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coaching, counselling and training in Worthing (UK) and online with Pat Spink

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success

Today is World Introvert Day

This is from an internet search I did yesterday:

It’s my experience that the (Western) world has been shaped mostly by extraverts and that, consequently, those of us who identify more with the traits of introversion, or are on the cusp between the two (ambiverts), can find it a tough place to navigate at times.

In her book ‘Quiet‘ (which I love), Susan Cain talks about the different levels of stimulation required, and able to be tolerated, by introverts and extraverts and the ‘extrovert ideal’. She quotes William White:

“Society is itself an education in the extrovert values,

and rarely has there been a society that has preached them so hard.

No man is an island, but how John Donne would writhe to hear how often, 

and for what reasons,

the thought is so tiresomely repeated.” Continue reading “Today is World Introvert Day”

Success – on whose terms?

I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit lately.

The stories we tell ourselves about our own lives….

What we say, how we ‘report’ our lives, when we speak to people we haven’t seen for a while and they ask us what we’re up to these days…

Does it feel like we have to ‘put on a show’ and that we’re in a competition that we’re losing more often than not..?

For example, what do we say when someone asks “What did you get up to this weekend?” Have you ever been tempted to ‘guild the lily’ a little to appear more active and interesting than you think the truth might sound? I know I have… face-with-tears-of-joy_1f602

And what does success in one area of our life cost us in another?

Hence some of my recent Instagram posts:

success - what did you have to give upstrengths presupposes energy channeled from other areas

Continue reading “Success – on whose terms?”

Happier, calmer – and slower?

happy-2359349_1280.png

I was prompted to think about happiness last week when a note written on the subject by Albert Einstein was sold for $1.56m.

He gave it to a courier in Tokyo in 1922 instead of a tip. Having just heard that he’d won the Nobel prize for physics he told the messenger that, if he was lucky, the note would become valuable – how right he was!

But was he also right in what he wrote in the note itself? It said:

“A calm and humble life will bring more happiness

than the pursuit of success and the constant restlessness that comes with it.” Continue reading “Happier, calmer – and slower?”

Meaningful Moments from This Year’s London Marathon

How great was it to see Matthew Rees help David Wyeth finish the London Marathon yesterday?

If you didn’t see it you can watch it here.

Some have called it the moment that defined the race. Continue reading “Meaningful Moments from This Year’s London Marathon”

Single by Choice?

emotiguy-1723748_1280I came across an article recently challenging the assumption that everyone should either be in a relationship, or looking for one:

‘There’s a Word for the Assumption That Everybody Should be in a Relationship’ by Drake Baer. Continue reading “Single by Choice?”

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