This blog is around personal development and looking at the beauty of diversity. I’m glad that many people read this; it shows we are fortunate to have moments to reflect on how we can improve ourselves and make things better around us.
Unfortunately, these are not things all of us are able to do. The invasion of Ukraine will affect thousands of innocent people. These are human beings, living their lives just like you and I do.
Where does that leave those of us who are not directly affected?
Category: Personal Development
How to overcome our human limits – the answer is not ‘do more’.
The respite of December has come and gone. February has rolled in. The sluggish start to the New Year has officially ended.
Time for business. work. meetings. Important Stuff
They say people once believed we would work only a few hours a day with the exponential growth of computing power. In fact, the opposite is true – humans are the weak link in the juggernaut of faster, better connected technology.
Small deeds maketh the man
Yesterday, an opportunity presented itself. I was buying lunch. I saw one rice bowl with a wrong sticker printed on it, meaning it was accidentally marked one third of the price.
This was in a supermarket. So I knew I could go to the self-scan. Nobody would have noticed.
Would this have been morally wrong?
Maintaining healthy relationships as an adult
Since the new year, I’ve been reflecting on my relationships with others. I have a habit of losing touch with people I know. I then feel like I don’t actually have friends. Does this sound familiar?
The pandemic has broken a lot of our social norms. People we used to meet on a day-to-day basis are no longer conveniently in front of us. At first we tried regularly video calls, but these seemingly fell away after a while (at least they did for me, anyway). We’re now finding it harder to build back social lives outside of those who we have been in lockdown with. If you’re like me, you may have forgotten that there’s a world out there!
How’s that New Years Resolution going? I failed mine already
I’m extremely disappointed in myself. Despite all my hard work, I managed to fail my New Years Resolution.
I did all the hard yards, planning and preparation. Yet four days in, my ambitions for 2022 are in tatters.
Making Sense of 2021
Building a narrative over a full year is usually tough. I often forget most of what I did towards the beginning of the year. This year is particularly troublesome, as post-March 2020 and 2021 melded together as one relentless monotony. Pre-pandemic life feels a distant memory, with our changes to lifestyle and work now feeling […]
Taking time to develop our writing skills
The word ‘writing’ suggests an artistic craft which only authors do. Yet every day we type emails, comment on posts and message our friends. With the boom of internet communication we are spending more time writing. However, we spend very little time actively developing how we write.
With my recent focus upon blogging, I realised that I had fallen into this trap. It has been years since I reflected on my writing style, and how I could improve, which for someone writing a blog on personal development, it is not the best example to set!
Why did I decide to start a podcast?
Last month, I listened to an interview with Lucy Gourlay, a coach who had started a podcast called ‘Lucy Loves’ over the last year. She detailed her trials and tribulations of whether to start it or not, and how it had since become a key part of what she does, ultimately supporting her business.
Fast forward a few weeks, I found myself releasing my first ever podcast episode, in a whirlwind journey of setting up tech, deciding on a name/concept and finding a first interviewee. So what pushed me to make the decision of starting ‘Behind the Suit and Tie’?
My reflections three months into a job transition
Moving to a new job is a stressful time, though particularly so when moving to a new sector or shifting career. For me this was also combined it with moving countries, as well as having to do so during the pandemic which just made everything more complicated.
So I thought I would share some early reflections of what helped me settle into my new role, and the pitfalls to avoid when shifting careers, based upon my recent experience.
Are we too obsessed with the concept of growth?
A large portion of our economic indicators are based upon GDP growth. Over the last century, our main idea of measuring a country’s success is as to whether it has GDP growth or not. GDP has often been heralded as the mark of doing ‘better’, and it is only recently that we have started to question this whole concept in mainstream discussions.
This wider economic debate got me thinking about the idea of growth itself, including from our own perspective on personal development. As a coach, we often love using the word growth as a strong visual image of improvement – it harks to our childhood where we grew to fully formed adults. And yet, this obsession with the idea of growth may actually be unhealthy.