Hi everyone, it seems like a while since I wrote for the blog so seeing as it is a cold snowy afternoon I decided that I would spend time indoors keeping warm and writing another entry.
A couple of weeks ago I delivered some training for a local agency on supervision. When the agency approached me regarding the training I remember them telling me that they had a supervision policy and that supervision was something that was happening in their organisation, they believed, on a regular basis. My own perspective of that was a little different to theirs. During the time I was doing work in the agency, on several occassions if I asked about supervision, I got different answers according to who I asked. Then, over a period of time, realised that although there was a policy in place, it had become one of those areas where it was part of a good intention, but the reality was that it somehow had slipped to the bottom of the pile.

So often in life it is easy to believe that we are doing something, and we convince ourselves that we really are, eating a healthy diet, drinking our six glasses of water, taking regular exercise etc etc. but how honest are we really being with ourselves?

I know through the festive period my "healthy diet" took on a new slant, eating chocolate became a part of the healthy diet. I once read in a magazine that chocolate eaten in moderation was good for you, so it was easy to make the link between that and adding it on to my list of healthy foods!
In the same way the regular exercise which was easily accomplished on a fine sunny afternoon taking Bonnie, my little Jack Russel for a walk, soon fell into being a non priority and rushing round the house running up and down the stairs soon became the "regular exercise" I was becoming used to!

So what do we need to do to ensure that we are keeping on track and not slipping into shabby habits about what we need to do?

I am currently coaching a client who has been feeling a little disgruntled about her progress in meeting her goals and seemed to be constantly beating herself up for not having lost enough weight, done enough exercise, been sufficiently focussed on her achievements etc. We spent her session that week considering how much weight was she trying to lose? How much exercise was enough exercise? How much was she trying to achieve?

Through the session she came to recognise that her goals were not clear, she had not reviewed them for some time and as her life was changing her needs too were changing, she realised that the weight she was trying to lose was in fact possibly no longer a realistic target but actually one that she had set for herself many years ago and was still, some ten years on, trying hard to achieve! In all the ten years of trying, the weight loss had never been achieved and she constantly swung on the pendulum of the scales between feeling ecstatic and then extremely miserable as her weight fluctuated up and down the scale. She recalled periods of time in the past ten years of feeling happy and healthy but recognised that this feeling was not down to her weight but to internal feelings that had been created by external events. Somehow in her mind she was living in this futuristic place of thinking that she could only be happy when she had lost weight. Through our discussions she came to recognise that the weight was probably secondary to her feelings about herself. Once she felt that she could accept herself for who she is and give herself permission to be happy whatever weight she is, she felt that she may have gained a key to her future happiness.

So often in life we are so bound up with promising ourselves that our life will be happy once we have a beautiful home, a new car, a fabulous figure, etc that we dont give ourselves permission to be happy now.

So what are the key messages from this?
I guess the first one is to be honest with yourself. By being clear about what you are doing or not doing and why?
The second one is to be clear about what are you trying to achieve? Regularly review those goals to ensure that they remain pertinent to you and the way things are for you now. Time moves on and expectations and requirements change, ensure the goals you are trying to achieve continue to serve you well, if not change them!
The third message is to live your life to the full, live for today and let tomorrow look after itself.