Monday, January 19, 2009

Newsletter January 2009 - 3 ideas to help you achieve your goals for 2009

Barely three weeks into January - plenty enough time for mostNew Years Resolutions to have been broken and forgotten. But what's a constructive way to deal with the"Three Weeks into New Year Irresoluteness phenomenon"?

Today I'm going to suggest three useful ideas that can help a lot more than New Year's Resolution.First, individual Life Coaching. Even if it does nothing more, one-to-one life coaching provides a regular boost to your motivation and some objective feedback to your progressin achieving your important goals. Good Life Coaching will offer much more than this, and the ideasthat I use most with clients come from practical philosophy (what would a wise person advise about this?),,positive psychology (what does research tell us will help me become happier?) and cognitive therapy(how can I change the way I think to change the way I feel?). I've just opened up some extra slotsfor life coaching in Central London on Friday afternoon/early evening. If you are interested in findingout more about how this can help you, drop me an e-mail at tim@timlebon.com

A second acitivity that can be very useful and enjoyable is to attend an adult education class. London mayhave many faults, but lack of good adult education is not amongst them. Adult Education classes at centralLondon locations like the City Lit near Covent Garden and City University in Islington are a great way of getting the brain stimulated instead of vegging out in front of the TV.I'm running three courses that might be of interest in the next week.There's a one-off workshop on Philosophical Life Coaching next Saturdayat the City Lit - no previous experience of philosophy or coaching required - and two ten-week courses at City University, on Personal Development ThroughPhilosophy (Tuesday evenings) and Positive Psychology (Thursday evenings) respectively.None of these courses require previous experience of philosophy or psychology, and allthat is needed from you is an interest in the subject and a desire for it to help you in practice.

A third practice that may help you achieve your goals this year is to read some good personal development books.
Regular readers will know that I am not one of those people who disparage all personal development or "self-help" books.
Sure, Aristotle, Sartre, Marx and Darwin were more original and profound thinkers than those that feature in the self-help section
of your local book shop - but how readable and practical are their great works?
The best self-help books distill this wisdom into understandable and practical advice -making it as simple as it can be, but no simpler.
This year you will see that whilst the top few classics remain much the same as last year, there are some new entries lower down the chart.
The new entries cover mindfulness, relationships, and changing habits - all very important topics. The recommended books on them provide
accessible and well-researched introductions. Hope that some of these books are of use for you.
1. The Seven Habits of Highly effective People Stephen Covey (1)
2. Man's Search for Meaning Viktor Frankl (2)
3. The Feeling Good Handbook David Burns (3)
4. Overcoming Low Self-Esteem Melanie Fennell (4)
5. The Conquest of Happiness Bertrand Russell (5)
6. The Mindful Way Through Depression Mark Williams, John Teasdale et al (-)
7. Don't Sweat the Small Stuff -and it's all small stuff Richard Carlson (6)
8. The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work John M. Gottman& Nan Silver (-)9. Changing for Good James Prochaska et al(-)10. How to Win Friends and Influence People Dale Carnegie (9)
Bubbling Under
Emotional Intelligence Daniel Goleman (7)
The Consolations of Philosophy Alain de Botton (10)
The Art of Happiness Howard Cutler and the Dalai Lama (8)
Happiness - Mathieu Ricard (-)
The How of Happiness Sonja Lyubomirsky (-)
Of course this list just reflects my personal opinion - I wonder what books we'll find helpful in 2009 ...

Whichever of these three roads you choose, or if you choose your own path, I wish youevery success with all your dreams and objectives for 2009

Tim LeBon

http://www.timlebon.com

Labels: , , , ,