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The monthly e mail newsletter for business professionals who want growth from Energise Brand Communications Ltd and Rachel Brushfield.

The purpose of this newsletter is to share simple tips and tools to make your life and work easier and help you to market yourself and your business as a unique brand.

This month’s theme is about…………… Purpose-Full living..

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Are you living your life on purpose? What is your purpose? Do you know?

The summer holiday season gives rare time in our busy world to think and reflect about what’s important and what you really want.

For some people meaning and purpose is about making a difference to the world, for others it’s religion or doing a job they love. For some it’s about being creative, for others planning a legacy for family or the community. Whatever it is, it’s important, because living life on purpose is about knowing who you are, why you’re here and doing what’s important to you and giving this back to help the world in some big or small way. Feeling full and purpose-full rather than empty provides more sustained satisfaction than using ‘props’, distracters and addictive substances like drugs, alcohol, worry, the daily lives of celebrities and the adrenalin of busyness.

In this newsletter:

• Why the drive for meaning and purpose?
• How to spot when your life lacks meaning and purpose
• Top 10 tips to create a purpose-full life

Why the drive for meaning and purpose?

More and more people are seeking more purpose and meaning in their lives. Why is this?

We have so much more choice than previous generations and question things, rather than simply accepting the status quo. In previous generations, the women stayed at home and looked after the kids, did the housework and prepared the evening meal and waited for their husband, the breadwinner, to come home. The men chose between 1) the church, 2) the Army or if intelligent enough, 3) a traditional profession such as Doctor, solicitor or accountant. How things have changed. Now women work and look after the kids and beat themselves up for not doing either well enough. Women wanted to ‘have it all’ and now that they do after all the struggle, it still feels like struggle. For many the grass wasn’t greener after all.

How much more choice we have and yet how less happy statistics show that we are. Simple lives when we had less appear to make us happier than complex lives with more success and material possessions. Our Western society, very money and status driven, makes us so busy and tired in the rat race that we run out of energy to spend creating the community that used to give us a sense of belonging and connection. The traditional infrastructures that we thought we could rely on are crumbling away; the church; a job for life; a guaranteed pension; the NHS. No wonder we are reeling and seeking more meaning and purpose.

In addition, world events whether natural disasters or those involving terrorists where young lives are sadly and unnecessarily lost, makes people sit up, wake up and question whether they are making the most of their life. Are you?

How to spot when your life lacks meaning and purpose

Below are some clues when your life or work lacks meaning or purpose.

• You feel stuck on a hamster wheel that you can't get off
• Things feel out of kilter and you are in a perpetual state of stress
• You catch colds and flu easily and your neck and back often feel painful
• You seem to fall asleep earlier and earlier
• You haven't got the energy to see your friends or follow your hobbies
• You feel like a human doing not a human being
• You have a sense of dissatisfaction but you can't quite put your finger on why
• There's a mismatch between your values and those of your employer
• You find yourself working longer and longer hours and yet becoming less productive, feeling unsatisfied and demotivated
• You wish you were a child again without any responsibility
• You often/always drink alcohol to relax and wind down after work
• The road to your retirement, if you can afford to retire with your uncertain pension, feels bleak
• You worry about the size of your mortgage; the robustness of your pension; your job security; even your sanity
• You think more about meeting other people's expectations than whether you are happy
• If you're not busy, you feel anxious

Going on holiday can give you a chance to recharge your batteries but often people get even more stressed before they go on holiday and worry when they are away about what to do when they have to get back and catch up with themselves, so never really wind down and switch off.

Top 10 tips to create a purpose-full life

Here’s 10 tips to support you in making changes to create a more purpose-full life.

