Moxie Work and Career

Online Planning Tools (Resources)

September 27 Dawn

I’ve been looking around lately for a better planning/to-do tool that I can use online and will sync to my phone (I’ve used One Note for years but it’s really slow on the phone). It was beginning to take as long as it took me to switch from my IPhone to Samsung (months), so I went exploring last week.

I’m actually really happy with paper and pen. It suits me. But I’ve been out and about a lot recently, and, well, I’ve got a brain like a sieve.

In 100 Days to Done , people were talking about how much they weren’t into planning, and this came up at the right time. So for you, here’s the same information I popped to them in an email.

Here we go (personal opinion ahead, and ones I love you may hate and vice versa). I’ve not included the ones that are $47 upwards a month, or ones with just a free trial period, or ones that are plain old pants unless you upgrade.

Oh, and this isn’t a great big review list. It’s just me, one person looking for something that fits her needs of finding something that will do personal plans and business projects.

This one is great. I love it. It’s called Asana. I’ve just been using the free version so far, and if you’re using it just for yourself and personal projects it’s fab. For business, awesome. Writing, creative projects – yup, it’s lovely.

This one was a bit clunky and reminded me a little of my email inbox which scares the hell out of me some days, but it was easy to use and the focus is on to-do lists. It’s called Toodledo. But, sadly, I can’t just use something because I really like the name! Or could I? No. No.

Another one with a snazzy name called Remember The Milk: free and upgrade. The free version didn’t include syncing to my phone so I left it.

For personal/family organising there is this one called Cozi. Definitely focuses on family planning (as in family organizing, not actual family planning, you know, ‘how many numbers of children will we have sorta planning). I actually liked this. What did make me giggle was you can message each other, perfect if you’ve all stopped talking. Oh, and it’s got a wee journal area too. Nice.

This one isn’t as eye catchy as Asana, but still really good. It’s called Producteev. I liked it, same functions as Asana, but I didn’t choose because I preferred the user experience of Asana.

There’s this one called TodoIst I liked it for work and play. But again, for the free version you don’t get access to all the tools.

Oh, and Slack, which we were talking about on 100 Days on Facebook. But it’s more a collaboration tool, rather than personal products and goals tracking tool. Still slick.

Others:

Plenty. Google ‘to-do list project management or goal planning tools’ and you’ll see a lot more. Be safe though. Where it says ‘Sign Up, It’s Free!’ do your digging around the site, is it? Or is it just free for a wee while? Remember, if you sign up for any you are bound to be sent plenty of emails asking you to upgrade. And Dawnie ‘stay safe online’ tip: don’t pay for free, or check how easy it is to cancel! I’m just saying.

And remember,

Paper and pen do the job too.

But it’s the person using the tools that really does the do.

Okay, over and out. I hope that doesn’t send you off down Internet Squirrels land too much.

Much love,
Dawn

Letting the Old Ways Fall

September 24 Dawn

In any change, there comes a time when you know that old ways are not supporting the new:

Habits
Thought patterns
Behaviours
Routines
Actions

Growth, change, development can be terrifying because what we once we believed as our truth can feel like it’s dying and being eroded away. Transformation has to involve a period of letting the old fall. If it doesn’t, nothing has changed.

But in the ‘period of time’ when it’s happening it can feel like we have nothing to hold on to, that the world as we believed it was doesn’t feel real anymore, or that what have always known for us is coming to an end.

Depending on what you are working on right now, is there something that needs to fall away in order for the new to emerge?

For business, it could be a habit, strategy, piece of work that no longer supports who you have become or what you want to share with the world.

It could be a relationship you are part of where the old rules of how it went no longer apply or a restricting what it could become next.

For your career/work, it could mean letting fall a lifetime of learning in a specific area as the work no longer fulfills you or drives you.

Sometimes we hold on to the old ways because we don’t have enough clarity of the new, yet. So, we hold on tighter. This restricts the growth and nothing can emerge. It takes courage to release the old ways. A trusting that you can put it quietly down now and still remain standing with all the knowledge, learning and wisdom of the old.

What could emerge if you let it fall: what you know in your heart, needs to be … with courage … released?

