I’m using the L in my series of alphabet newsletters this month to talk about Lessons learnt in Life.  I’m sure we’ve all got our favourites, but I’d like to focus on 12 that have become a kind of moral compass for me.  Although I haven’t written them down until now, they have determined a number of the decisions I have made in both my business and personal life and are the ones that I tend to hold close to my heart.

Do what you love doing with people you like.   You’re more likely to give any job 100% of your effort and attention if you enjoy what you’re doing and you’re doing it with people you like!  Even when you love what you do, you can experience rocky times that can question why you’re doing it.  But when you love and value what you do, you are able to find the resilience required to ride the storms.  Link this to working with people you like and you are much more likely to achieve or exceed the results you set yourself.

We are the results of our own thoughts and actions.  If you don’t believe in yourself, how can you expect anyone else to? I’m a great believer in the Henry Ford quote ‘if you think you can or if you think you can’t, you will’.  Our subconscious mind is such a powerful tool and it can either work in our favour or against us.  When we think negatively we succeed in creating a negative impression and when we think positively we achieve more of the results we desire.  D Bruce Lee said ‘Do not allow negative thoughts to enter your mind for they are the weeds that strangle confidence’.  My tip is to think about a time when you’ve felt most positive and try to replicate those thoughts and feelings.  You’ve heard me say it before, but sometimes we need to fake it until we make it!  The more we practice, the easier it will become.

Where focus goes, energy flows.  As you will no doubt have noticed, my newsletters can be a little sporadic!!  It’s sometimes much easier to prioritise other tasks above writing, yet when I sit down with a clear focus about what I’m about to write, I wonder why I’ve put it off as the words just flow. Over the years, newsletters haven’t been the only tasks to move down the list of things to do!  However, I’ve realised that there is a simple way to deal with this mild form of procrastination.  Decide what the outcome should be.  Write down all the steps you’ll need to take to make it happen.  I often use post it notes and write one idea per post it note, you can then easily prioritise them.  By taking this approach it breaks the task down into bite size chunks and the first step doesn’t seem quite so daunting!

If you’re in the room, be in the room.  Have you ever been invited to an event and wished you’d never accepted, yet when you get there you have a wonderful time?  I know I have.  I now have a rule that if I’m going to be there I’m going to have the best time and also make it worthwhile for others who are attending.  What’s the point of doing anything half hearted?  For me, it links into point 2.  If I attended a social that I didn’t really want to go to and walked in, stood by myself all evening and didn’t make any attempt to join in or speak to others, I would go home with the thought that I knew it was going to be a disaster.  However, if I turned up with the attitude that I’m here and it’s going to be great – then I’d make an effort to speak to others and have some fun.  The next time you have to go to an event that you’re not looking forward to, do everything in your power to make it a positive experience.  Wear your favourite clothing as it will make you feel good and then circulate and scintillate!

Listen to your intuition, we’ve got a ‘gut’ feel for a reason.  How many times do you look back on your life and think, my intuition was telling me to do something different, but you ignored it?  We often overrule our gut feeling when our emotions are involved.  In hindsight we can often see the signs that were telling us the route we should take but at the time were perhaps being led by the heart rather than the head.  Learn to listen and trust your intuition. If something doesn’t add up or creates a niggling doubt, address it.  Ask questions, listen with your eyes and ears to the responses and then make your decision.   Your intuition is drawing on thoughts that you’re not necessarily aware of – they’re those things that are stored away in your subconscious mind.

Fail to prepare and prepare to fail.   I’m zealous in my preparation.  If my clients knew how much real time went into preparing their materials, they’d be shocked!  I’m very Winston Churchill in my view that ‘it takes a good three weeks to prepare a spontaneous speech’ and run through my events multi-fold until I don’t need notes to keep me on track. I will cover all the information required, it might just be in a different order to how I imagined as I love to be led by my audience and cater for their needs.  It’s only through thorough preparation that I feel confident to be able to do this.

Always make a connection.  Whether we like it or not, we all create an impression on the people with whom we meet and interact.  It’s up to us to take responsibility to make sure it’s a positive one!   I’m often teased for knowing so many people wherever I go, but people often remember me because I’ve created a connection with them that has made them feel like an individual.  Many years ago, I came across the quote ‘people don’t remember what you say, nor what you do, but they always remember the way you made them feel’.  This has stayed with me throughout my working and personal life.  It doesn’t take much effort for us to leave people feeling good about themselves.  Kindness and treating people how they’d like to be treated are all important elements.

If you don’t ask, you don’t get.  Don’t ever be afraid to ask for help.  It’s a waste of your time and other peoples when you sit struggling for the sake of it.  When I first started out in business, I didn’t like to ask for help as I thought people would see me as an interruption, so I’d muddle along and probably take two or even three times as long to complete a task.  Now I ask away as I appreciate all the help I can get.  This includes help with my PC, guidance, feedback and, of course, work!  It’s like the old adage that ‘many hands may light work’. Remember, people don’t walk around with crystal balls looking at you struggling.  They don’t suddenly think, I wonder if Jane could do with some help from me.  You need to let them know in what way they can help you and then look at what you can do to return the favour!

Beware of what you give permission to!  I’m aware that I often talk about this, but I do hold ‘role modelling’ close to my heart.  If we expect standards of others, we’ve got to live those standards ourselves.  It’s no good saying one thing and doing another and then being annoyed with those around us when they do the same.  We have to be the mirror of what we want to see, so that others can see what good looks like

Forgiveness isn’t the same as forgetting.  I’ve had this conversation a number of times as forgiveness can often be interpreted as being ‘soft’ and allowing others to get away with their actions.  However, my feeling is that the longer I hold a grudge, the only person that loses out is me as it eats away at me and becomes a much bigger issue in my head.  I might not forget what someone has done or how they have behaved towards me, but if I can find a way to forgive them, it allows me to move on and drop the draining emotion that is attached to the issue.

Ask for forgiveness rather than permission.  For those of you who know me well, you know I’m not one to sit around and wait for things to happen to me.  As Ghandi would say, ‘be the change you want to see in the world’.  I tend to get on with what’s needed to achieve the desired outcome, which often works very well.  Of course, there have been the odd occasion that I’ve done something in the wrong way and had to ask for forgiveness, but these times in my life have been very much in the minority!

Keep things simple. There have been times in my life when I’ve created a policy or model that hasn’t followed this lesson.  And after spending a lot of time in creating it, I’ve been very frustrated when people haven’t used it!  At the time I thought it was showing off my skills in the best possible way, but really it was doing the exact opposite.  When you make things simple, more people are likely to understand it, use it and share it with others.  And in this way your message gets embedded more effectively.

So there they you have it … the 12 lessons in life!  What lessons have you learned that you’d want to share?  Call it serendipitous but as I started writing this newsletter, Regina Brett’s lessons popped up on my Facebook page.  You’ve probably seen them before, but I think she’s noted down some really good lessons … I certainly live by no.19!