1. Take yourself on a personal away day and have a life MOT
2. Uncover with a coach's objective eye what's really important to you, and redesign your life and work
3. Take time out for simple pleasures; feed the ducks; walk on grass; watch a sunset; observe how different birds fly differently; notice the colours of Autumn leaves
4. Plan time in your month for socialising with people who energise you and also plan some quiet ‘me time' regularly
5. Read about people who inspire you and who have done something amazing for the world e.g. Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, Bob Geldof
6. Write a list of things that for you have meaning; Who and how do you want to be? What do you want to have? What do you want to do?
7. Review your work. Imagine if money were no object, what work would you choose to do now? Identify the blocks to this dream becoming reality.
8. Simplify your life; cut out the unnecessaries, downshift if necessary to a smaller house with less financial pressure or move to the country for a simpler life
9. Create clear purposeful goals that are meaningful to you and achieve them step by step
10. Help other people; carry a pushchair up some steps, do some voluntary work, become a mentor for a schoolchild or for the Princes Trust

Life can feel all too short, so even more important to make the most of it. Not by packing in as much ‘doing’ and busyness as possible, but by enjoying the journey and designing your life with things that give you purpose and meaning.

Let us know if Energise can help you uncover your purpose and create more meaning. Defining your values and motivation in a 2 hour session is one simple way that takes little time and makes all the difference.

I am moving my home to the peace and beauty of the Oxfordshire countryside soon from London and can’t wait as this is a long held personal dream of mine !

See you in September.

We look forward to hearing from you. Have a great July.

Cheers

Rachel Brushfield ©
Director, coach and marketing mentor
Energise – Insight & Clarity for Growth

Previous newsletter topics include: The danger of making assumptions; follow up; making big decisions; managing yourself; being specific; rewarding relationships; career crossroads; 2005 stock take; becoming unstuck; self-promotion; safe risk; optimism; more health, wealth and happiness; how to handle ‘difficult’ people; how to stop wasting and save time; maximising your potential;how to do absolutely nothing; listening; career choice and change; stress; focus for results; procrastination; reflection; fear; rapport; productivity; self-branding; beliefs; time management and S.M.A.R.T. goals.

If you’d like to receive a back copy of any of these, please e mail us to mail@energisingconnector.co.uk putting the Energise Tips & Tools newsletter of interest in the subject box.

Contact

Rachel Brushfield
Energise Brand Communications Ltd.
t +44 (0) 845 22 55 010
m +44 (0) 7973 911137
mail@energisingconnector.co.uk
www.energisingconnector.co.uk/
Offices in WC2 and Chiswick W6

Helping business professionals make leap ups.

Energise - Insight & Clarity for Growth

Our services are:
C areer coaching, CV design & personalised outplacement
A ction learning sets
M arketing & brand mentoring
E xecutive coaching
L ife coaching

More tips and tools

Our web site has a ‘Tips and tools’ section, which is regularly updated, sharing free tips and tools to help make life easy. Why not check it out? Visit www.energisingconnector.co.uk and click on the Tips & Tools button

Why Energise?

There are lots of coaching companies, so why choose us? Here’s some facts about Energise:

WHY:

We feel strongly about helping people to help themselves and are passionate about addressing low self-esteem & lack of self-belief in society that so often acts as a brake to people maximising their potential. Often people don’t recognise their own talents and potential, so with our background in marketing and brand communications, we help our clients to market themselves as a unique brand so they maximise their potential

HOW:

We personalise our service to the individual and get to the heart of the matter fast, so are time and cost effective. We are down to earth, focused and focusing, practical, human and energising. Unlike many coaching companies, we do not insist on a contract, so coaching is flexible from as little as 1 hour a month.

WHO:

We work with: big companies including Diageo, Sony Ericsson, Cranfield University, AWAS and Clifford Chance, small businesses and many individuals. We also do pro-bono work for selected charities e.g. working with disaffected young people and prisoners.

WHERE:

Our central London office is on Denmark Street, WC2 - the Energise ThinkSpace which is also available for hire, we coach from our West London home office in W6 and on the telephone

WHEN:

Energise was set up in 1997 so we have an established track record of 8 years plus 10 years full time experience before that. We coach our clients from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday – Friday. We work with people at a crossroads/point of transition in their lives and jobs, helping them to define their goals and realise and maximise their potential.

WHAT:

Our services are:
C areer coaching, CV design & personalised outplacement
A ction learning sets
M arketing & brand mentoring
E xecutive coaching
L ife coaching

Memberships

Energise have professional memberships with:
The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM)
The International Coaching Federation (ICF)
The Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD)
Business Network International (BNI).

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