Hearne. The immediate results of any one action are usually fairly predictable. Think of putting your glass back on the table after drinking, usually this results in the glass being on the table. It generally doesn't leap off the table or turn into a cow. However, even a little complexity very quickly makes results unpredictable. For example, if I drive to the next town, which route will be quicker? This depends on the traffic, traffic lights, other people's driving and many other things not in my control. I have to take ...
by Una Hearne. We talk about and act as if this current recession is a disaster. Of course, in many ways it absolutely is. It has created plenty of financial hardship through redundancy and cuts. However, it has also forced many people to stop and reassess their lives which is always a good thing. It has also created much opportunity for those who can see it. There has been a huge number of redundancies and for the first time a large number of these people are highly experienced/qualified and never expected to be ...
by Una Hearne. Easy! When you have reached your goal. You got the job / went on holiday / got promoted / have a successful business or whatever. Right? Well. Maybe. And then again, maybe not. It depends on what you personally mean by success. We have all sorts of notions of what success means - money, houses, cars, lifestyle, achievements, awards and accolades, the lovers, the family, the friends - all that nice stuff. The feeling of being successful of course comes from inside you. It is the meaning that you personally attach to the stuff ...
