Making office life gorgeous Change One Thing
With life/work coaching expert Curly Martin.
Is your office life gorgeous? We have teamed up with life/work coaching expert Curly Martin to show you how — if you change just one thing, and continue with the change you can build a gorgeous office life for yourself.
We live in a great country with unlimited opportunities, resources and expertise. As usual, the start of this year has prompted all sorts of resolutions, both personal and professional. Sticking to them is difficult, particularly when everyone in your world is hosting another set of resolutions with a completely different time-frame.
This year can be different; use the Change One Thing Plan and make a promise to yourself that you are going to take action to turn your own office life into a gorgeous life, this year! Do it with us and Curly will show you how to do it by concentrating on an area a month and turning one easy change into a habit that will take you to a gorgeous life.
Curly has identified the top 12 areas that people would like to change, and since your professional life reflects your personal life (and vice versa), we will be working on all of them during this year. You can have a gorgeous office life if you are prepared to focus on just one change each month, and we will support each month with tips and hints that will make the journey a gorgeous one.
Gorgeous year topics
How will it work? Each month you will select one area from the recommended list and take action every day on that area. The following month you will select another area from the new category (February — office relationships) and also, continue with the one from the previous month’s list (January — Health) or select a new one from the previous month’s list. As the months go by you will be adding a new action to the list of actions that you already do each day. Easy! The gorgeous you is just around the corner.
June — Your appearance
Make your appearance gorgeous and you will feel gorgeous and radiate gorgeousness and people will want to be near you. Going to work each day and seeing the same people can be an excuse not to make an effort with your appearance.
Perhaps you already have a boyfriend or husband and feel that it is not worth the effort to look gorgeous for work because they never see you during the day and you want to keep the ‘gorgeous looks’ for the evenings only. Or perhaps you feel that you are overweight, too skinny, unattractive that you will never be gorgeous. Or the girls in your office are young, slim and gorgeous and you could never compete so you do not bother.
Unless you take an interest in your appearance you cannot expect other people to take an interest. I hear you say ‘Well I don’t need anyone at work to take an interest in me!’ Wrong!
You are wrong on two counts and I will explain.
- The most important thing to know about looking gorgeous is that every time you go to the ladies you will see yourself in the mirror and this will give you an unconscious boost. Which will in turn give you extra energy and a bounce in your step!
- Even though you may never be told, your management will be taking notice of you. They will see you taking a pride in your appearance and deduce from this that you take a pride in all that you do (whether this is true or not it is all about perception). Management translate this into promotional prospects. So looking gorgeous could mean promotion.
How can I appear gorgeous everyday?
You need to decide what looking gorgeous means to you personally as there are as many definitions to this question as there are people working. Makes sense doesn’t it? So spend a little time thinking about what exactly do I mean when I know my appearance is gorgeous?
How can I appear gorgeous at work?
- Smile at your colleagues often; even if you do not feel like it.
- If you need dental work—get it done.
- Have a new modern hair style
- Wear make-up to work if you do not already.
- Change your make-up.
- Join a clothes exchange where you can renew your wardrobe regularly with little expense.
- Shop carefully look for bargains so you can change your appearance regularly.
- Make sure your hands and nails are clean and your nail polish is not chipped.
- Clean your shoes and renew the heals.
- Stand up straight
- Hold your tummy flat
- Be kind and generous with your time and be happy.
Appearing gorgeous at work is an all-round package. Your looks and your attitude combine to produce the gorgeous effect. One without the other can be seen as a sham. Work on both.
If you really want to change your life contact me to find out how!
May — Your emotional health
Make your emotional health gorgeous and you will enjoy going to work each day and you will find that somehow life is easier, people help you more often and promotion becomes effortless.
How do you control your emotional responses at the moment? When you are told that you have done a poor job - do you react aggressively, sullenly, tearfully, resentfully, spitefully, dismissively or do you calmly consider what has been said and if there needs to be improvement do it or ask for help to achieve it?
Unless you control your emotions, your emotions will control you. There are no other options and you must be in control if you are to maintain a healthy emotional balance which will lead to feeling gorgeous. How does this work? Well you can control your feelings and therefore you can feel gorgeous everyday if you want to.
How can I feel gorgeous everyday?
You need to decide what feeling gorgeous means to you personally as there are as many definitions to this question as there are people working. Makes sense doesn’t it? So spend a little time thinking about what exactly does gorgeous mean to me?
