We live in a society now where people are always busy, where it often feels that no one has time for us. Work, children, education, and careers – the list is endless, lots of things that always seem to come before we look after our own needs.

You may be struggling and cannot talk to work colleagues, your partner may too be stressed out so you don’t burden them, or perhaps you have no partner. You may want to change a relationship, have a relationship, change career or start up a business but you have no idea where to start.

A good place to start is with a coaching session.

Sit down with someone who is going to focus on you 100%, you don’t have to worry about anything else but you – now how often do you get this luxury? – pure ‘me time’, you are worth it, live life to the full. Make that call to Mpowerme now.

‘When we strive to become better than we are,
everything around us becomes better too.’
Paulo Coelho

Contact Janet to book a coaching session

We live in a materialistic society, we are always looking for the next thing we need.

Our cars, worth potentially thousands, sit on the drive whilst the garage is full of junk that we don’t want to get rid of in case we need it one day.

Our wardrobes are over flowing with clothes that we can no longer even get in to but one day we might (and if we do we will probably find out they are not even in fashion anymore)!

Our kitchens are full of gadgets we will never use.

We have mobile phones and BlackBerry’s, we are now contactable 24/7, never a moment to ourselves. We have Ipods or MP3’s, various play stations, DVD’s, widescreen TV’s, the cinema experience in the home, all of which we use to block out the world that engulfs us.

We stack up the post on the kitchen work top, always dealing with it another day, we write lists of things to do and lose them; we can never find the MOT certificate, home insurance documents or letter for the school trip when needed – sound familiar?

How can we change things for the better?

Have a spring clean, have a clear out. Bag up your clothes that don’t fit and send them off to the charity shop. Do not fall into the trap of bagging them up and putting them in the attic, (which is probably overflowing with stuff you might need one day!)

Sort out those files for the household paperwork and use them!

Be good to yourself – let it go. Enjoy the quality of being able to find things. It truly will be a weight off both your mind and your shoulders, it really is therapy!

Fancy a spring clean- read more

Mpowerme was set up in April 2009, offering personal empowerment in the form of coaching and training to individuals and organisations. My career background is in the public sector and naturally the majority of Mpowerme services took place in this sector as I have a good understanding of the issues working in this sector and the career pathways.

Some people think that when there is a recession with organisations downsizing the work force, re organising teams and spreading out the work, that this would be a great time to invest in these teams, call someone in, do some team building, change management, time and/or stress management etc. However ,HR departments can be so overloaded with issues to do with redundancy and reorganisation that they don’t have time to think about developing the remaining staff. The teams themselves may have had their own training and development budgets cut which can make this support prohibitive. Yet on the reverse side some organisations do pay for coaching for staff that are being made redundant, to support them moving on but as this is normally only available to senior staff, again there are limitations. Private clients also worry about spending money when they do not know what the future holds.  The irony is that the more people develop both personally and within their career the better their prospects and quality of life personally and the better an employee they will be!

Therefore the recession has caused a reduction in work. More time and resources/finance have been put into marketing.  I have felt it is essential to ensure that people continue to know Mpowerme is still here once the budgets and time are right for individual and staff development.

Some 12 months  ago when networking I was introduced to a Multi Level Networking Marketing Company (MLNM). I did not know anything about this type of business model, but loved the way this organisation was supporting people to achieve. I asked the obvious question of how could I could help them to coach and train and I was told I would need to join up “at the bottom and work my way up to trainer level”.  I never had any intentions in my career to go into any form of referral sales. So with no plan to do this I joined up because I saw the opportunity to build my own team from day one giving me the ability to  support and coach them to achieve which all directly benefits me financially and allows me to use my skills base too, so a win win situation! The nature of the work is I can choose how much or how little I do, I can work quite spontaneously so it fits very well around my other business needs.  In fact I have recently been introduced to an American MLNM  company and have started another team having seen the true potential of this product.

I now have the opportunity to go forward in 2010 with more opportunities, supporting people to develop and giving them the opportunity to not just be dependent on one business opportunity.

To find out about opportunities to help you develop either a primary or secondary income or to find out more about the Mpowerme coaching and training please give Janet a call.

023 8061 8388

janet@mpowerme.co.uk

www.mpowerme.co.uk

Inspiring others. Janet became a motivational life coach and inspirational trainer to use her passion for personal development to motivate and inspire others to live the life they chose.

We asked Janet, just how does Mpowerme support their clients?

We live in a society where we can find that we are so busy trying to do everything that we are not really doing the things that are actually most important to us. Support, from our partners, friends, family and work colleagues can be difficult to access as everyone is so busy with meeting their own needs that they don’t have the time to listen to your needs and concerns. How often do you find that you are just ‘being’? For some of us life can become an unfulfilling or unsatisfying experience leaving us feeling despondent within our personal life or career, even though people around us may think we have a great life. Work demands, career development, business development, family, child care, parenting, relationships (or lack of them), our health, financial issues, learning and education all have an impact on our day to day life. Some people can accept their lot and have few expectations or aspirations; whilst others feel despondent, these are the people I work with, those who want more from their life and need a helping hand on the way to a happier and more fulfilling life.

