Jill Hutchison, Evolve Dynamic

Perth Executive Coach | Strategic Conversations and Confidence for Leaders

Archives for December 2012

6PR Listeners

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Hello 6 PR listeners

Buy One Get One Free Attitude of Gratitude Journal – offer ends midnight 1 January 2013.

Happy New Year to you! I’m assuming you’re here because you want to know more about the Attitude of Gratitude Journal OR the USA Property workshops that are starting on 11 January.

To get your bonus on the Attitude of Gratitude Journal – for 6 PR listeners only – please follow these links below.

Put your order in and then send me an email requesting your bonus. Click on the Journal cover  – and you will be taken to a page with more info about it. To order, click through and you will be allowed to enter your credit card details or paypal on the secure payment gateway. We do not store your credit card details and the payment gateway is managed by EWay.

 

What is the bonus I mentioned?

It’s simple – buy one get one free. That’s right – place an order for one journal and I will send you two. Order two and I’ll send you four! The shopping cart will only show you the number you’ve ordered, I will confirm with you tomorrow by email that you’ve got your free journals. This offer is only open until midnight tomorrow 1 January 2013.

Please note that this offer is only open while stocks last and is limited to the first 150 orders. Journal prices include free postage. We anticipate you’ll receive your journal between mid- and end of January.  We’ll get them to you as soon as possible!

 

 

To find out more information about USA Property POSITIVE GEARED, click here.

The next presentation is on 11 January. You can book online for 11 January and 7 February. This opportunity may not be available for much longer as the house prices in the USA are already starting to show upward movement. Hedge funds are buying up all surplus properties and the private investor is not able to have the pick of the properties as we did 6 months ago.

 

Wishing you all the very best for 2013,

Kind regards

Jill

 

Jill Hutchison

Perth, Australia

 

88% of those who set New Years Resolutions Fail

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Don’t set resolutions. Write down your dreams and then commit to doing whatever it takes to move you one step closer to them.
Resolutions are like to-do lists. The sort of things we feel we should be doing. There is no inspiration in resolutions. They simply keep us being busy, instead of making space to achieve the things that are REALLY important to us.

 

“A 2007 study by Richard Wisemen from the University of Bristol involving 3,000 people showed that 88% of those who set New Year resolutions fail, despite the fact that 52% of the study’s participants were confident of success at the beginning. Men achieved their goal 22% more often when they engaged in goal setting, (a system where small measurable goals are being set; such as, a pound a week, instead of saying “lose weight”), while women succeeded 10% more when they made their goals public and got support from their friends.” (source Wikipedia)

 

It’s way better to get clear on what you really, really want and what is important to you – and then go from there.

In my mind here are some resolutions: Lose weight, be more disciplined, spend more time exercising, keep the house tidy, blah blah blah! Do you feel like jumping up and doing anything after reading these resolutions? Of course not!

Here’s what you could have instead: “I’m so happy and grateful now that my book has reached bestseller status for Christmas 2013 and has been featured in the New York Times (or the Zululand Observer or Stirling Post – whatever you prefer)” OR “I’m so happy and grateful now that I can run effortlessly along Trigg beach in my bikini”

OR “I’m so happy and grateful now that we are enjoying our second honeymoon (celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary!) in the huts over the water at Bora Bora, snorkelling every day and having a great connecting time”

How do you feel about these statements? I certainly feel a lot more inspired and if you don’t it’s probably because these aren’t goals that inspire you. Find statements that inspire and excite you.

Let’s look a bit deeper into those statements we’ve just written:

Lose weight (haven’t we tried writing this before? What results did you get?) – when you tell your body that you want to lose weight, it simply hears that something has been lost and will help you find it. Something like “oh dear, Jill’s lost some weight, lets’ help her find it and make sure it stays on for good so she doesn’t lose it again”. Yay, that’s really going to work!

Be more disciplined: Yawn. Have you ever spent time in someone’s presence that is very very discliplined? Painfully so! There is no excitement in discipline for discipline’s sake. There is excitement in the results you get. Just like people don’t buy a drill because they want to display a drill in their shed, they buy it so they can make holes with it. Wonder why my husband keeps his hidden? Think about what you would like discipline for, and then ask if discipline is really what is required. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t.

Spend more time exercising: Now this has a bit more merit than the first two, but I’d suggest you amp it up a bit. If you love tennis, then decide to play tennis with friends every week or fortnight. If you enjoy the sea, then decide you’ll treat yourself to a swim every morning before anyone else gets up. Make it sound fun, not like a chore. None of us like chores, least of all the child inside of each of us!

 

Keep the house tidy. Mmm – this is a contentious one. Again, is it the tidyness you seek or is it the desire to be able to find everything when you’re looking for it?  Is it being able to entertain family and friends at home and not have everything falling out the linen cupboard as they walk down the passage? What’s the important part of this that will make you want to hop up and do a spring clean? Or even better, hire cleaners to do it for you so you can focus on running your business or get time out with that exercise!