Announcing: Do What You Love to Do Online Workshop – Registration Open

April 20 Dawn

8 weeks to explore what matters to you and how to align who you are with what you ‘do’ in the world.

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When people ask, ‘What do you do?’, is it true you often answer with what you get paid to do. What we ‘work at’ appears to be one of the criteria of how we define others, and how we identify with ourselves.

I don’t believe for a second that who we really are is what we are paid for.

But. And yes, it’s a big but …

What you are paid for, what you do in ‘work’, how you spend your time does shape your soul: the highs, the lows, the moment by moment experiences, the loves, the hates, the skills used – and those ignored or forgotten – and the time you spend on the ‘doing’ does impact your understanding of who you think you are, and the world around you.

And, no question, adds to our well-being and happiness.

For many of us we had the following career and work advice before we were let loose and told ‘You’re an adult now, go forth make a living (note living, not life) …

*crickets*

Yep, nothing.

Maybe you had a 20 minute careers (cough cough) interview with someone you had only ever seen ghostly walking about the school halls with a clipboard for years before you found yourself in conversation with them. Young, impressionable (maybe) they told you that your skills would be best in this or that career: you listened, you believed them, away you went.

That’s if you were lucky, well, actually I don’t know if lucky is the right word, maybe unfortunate.

Maybe you are still following their ‘guidance’. Or maybe, being human, you have another story: perhaps circumstances and life meant you had no choice but to take the route you are on, maybe you had to fend for yourself at young age, perhaps you had parents/carers who had already decided what you were going to get paid for before you were out of nappies.

Right gorgeous,

I’m a huge believer that doing what you love is a happier way to live, you in? (Being who you are is w-a-y happier though!) And, I want it on record that doing what you love is not always for payment.

So many of us say we want to change our career, to do work that matters, we want to enjoy what we do, make a difference, use our (mastery) skills, talents, gifts and passions. We all have ideas, we all have plans, thoughts, ‘what-if’s’ and wonder if we will ever return back from a weekend or holiday to the work place without the fear and dread of going in the door for more of the same.

We know that there can be another way. Yet, it is difficult to begin, to start, to create. That is perfectly normal. It can take a few years of ‘being an adult’ and living a little before we even begin to start the questions that matter.

The Do What You Love Course is designed to help you work out what really matters to you, how to get started, how to keep going, how to explore your options, how to create happiness and peace now as you are preparing your next moves, how to make a shift, move, change, gear up, apply and alteration or transformation with grace, inspiration and ease.

Or, to find the meaning in what you are doing now.

Please join me for 8 weeks of lessons, actions, ideas, plans, support, sparkly bits, community and conversation.

Each week, you will receive a lesson and actions to take. You will need to allow 4 – 6 hours at least for each week of the course to actually take the steps. While you are working on your thing (even if you haven’t got as clue what your thing is right now, you will be the end of week one), we will also have a space to connect, share, get support, ideas, encouragement, input from others in a private Facebook group.

The weeks are as follows:

You can read the weeks in more detail here.

Pre Course: As soon as you register you will have some prep work to do.

Week One: What Should You Be Doing?

Week Two: Getting Started

Week Three: The Design

Week Four: Relationships/Connections

Week Five: Great Work V’s Work

Week Six: Salary to Solopreneur

Week Eight: Maintaining a Happier, Fulfilled, Balanced Life – a theme throughout the 8 weeks.

We’ll also have 4 Q and A calls together where you can bring your own questions about your specific circumstances.

By the end of the 8 weeks, you will be well on the way to creating what matters to you, you will have explored and leapt over the confusion and into a place of clarity. Dragged out and declared your skills, talents and gifts. That you will be taking action, connecting, communicating, putting ideas into action. As soon as you sign up you will have prep work to do.