Three ways to the gorgeous emotionally controlled life:
- When your negative emotions do not hold you back or restrict your gorgeous feelings in any way.
- When you are fully in control of your emotions and can easily switch to a positive emotional state when you need to. Thus be able to switch to a gorgeous resourceful state.
- When you can express and acknowledge your emotions appropriately according to the circumstances.
Am I emotionally gorgeous?
- When I open my eyes in the morning am I happy just because I am alive?
- Can I list 10 things that happen everyday that I choose to be happy about?
- Do I wish everyone I meet at work with the same enthusiastic ‘Good Morning’?
- When I am given unfavourable feedback do I respond with a ‘Thank you for the feedback’?
- When I hear a colleague criticising the management do I put forward a favourable comment about the management?
- When a team member talks unfavourably behind another team members back do I walk away without comment?
- Do I smile at the receptionist every morning?
- Do I smile and ask the cleaner how he/she is today?
- Do I have a great relationship with the office maintenance staff?
- Do I have a great relationship with the post room staff?
- I make an effort to smile even when I feel angry or sad?
- I never blame another member of staff for anything?
If you answered ‘Yes’ to six or more of the statements in the above questionnaire, congratulations you know you feel gorgeous at work and that you can feel gorgeous whenever you want to, just by choosing to do so. If you answered ‘No’ more times than ‘Yes’ you need to work on these areas because feeling gorgeous inside creates personal success on the outside and your feelings could be affecting your promotional prospects. If you find this hard and really want to change your life contact me to find out how!
National Office Week along with the Making Office Life gorgeous campaign will provide you with the tools you need to make the difference — you simply have to make the choice.
April — Your job/career
Make your career gorgeous and you will enjoy going to work each day. If you enjoy the job you do you will have the career you love and life will be gorgeous. Ask yourself this question:
“Am I happy to get out of bed on a wet Monday morning to go to work?”
The answer needs to be a resounding ‘yes’ for you to know that your job is gorgeous.
What is a gorgeous job?
You need to decide what this means to you personally as there are as many definitions to this question as there are people working. Makes sense doesn’t it? So spend a little time on your self and your career/job to define what it means to you.
Here are some questions you can ask yourself to start your journey to having a gorgeous career.
Is my job/career gorgeous?
- Do I like the people I work with?
- Does my manager provide support for my work?
- Do I like the environment I work in?
- Does my company treat people fairly and ethically including me?
- Do I have a control and a direct impact on most of the decisions affecting my work or freedom of choice?
- Do the hours I work suit me?
- I am comfortable communicating with my colleagues and managers?
- Does my manager respect my work and appreciate me?
- Do I love the type of job I perform?
- Am I in the right career for me?
- Are my talents fully utilised in my job?
If you answered no to six or more of the statements in the above questionnaire, it could be possible your job/career has a degree of uneasiness which will prevent you feeling gorgeous at work. Causes of uneasiness can be varied and include the influence or impact of the any of the following:
- Erratic changes in management
- Unsuitable hours
- Salary incorrect
- Poor work environment
- Negative company culture
- Too much travel
- Poor management
- Skills mismatch
- Personality mismatch
- Poor company communications
- Workload increased
- Glass ceilings
- Your values not in line with companies
- Burn-out
- Unfulfilled potential
Now you have looked at your job/career you can make the changes necessary to enhance your current role or to find the perfect role. If you need help with this you can contact me to arrange for a coach to work with you on redefining your potential and finding the gorgeous job. Remember that to have a gorgeous job you need to feel gorgeous when you get out of bed on a wet Monday morning!
March — Your finances
Make your finances gorgeous and you will enjoy going to work each day. Most people think that because they are earning money and money is coming in, that their financial situation will be ok. Others think that so long as the debt is on a credit card and they pay the minimum each month life is ok and others completely ignore the financial side of life until it is way too late and the bailiffs are at the door. Do you have a gorgeous financial situation with enough money to pay and play?
What is a gorgeous financial situation?
Well a minimum gorgeous financial situation is one where you have sufficient income to cover your outgoings and also have some money over to save for a rainy day. Income enough so you do not need to worry if an unexpected bill arrives because you have funds to cover this.
A really gorgeous financial situation is one where you not only have sufficient income to cover expenditures and luxuries you can also purchase ISA’s each year and save tax at the same time.