Now lets look at the other statements I mentioned above:

“I’m so happy and grateful now that my book has reached bestseller status for Christmas 2013 and has been featured in the New York Times (or the Zululand Observer or Stirling Post – whatever you prefer)”

This means that you’ve written a book (might want to get writing straight away so it’s ready for release at the end of 2013 – yes, you can do this one even if you’ve never written a book and haven’t started yet). It means that it’s well received – in order to make the bestseller list – so it’s  a success. If you don’t care about bestseller status, then change it to “I’m standing at my book launch and love the feedback I’m getting from 100 of the readers”. Make sure it’s personal to you and what presses your buttons. It may also mean a bit of travel if you want to get it into other countries.

Writing I’m so Happy and Grateful at the beginning of each of your statements also implies that you are happy and grateful. Getting into a positive state is critical to achieving your goals. This is why I’ve written the Attitude of Gratitude Journal.

 

“I’m so happy and grateful now that I can run effortlessly along Trigg beach in my bikini” (Think Baywatch).

This one covers so many things – running effortlessly means that you’re in peak health. Those knees no longer creak and give you pain, you can breathe while running (always a good start if you want to stay alive!), your back is healthy. To run truly effortlessly I think you’d need to be close to your perfect weight for your body. Running along in a bikini effortlessly would indicate that the bikini actually looks good (or that’s what I’m thinking) – otherwise why would you be doing it?  If this is a statement that excites you, then it’s easier to eat really healthy, get lots of exercise and nurture your body so you can do this.

 “I’m so happy and grateful now that we are enjoying our second honeymoon (celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary!) in the huts over the water at Bora Bora, snorkelling every day and having a great connecting time”

This also encompasses many things. Firstly that you’ve got to 20 years of marriage without succumbing to the divorce statistics, secondly that you have the financial resources to travel to the French Polynesian islands to get to Bora Bora, thirdly that you have the time to go there and spend a few days there. This would imply that income is good enough to get this goal.

What actions would you take? Spend time deciding how to get the money for the trip; or get that body into shape in time; or get a passport before your current one expires. Book someone to come and look after the kids while you go away; Create the lifestyle you want that allows you to take a week or two to go to places like this.

 

Do you see what I mean? There is a big difference between resolutions and desires. Pick the ones that are going to help you take positive action in the right direction NOT the ones that just make you feel like a failure. Look back on everything you’ve succeeded with – I’ll bet they were things you were excited about.  Make 2013 your best year yet!

 

Make it a good one!

Regards

Jill

 

Jill Hutchison

To get your Attitude of Gratitude Journal, click here: http://www.jillhutchison.com/gratitude-journal/

 

Why write a Gratitude list in a Journal rather than on your iPad?

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With the use of iPads, iPhones and computers dominating our lives, I’ve been pondering on the pros and cons of using electronic means to capture your Gratitude moments.

 

Firstly let me say that writing down what you’re Grateful for, no matter how you do it, is better than not thinking of it at all. Yes, running through it in your mind is better than focusing on the things that aren’t right in your life.

However, there are a few distinct advantages to actually writing things down the old-fashioned way:

  • Writing in a journal, with nothing to distract you, means that you get fully absorbed in what you’re writing
  • Writing on your laptop, iphone,  ipad or android can get disrupted when you see a new message come in, or think about something you need to google or send an email. I don’t know about you, but it takes serious discipline not to flick across into another application whenever my mind goes blank on what I’m working on!  We have got so used to multi-tasking that it’s all too easy to simply check facebook or email when we have a spare minute.
  • The point of writing down what you’re grateful for is to get the feeling of Gratitude. If you sit in a quiet spot, with just a pen and your Attitude of Gratitude Journal, it’s easier to get into the mood.
  • It’s very important to engage all your senses if you want the maximum benefit from the exercise: having a pen in your hand means your physical body is involved. Your mind is thinking of the things you’re grateful for. your eyes are seeing it written down, you are hearing yourself telling you what you’re grateful for.
  • Use your sense of smell to find gratitude.  For example: “I’m so happy and grateful for the fragrance of the white gardenias wafting in through my window” OR “I’m so happy and grateful for the fresh bread that is baking, the smell of which welcomes me at the front door!”
  • Repetition is the key to changing behaviours. Repeating the statement “I’m so Happy and Grateful…” tells your subconscious mind that you are happy and grateful. Eventually it will start to believe you are happy and grateful and find more things for you to be happy and grateful for.
  • Having a dedicated Gratitude Journal provides a great snapshot of your life when you want to review it. When I go back and look at some of my entries, I can remember exactly what happened that day. It’s like a diary, but only with the positive bits!
  • The Attitude of Gratitude journal is exclusively for things you’re happy and grateful about. This is not the place to write to-do lists or who-did-what-wrong. It’s really important to keep the tone positive and in a grateful spirit. The point of this exercise is to train your mind to filter in all things good. (Not sure if the grammar is 100% correct there, but I’m sure you get my drift?)
  • Cut out the noise. There is plenty of ‘noise’ in the electronic arena. How many apps do you have on your iphone or ipad?  I’ve got well over 150. Not all of these are mine, I might add, I seem to have got everything from banking apps to Makeup Touch, Dress up Makeover and Diary of a Wimpy Kid.  How many of these apps do you actually use on a regular basis?
  • When you start writing your Gratitude list, you may find the first few things fairly easy. They may go something like this: “I’m so happy and Grateful for my family; I’m so happy and grateful for my children (or not); I’m so happy and grateful for the food I had for dinner” But then you hit a blank and think What else?. If you only have access to your Attitude of Gratitude journal then you can sit and contemplate and more things will come to mind. If you’re trying to do this on a laptop or ipad, it’s much easier to do something else “while you’re thinking”. Let me be the one to break the bad news to you here: you STOP thinking when you do something else.  It will be hours later that you get back to your Gratitude list and try to complete it. Unless you’re extremely self-disciplined and NEVER get distracted, don’t put yourself through this!
  • The Gratitude journal works whether you have electricity or internet access, or not! You can write in your Gratitude journal by candlelight. You can write in your Gratitude journal when your plane is taking off, no-one tells you to turn your pen off! You can write in it sitting in the sun, at the beach, or on the ski-slopes. OK, perhaps sitting on the ski-slopes may be a bit chilly, but I’m sure you’ll be grateful for the warm fire that awaits you when you get back to your spot!