Do What You Love to Do is ideal for you if,

You are currently feeling miserable because of what you ‘do’ for a living or because you aren’t using all your talents and gifts in some capacity in your life, and you have other ideas inside you that you have to create before you explode (well, not really!).
You are at the point in your life – but it can happen any time – where you are asking ‘what is my life purpose’, ‘where did I go wrong’ or ‘I wish I knew what to do first’.
You are ready to let go of the myths, stories and legends you’ve heard about ‘love work’ and are prepared to role your sleeves, come into the 21st century, open your mind (and heart) and take action (the action part is mega important, this is a workshop, not a ‘someday course’).
You want a vibrant course – you want to connect, to share, to do it with a little sizzle and the tools and techniques.
You aren’t looking for big shiny ‘you can make a million by next Tuesday ‘ career course – urgh, blech, con – nope, you want to take a course where what you learn, explore, action you can use again.
You have a sense of humour. Love the idea of getting stuck in (finally) to your own stuff.
You need help.

Cost: £97
no cancellations

There is also the option to pay in 3 installments, and another for those on a limited income.

Got a question? Email me. Hit reply and I will answer any questions.

The details are up. Your prep work is ready.

All the details are here on the Do What You Love course website (part of Living Moxie).

See you over there.

A Donkey, A Man, His Son & A Lesson In Trying to Please Everyone

August 29 Dawn

A remix of an Aesop’s Fable …

Once upon a time…

Well, let’s say in 1167, a man left his farm to collect supplies and buy new stock from market. The market was held weekly in the fairy-tale walled city of Carcassonne in Southern France, a three day walk away.

He and his son traveled together, along with their donkey.

When they entered the fields outside the ramparts the man was riding on the back of the donkey, and his son was leading with rope.

They made their way between workers tending to crops, and no sooner had they passed they heard a woman say, ‘That’s disgraceful, look at that vile man, what kind of a man is he, how selfish, him being carried and his son walking’.

The farmer felt so guilty he got off the donkey, put his son the back and he took the rope.

They crossed over the lowered bridge to the ramparts, where local food sellers were setting up for the busy day trading ahead.

No sooner had they passed when the farmer and son heard a passer-by shout, ‘What an ignorant child, look at him sitting on the back of that donkey and his father having to walk, he need taught some manners?’.

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The boy was embarrassed and ashamed so he asked his father to join him and the ride the rest of the way, both on the back of the donkey.

They entered the square whereby a group of women, setting up their produce to be sold pointed at them both screaming, ‘You should be ashamed, both of you sat up there, that poor donkey. You are both pathetic creatures’.

They both decided to get off and walk the rest of the short way.

Outside a local inn people were eating and drinking, upon seeing the boy and his father they started to laugh and point, bringing out others to look at the sight, ‘What a fool. An ass. A perfectly good donkey and they walk!’

The father turned to his son and said, ‘Nothing we do is right. Someone will always disagree with the way we are doing things. Even without the full picture. From now on we make up our own minds of what we believe to be right’.

And the moral is?

Yours, whatever you want it to be.

It’s Never Too Late (But One Day It Will Be)

May 22 Dawn

You’ve heard that saying ‘it’s never too late to be what you might have been’, yes?

(I like to add at the end, ‘but don’t leave it a moment longer’).

It’s a goody.

But it’s not the truth.

It’s one of those quotes that give us the illusion that we shall have enough physical time to get all the stuff (stuff = everything) we want to do actually done: to allow ourselves to get focused and paying attention to all those dreams, goals, desires that we have for our life.

It’s one of those quotes that we get squeeee-inspired with and the next minute we find ourselves planking on the coach with a bowl of Frosties watching repeats of Friends and Greys Anatomy.

We exist in time.

Your physical body (which allows you to experience this life thing) has an expiry date.

Your experience of you will end.

Oh, grim, grimmy-grimmy.

Hear me out.

Most of us are eating cereal waiting for life to start

Waiting until we become the other idea we have of ourselves before we can really live, ‘When I get that job, that relationship, that career, that client, that qualification, that home, that car, into that size of jeans, that reading on the weight scales, when I sort out my confidence, when I have more money, more time (eh???), when I’m ready, when I [insert your own reason here]…then my life will really start’.

Many people who swing by Living Moxie say, ‘I’m worried that this is it’.