So if you have your finances under control you have a gorgeous financial life. If, on the other hand, you do not know the details of your expenditure per month you are damaging your gorgeous life. I hear you say ‘But it’s boring and I am in debt anyway so why care?’
There are two things in that sentence you need to be aware of, the first is that finances are boring and the second that your debt is not worth sorting out.
How to make finances gorgeous and not boring? Well there are two easy ways to do this and having a dream-goal whilst making your money planning a gorgeous experience. Imagine what it would be like to be able to buy luxuries without the little nagging feeling that you really should not be doing this as you cannot afford it.
Dream-goal — go ahead and really imagine you have the money in cash and can afford the luxury holiday (or what you want). Imagine how gorgeous it will feel, how enjoyable it is to buy what you want knowing you have the money already sitting in the bank to pay for it. Really experience this in full Technicolor and as a movie with you as the star, feeling gorgeously happy because you have your finances under control.
Now you need to do the financial investigation. Decide on a quiet time to do this. Turn off the phone and lock the door. Put your favourite music on in the background, make yourself a gorgeous non-alcoholic drink, you are ready. If you prefer to do it all at one time — go ahead. For some of you this will not be a good idea and the best way forward is to break down your expenditure into areas and work on one area at a time until the job is done!
Here are some money saving tips to start your journey to gorgeous finances.
- If your debt is unmanageable go and get professional unbiased advice from an independent financial advisor.
- Avoid impulse buying by not going to the shops or your favourite shop-website.
- Replace impulse buying with other activities like a walk with friends or some other pleasurable activity. The key is activity.
- If you do need an item use online price comparison sites to make sure you get the best value for your money or Bang for your Buck!
- Pay off your credit card debts quickly as you are paying really high interest on the money.
- Pay off more than the minimum payment required on your credit cards.
- Take out the amount of money you can afford to spend at the beginning of the week and only spend that. Once gone its gone!
- Make your lunch instead of buying it each day.
- If you find number 8 difficult; make your lunch every other day and at least you will be taking some action towards gorgeous goals.
- Replace the coffee you buy from the fashionable coffee shops with water or fruit juice as it will be much healthier and it will make your skin and your expenditure gorgeous.
- Instead of buying that magazine or newspaper take a library book instead.
- Join up with a colleague or two and each one buy a different magazine and share them.
Remember that to have gorgeous finances you need to have an income that is greater than your expenditure which will allow for that gorgeous luxury and leave you happy and debt free!
February — Your Office Relationships
Make your working relationships gorgeous and you will enjoy going to work each day. Most people think that they do not have to work on their relationships and this can be based on the fact that we learnt our relationship etiquette largely by trial and error when we were children. We discovered what worked for us and repeated the process and we learnt what did not work and avoided those actions. So how come work relationships can be so tricky?
What is a happy working relationship?
Well generally speaking a happy working relationship is one where both people have respect for each other and behave in a professionally appropriate way, when in each others company, both in and out of work. Notice it does not mention the word friend as this is not applicable here.
There are numerous reasons for working relationship breakdown, far too many to consider in this article. Therefore I am going to concentrate on some of the rules to good relationship building and offer you some ways of creating gorgeous work relationships.
Before you start you need to read, understand and believe the following statement:
“It is easy and achievable to change your own attitudes and behaviours than it ever is to change the attitudes and behaviours of your co-workers.”
You know that this statement is true. You may be lucky enough to influence another person once in a while but the most effective and long term relationship building, starts and ends with you!
You need to decide that you want to have gorgeous work relationships and having decided you do, select one of the things from the list below, that you will do every day for all of this month. Remember we are working towards the gorgeous you and you are adding to the health action you selected from last months list.
- Respect the other person — no matter what has gone on before, look for a skill or talent that the other person has and compliment them on it.
- Avoid conflict — even if you are in the right and the other person is absolutely in the wrong, avoid conflict by stating your understanding of the situation in a calm and quietly controlled manner. Tip: speak slowly and in a quiet controlled tone.
- Always remember that a good working relationship is very important to you. You have a vested interest in making all your work relationships work as you are being judged on them. Never take sides or talk behind someone’s back as you are also being judged when you do. Be even handed, avoid gossip and never say anything about anyone that would embarrass either of you if the other party ever overheard your comments.
- Listen and hear — you need to really listen to the other person and stop your inner voice (which says things like ‘I know’, ‘That’s rubbish!’ etc.) as it sabotages working relationships. Take time to really listen.