The whole point of writing a Gratitude journal is to get into the feeling (or vibration) of being positive and thankful. By having a dedicated journal for this very exercise makes it so much easier to truly benefit. I may sound old-fashioned (heaven forbid) by talking about the benefits of writing it down by hand, but trust me, I’ve tried it both ways. The journal that you can take with you everywhere definitely wins.

 

Have fun writing in your Attitude of Gratitude journal. Here’s wishing you a happy and grateful 2013!

Kind regards

Jill

 

Attitude of Gratitude

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I’ve written about Gratitude before – and many of you have heard me talk about it. It’s something that is hard to define precisely, and one of those things that you really only know when you’ve been practicing it.  I always thought I was grateful. I thought I was practicing Gratitude. It was only when I experienced the physical shift that I truly ‘got’ what Gratitude was really about.

 

This word is used liberally and I think we’ve almost got blase about it. It’s also really easy to talk about it and think you understand it – even teach about it. But it’s an entirely different thing to feel grateful with every fibre of your being.

 

Sometimes we need challenges or ‘disasters’ to make us feel truly grateful. Isn’t that a paradox? Surely we should feel grateful when everything is going well? Surely we are grateful and showing gratitude simply by not being unhappy or moaning about the things that aren’t right in our lives?

 

Let me give you some examples:

 

A friend’s beautiful house burnt down. Do you know what they said to me? “We’re so grateful we are all alive“.

Another friend lost his wife at the age of 39 years old. What did he say? “I’m so grateful the kids knew their mother and that I have them to live for.”

When my father died, I was overwhelmed with Gratitude for what he had given me. The example he had led, the community they had been part of. We were filled with Gratitude for the friends, the messages, the outpouring of love when he was in a coma.

Perhaps we are sent challenges in our lives to make us realise what we do have.   Like a kid at Christmas who gets a room full of new toys, but complains about the one thing they wanted and didn’t get – as adults we can get forgetful of what we have, and think only of what we still want.    What if, by keeping a Gratitude journal, we could avert disasters?

 

Imagine (and this isn’t based on any scientific research that I’m aware of!) if by showing that you were truly grateful and living in Gratitude – you didn’t need to have a horrific experience to make you wake up to what you really have?  I’m willing to give it a go if it makes our lives easier in the future! What about you?

 

Having an Attitude of Gratitude is something you can activate at any time that you choose. Before you set your goals for 2013 I’d like to suggest you think about what you already have, what you have achieved – physically, mentally, spiritually, materialistically – and see how wealthy you truly are. When we look at what is going right in our lives, we see everything in a more positive light.

 

If you need help in writing your Gratitude list – the Attitude of Gratitude Journal is about to be published. You can order yours from http://www.jillhutchison.com/gratitude-journal/.

 

For the next 48 hours only, I am offering a very special offer. Buy-one-get-one-free. That’s right – if you order one, I’ll send you two. If you order 4 I’ll send you 8!  Postage is free to anywhere in the world.  Offer ends on Sunday 30 December at midnight Perth (Western Australia) time (GMT +8) while stocks last. This offer is for the first 100 Journals sold (so if they are all sold sooner than Sunday, I’ll take this offer down).
When you checkout using the secure payment gateway, your order will only show the number of journals that you have ordered. When I have received your order I will mark is as needing double the quantity you’ve ordered.

 

 

Happy New Year – and I hope that you have a wonderful 2013!

 

Kind regards

Jill

Jill Hutchison
Author of Attitude of Gratitude Journal

www.jillhutchison.com

www.evolvedynamic.net

 

 

 

 

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