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Browse published articles attributed to Jessica McGregor Johnson, with full-archive search.
There was a great headline in the Evening Standard a couple of weeks ago “101 things to do before we die, just one to go and we’re not even 30”. It caught my eye – in the newspaper of the person sitting next to me on the tube and I was very happy that as she left, she left behind the newspaper so I could get a good read!
Passion is such a buzzword right now, so many times I have people come and say to me, if I only knew what my passion was I could change my life and be happy. It is like they are some big secret, something that is hidden from them that if they could only see everything would be great. Having specifically worked with passions for a while now I have to reveal a secret – your passions are not something that are hidden away from you, something to be discovered that you haven’t previously allowed yourself to see.
For the last 20 years I have read many times that it is very important to have a vision for whatever you want in your life. Perhaps you’ve heard the same – without vision there is no way you can work out your pathway to your destination. Over the years I have worked with my clients on creating a personal vision – what they would like to have their life look and feel like when they have brought everything into balance. It is always much easier to work out the steps you need to take, when you know where you are going.
It can be a challenging time when our world as we know it shifts beneath out feet. One of my favourite quotes is: Don't worry about having the carpet pulled from under your feet; learn to dance on a shifting carpet. That's the key right now, and it all depends on where your focus is and what ...
“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is not safer in the long run than exposure.” Helen Keller. I have always loved this quote, well to be honest I have always loved the first bit. I have never seen the whole of it and when you do it makes it even more powerful. It came to me at the end of my meditation and somehow resonated deeply. What also resonated was it is my choice. Am I going to continue to choose the daring adventure? Are you?
One of the most important things we need to do as we change course in our lives is to keep a positive mental focus. Not only does being positive helps us to complete whatever we need to do to ensure we get the life we want, but also because the thoughts we think have a big influence on what ...
Whenever you are looking to make a career change it is really important to address your finances. Many people can be rather ostrich-like about this, but if you analyse your situation at the beginning then it will certainly smooth your way later. The first step you can address is budgets. ...
I have come to see over the years of supporting people create the life they want that one of the biggest obstacles to changing your life can be your thoughts. As soon as you decide on a change up surge all the limiting thoughts beliefs and decisions you have made about yourself, the world, the employment market, anything to do with your career, your relationships, what you can and can’t do, any limitation you can come up with. A while ago one client I had said the most powerful thing she had learnt through coaching was not to believe her thoughts!
Talking with a friend recently he said he was very surprised to have read that Cherie Blair had a coach. His take on coaching was that it was for people who were not successful, or that success eluded them, not someone who has achieved a lot in their life. This went on to be a very interesting ...
I often have conversations with my clients about their feeling that they no longer fit their current career, or it doesn’t fit them. Sometimes there is a feeling of bewilderment, of frustration or even anger. There you are having worked so hard, and probably studied too, and after all this ...
Keep on Going. Ok, so we’ve all heard the phrase “when the going gets tough, the tough get going!” or maybe “when life gives you lemons make lemonade!” Or even “don’t worry when the rug gets pulled from under your feet – learn to dance on a shifting carpet!” What a collection of clichés!
Colouring over the Lines Do you remember painting by numbers? Or those colouring books where we were supposed to fill in the pictures with crayons? Some of us filled them in very precisely, some just coloured anywhere. On a mundane level it helped us as children learn co-ordination and ...
There are many practical things that you can do to move yourself towards your chosen career; goal setting, action planning, marking milestones are just some. There is however another very powerful thing you can do to boost your efforts; it is like turning on a turbo charger: ...
Once you have made the decision to change your career and go for the dream, you need to widen the net as much as possible. Sometimes people know exactly what they wish to do but often that first step is not so clear. If this is you then you need to explore your options. One of the first ...
I wrote on Facebook recently that when one door closes and another opens. One of the comments was that not only was this true but many times the door that opens is, more often than not, a better door.
Often when I am working with clients and they are having problems making the decisive move I see that it is ‘everybody’ that holds them back. The ‘everybody’ I am talking about is the ‘everybody’ that is in our mind, that acts as our internal censor. The n“What will everybody think is if ...
When it comes down to it we all want good relationships. Not only with that special someone, but also all of our relationships; family, friends, work colleagues. The fundamentals of any good healthy relationship are the same. For now we will focus on our primary relationship with our partner, ...
I don’t now about you but life has become very busy since the beginning of this year. It has felt like time has speeded up, rather whirlwind-like. Many people I have spoken with recently have felt the same, some kind of shift happening, rather like the brakes being taken off.
I was coaching a Big Stretch recently up in the mountains of Spain. This is a powerful week-long holiday/course in which we ask the participants to identify an area of their life where they want to stretch and take big steps forward. As we all know stretching out of your comfort zone is scary. And it should be! Any goal that is only exciting is too small and we will grow out it far too quickly. Any goal that is only scary is too big and we simply won’t go there. So the right kind of goal is the one that is both scary and exciting!
Many times when I am working with people who want to make a change in their life, the stumbling block is often not knowing where to start. Often we think that we need to create a long list of things to do and it starts to feel like a list of ‘shoulds’. Once this occurs it is very ...