- Ask questions — the more you know about a person the better able you are to understand and build on your relationships. Find out what is important to them.
- Put aside your prejudices — yes you will have some and yes they will badly affect your relationship building abilities. What do I mean? Example: Are you ageist? Is the other person, too young to understand or too old to be worth the effort? If you have any judgemental approaches to relationships; they will fail.
- Avoid blame — this can be a tough one when you are getting the flack for someone else. Simply state what your part in the situation was and then be quiet! There is no need to point the finger and it will not reflect well on you; as no one likes a snitch.
- Help someone — go out of your way to do a task for the person you have most difficulty in working with and do it for no reward. That means you do it without telling anyone.
- Social events — Take great care at any social gathering of work colleagues as this can be a mine field and many careers have been crushed by inappropriate behaviours at these events. Tips: Do not drink alcohol at the event, do not flirt, do not make a fool of yourself or others. Remember respect others.
- Bad boss — you need to decide how important this job is to you because if it is part of your long term career path you will need to make all the efforts to ensure your relationship with your boss is professional and workable. Remember you are responsible for how you behave and how you feel about things.
- Control your un-resourceful emotions — keep your feelings under control. It is never acceptable to lose your temper at work, nor is it professional to burst into tears.
- Take interpersonal skills courses — go on any courses offered to you which will give you skills to advance your interactions with co-workers including, influencing skills, negotiation skills, anger management etc. You know the areas you need improvement.
Remember that to have gorgeous working relationships you must have respect for yourself and for your co-workers and an easy mantra to live a gorgeous life by is, ‘treat your co-workers (no matter whom) as you would wish to be treated’ Keep this fundamental rule and your relationships will be gorgeously easy and happy!
January — Your Health
Take care of your health and improve your gorgeous life. Each year one in three people will be affected by cancer (UK); about 100,000 people in the UK have their first stroke, and heart failure affects around 900,000 people (UK). The other notable fact is that the age at which people are being diagnosed is reducing, ever more people in their 30’s are in these groups.
What does good health mean to you?
I realise this seems a strange thing to ask you to consider. The reason I ask is because we are all at different levels of health and for some of us good health would just mean being able to walk up the office steps without getting out of breath. For others it means being full of energy. You need to determine your own definition of health before you will know if you have it or not. Spend some time thinking about the answer as it will help you decide which activity to start with this month. In line with your own definition of good health, where are you now? How gorgeous is your heath?
There are several factors which contribute to the general meaning and feeling of good health and these would normally include good mental health. In this month we are going to focus on the physical side of good health.
Having decided what good health is for you and where you are in relation to it, select one of the things from the list below, that you will do every day for all of this month. Remember we are working towards the gorgeous you.
- Take more exercise at work — walk the stars instead of taking the lift or get off the bus/train a station earlier and walk from there. Park three streets away from the office and walk from the car.
- Eat for energy — eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables for lunch. Select one of the delicious offers from the M&S lunchtogo range.
- Drink more water — drink plenty of water, at least 1–2 litres every day. Buy a beautiful glass bottle and drinking glass, fill the bottle with water and sip water regularly during the day.
- Reduce caffeine — restrict yourself to 2 cups of coffee or tea a day.
- Reduce sugary drinks — replace every other sugary drink with a glass of water and if possible do not drink any sugary drinks.
- Reduce alcohol units a week — know exactly how many units you drink and reduce it by 50%.
- Eat fish or take fatty oil supplements (if you are not on any medication).
- Take time for you — meditate, spend quiet time alone, have a lavender scented bath surrounded with candles (no music).
- Join a club — swimming, dancing, fitness, gym, horse riding, sailing etc., any club where you have to take exercise and have fun at the same time.
- Eat a piece of fruit if you’re craving something sweet.
- Eat whole, unrefined grain products instead of the processed versions.
- Eat one long-lasting sugar free boiled sweet — when all else fails!
There is nothing stopping you from selecting more than one action or from starting one action this week and adding in another one next week. This will speed up the process. National Office Week along with Making Office Life gorgeous campaign will provide you with the tools you need to make the difference — you simply have to make the choice.
Best-selling author of the Handbook Series, life coach and keynote speaker, Curly Martin has helped more than 1 million people become passionate about their life. In her latest book The Personal Success Handbook, she shows you how to have success on your terms and live a juicy passionate life. Find out more or call free phone 0800 1910200 now.
© Curly Martin
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