(I’m worried that this is it means: feck, I’ve really screwed up this life thing, I’ve been playing at, doing stuff that I really didn’t want to, I’ve wasted so much of my time, listened to folk I shouldn’t have, and now I’m so far in it, I have no idea how to get out!. Happiness? Peace? Joy? Where’s mine?)

News: This. Is. It.

Did you just glance past that last sentence?

And one day it will be too late.

You are everything that your life is waiting for. Everything. Change that to I am everything my life is waiting for and you have a great affirmation (click that link and you can download hundreds of them).

You have the wheel. (Permission is yours: not your parents, carers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, partners, high school teachers, friends from the playground, bosses, ex-workmates. dog or cat…well, maybe the cat has a little of you, but hey that’s cats for you.)

You’re driving.

Optimism bias would suggest that you think you are going to live forever-ever-ever. That exits happen to other people, not you.

Nope. You don’t escape that door. There isn’t enough time for you to try ALL options. Take one.

Don’t wait for life wake up calls. What if it never rings? Then what are you going to do?

You don’t get a new life. You have one.

Quit living in the past, stop projecting into the future. You want a loving life? BE love. You want a happy life. BE happy. You want a peaceful life? BE peace. And on it goes. Be = live it now, not when you’re finished your cereal.

Stick a stake in the ground and claim your life. Own it. Give yourself full permission, it’s the only permission you are waiting on.

Carry on.

Do What You Love Interview: Meet Victoria Cunningham-Downey, Pilates and Yoga Teacher

May 22 Dawn

Next up in the Do What You Love Interviews is Victoria Cunningham-Downey, entrepreneur and owner at StretchBodyMind (based in Glasgow), Yoga and Pilates Trainer & Teacher, Business Mentor ‘helping people in healthy careers to live healthy lives and full time themselves’ and a full time student.

The reason I asked Victoria for an interview was because of her the path: many taken but all leading her back to her first love of Yoga.

If you are in the middle (or start) of a career change/transformation…

and you are asking the, ‘What is my thing?’ question. Ponder this one: is there a thread tying your story together? Is there a common factor in all that you have been doing up to this point. Is there something so simple, you could maybe be missing it because you think it’s too easy? That thread, it could be trying to tell you something.

Victoria, introduce yourself and tell us what ‘doing what you love to do’ means to you?

Okay, I’m an avid yogi, aspiring writer (I will write my book in 2014!) and trainer for people who want to become Yoga Teachers or Pilates Instructors.

I have been practising yoga for over 25 years and teaching for almost 15: teaching Pilates since 2005 and training teachers since 2010. I am a Senior Yoga Teacher (1000+ hours) and because of my own training and practice you’ll find me teaching Yoga and Pilates at all levels.

For me, doing what I love means that in addition to my business, teaching, training and coaching I can keep on learning, right now I am also currently studying Complementary Therapies at college here in Glasgow.

What were you doing before this?

This is a difficult question for me because I have been practicing yoga since I was 13, I was asked to do teacher training at age 18.

At that time though yoga did not have anything like the popularity it has now, and so my reaction to my teacher asking was, ‘No thanks. I’m off to uni to study and then I’ll get a real job.’

Little did I know that yoga was eventually going to become my real job!

So, after 10 years of being youth worker by day and teaching yoga by night I developed successful charity Stretch & Play for children and young people back in 2006.

I then created Stretch NI (Northern Ireland) in late 2009 to work specifically with adults, late 2012 we left Northern Ireland and moved to Scotland to create Stretch Scotland.

In the last 9 months I have expanded this into online and offline personal and professional development through StretchBodyMind.com.

How did you make doing what you love to do happen?

It was a scary step to move from full-time employment into self-employment even though I had been teaching Yoga part-time for over 5 years.

I had a great idea to work with young people when they were children to address their low self-esteem and rising obesity levels so I created Stretch & Play to provide yoga and drama to kids.

This award-winning charity was ahead of its time in its aim and its scope, but I ended up overworking so much so that I had a nervous breakdown in 2008.

However, I picked myself up, made the difficult (and yet right) decision to let the charity go and started teaching adults again – my love – and I’ve been doing that ever since.When I began training people to become Yoga Teachers and Pilates Instructors it felt like I’d finally “come home” to what I was meant to do.

Can you share the good, the bad and the ugly when you made the decision do what you love to do?

The good.

Was winning an UnLtd Level 2 grant, worth £20,000 and an all-expenses paid trip to Tamil Nadu in India to watch entrepreneurs from another culture in action – one of the best experiences of my life.

The bad.

Being on my own and knowing that if I am not present I don’t get paid. I have addressed this by offering my online courses such as the 21 Day StretchBodyMind Body Bootcamp or the Stretch & Play Facilitator Training course.

The ugly.

My breakdown in 2008 and subsequent diagnosis of bipolar disorder was pretty hairy.

It took me some time to accept that I could be a Yoga Teacher and Pilates Instructor and encourage healthy living, while at the same time taking medication to safeguard my own mental health. Today, I am entirely open about my health issues and my clients appreciate my candour, when I tell the story it somehow opens up others to share theirs.

What were the biggest hurdles, challenges and barriers you had to overcome?

My biggest hurdle was allowing myself to let go of my parent’s expectations of me.

I have an MA Honours degree in English Literature and Sociology as well as an MSc in Marketing and a number of diplomas and certificates and I think my parents were expecting me to have some sort of corporate career.

I did try it initially and worked as a Consulting Associate with a very large corporate company, it only lasted 9 months (and it still feels like the longest 9 months of my life).

What led you to this love specifically?

I am obsessed with yoga and have been since I started practicing when I was 13. I can’t imagine yoga not being part of my day so I am thrilled to be sharing my love of yoga with those with the same passion.

What would be your top 5 pieces of advice, or suggestions, words of wisdom you would like to share?

My favourite piece of advice would be from that seminal classic by Susan Jeffers “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway”.

It can be scary to leave the comfort and relative security of a so-called real job but in my story it has allowed me to have experience I would never have dreamed of if I had stayed ‘safe’ (like my trip to India or you know, even a client’s look of joy when she successfully attempts a challenging yoga pose).

I love being able to do what I love on a daily basis.

While I may not have the security of a pension plan, I have the freedom and flexibility to choose my next move, some of which has been quite lucrative.

Another piece of advice I would give is to never stop learning.

All of my courses have an element of personal development in them, even if they are career courses such as Pilates Matwork Instructor training and in my last Yoga Teacher Training course I had a couple of students who attended simply for their own development – I LOVE that!

What has been your biggest learning in your journey so far?

Throughout my journey I have constantly upgraded my skills and knowledge through all sorts of training, including my current Complementary Therapies course which is putting me back into the role of student after being the teacher and trainer for so many years. This has been a huge learning curve for me and one which will, my wish, a better teacher.

What’s next for you on this path?

After being a lone wolf for over 8 years I am planning to do much more co-operative working, setting up a new Yoga Studio & Complementary Therapy Centre with a colleague from my course as well as offering more face-to-face personal and professional development training with a fellow Yoga & Pilates teacher.

I have also committed to writing my first book by the end of this year for the Stretch Barre Method – my unique blend of Yoga, Pilates and Ballet Barre exercises.

What was the biggest piece of learning you picked up and ran with?

Self care is essential – in life and business.

Having worked myself into a breakdown in 2008 I gently picked up the baton and started again in 2009 and now I am so much more careful about taking time for me.

My self-care routine includes a little bit of yoga (10 minutes maximum) in the morning and maybe meditation or tapping, depending on what mood I’m in. I also switch off the computer an hour before bed so I can get a good night’s sleep, which is essential for a person with bipolar disorder.

Pick a quote for life, and explain why it hits a home run for you?

My quote is one I found on a calendar back in 2003 and I can’t find the person who said it but it goes like this:

“It is a great relief when we find that we cannot, nor should we be able to, control everything in our sphere of operation.”

This is perfect for me! If anyone knows who said it please let me know.

Lastly, where can people reach you?

If you are interested in Pilates and Yoga Teacher Training, workshops and classes, the best place to get me is on the StretchBodyMind website. On Twitter I’m @victoriastretch and here on Facebook.