But wouldn’t a chat over a cuppa with a good friend or family member be just as good?

How often these days do you truly find someone who is interested in what you are saying about your own life, who listens to you 100% and focuses totally on you and meeting your needs? Are you too busy working and supporting others to have a life yourself, do you lack a partner to share with, does anyone understand your needs, do you understand your own needs? At Mpowerme I work with clients who may be having relationship issues, separating, divorcing, lacking direction, feeling at a dead end with their career, worrying about being a good parent, dealing with stress and pressure, worrying about their health or maybe considering what they want from life or for that matter what life actually is! The coaching process supports clients by giving them a pure focus on their needs and development, clients have no need to consider if the coaches life is going well, as you would with friends and family.

OK, so what will it do for me?

We all know people, who can at times find their lives very pressurized or unrewarding, whether it is caused by work or personal issues. When this happens their skills and attributes are not always represented in the best possible light and they themselves can feel very disempowered to resolve their issues. The demands in our lives mean that we can lose the ability to manage our lives in the manner and direction we want, planning, priorities and decisions can become snap decisions, job performance, self confidence, health issues, relationships and moral can all be jeopardized. Failure to think with clarity and hence planning priorities and decisions are not made to the best of their potential. Some feel they can see no end to the situation so settle for acceptance of the situation or saying ‘one day’, or ‘tomorrow will be different’. I work with clients to develop a life plan to bring clarity and calm to their sometimes busy and chaotic lives. Understanding the individual challenges people have are all key to successful coaching.

Janet, director of Mpowerme offers inspirational coaching and training programs committed to listening, clearly understanding the issues, motivating and inspiring clients to reach their full potential. She has inspired the lives of others, through her energy and support to discover realistic solutions. Clients often see positive changes and experience a leap of clarity within just one session.

For further details please contact:

Janet Ashfield – Mpowerme www.mpowerme.co.uk

This journey called life, do you know the way?

Do you find that more frequently you are feeling unfulfilled and dissatisfied with your life? Do you keep thinking there must be more to it than this? And is that feeling made worse by the fact that those around you already think you have a great life? Do you make excuses and say it will change…….some time?

We can own a business, climb the career ladder, plan a holiday, debate which car to purchase, jump through planning hoops to build an extension or research the best school for our children, yet how many of us let our physical, emotional and spiritual health go unnoticed whilst we are on the conveyor belt of life?

We may fill our lives by working long hours, put up with an unhappy relationship, suffer with ongoing health problems just so we keep busy enough to avoid thinking about the direction we are going in.

Perhaps a mid life crisis or the seven year itch is a realisation of all this. People suddenly stop, think and realise that life is passing them by and they are not enjoying the journey! They get off the conveyor belt which their lives have become and start to think about how they want their life to be.

So isn’t it about time you gave yourself a little time for considering your future, a little time for reflection and just forget the computer games, chilling out in front of the TV with a glass of wine, taking work home for the evening and weekend and the constant rushing about? Perhaps it’s time to make a change or two? Identifying what you want out of life can start out like hard work or be phenomenally exciting depending on your starting point but it can turn into the time of your life – funny that!

Talk to Mpowerme about achieving quality living and becoming happier and more fulfilled. Director Janet Ashfield’s philosophy is to work alongside you to achieve a balanced approach looking at all aspects of your life to ensure motivation, direction, harmony and balance leading to improving your quality of life.

Janet truly believes that everyone has the ability to find out who they really are and what they are truly passionate about. It can be done, the secret is knowing how – contact Mpowerme to find out how.

Janet Ashfield

An article written for people working in tenant participation and community development.

I started my career as a support worker in housing. As my career developed I went into tenant participation, though to working in community safety in a regeneration project and then a community safety manager and then finally a Drugs Action Team manager before setting up Mpowerme to focus on empowering people.

Whether you working in a Local Authority, a Housing Association, or in the voluntary sector tenant Participation, involving clients and community development has been a developing agenda. Some organisations seem, on the outside, to embrace it whilst others remain lagging behind. But just what is behind those words in the newsletter, on the web site, in the leaflet the organisation may have developed? Is the full organisation committed to involving individuals and communities or just a few or perhaps just you?

How many people work for organisations where some colleagues have the belief that the clients/residents should be grateful for what they get? After all, why would we want to give them choices? As policies develop clients are given more choices, asked for more input, asked to participate, and asked to have an opinion. On the other hand there are staff who are struggling to get these clients involved. Do you feel alienated by this process do you truly have the backing of the organisation and the staff you work with? Do you feel lonely in your job?

Whichever camp you sit in and what ever level you work at you have chosen a pressurised career. You may be working with few other staff, within a strict budget, needing to work across all departments and encouraging those departments to involve clients too.

Then there are the clients. Do they believe they are being given choices? Have they got the time, will, motivation or aspiration to become involved? Does the fact that only a few others have volunteered mean that all the work falls on a small number of people?

This may sound negative but the positive aspect is that most people are in their jobs because they are passionate about involvement.

So as a passionate person how can you manage your work, the unsocial hours with evening meetings and weekend events, the sheer number of meetings, minutes, agendas, developing events, policies and the issues discussed above.

Some ideas that may help are:

• be clear what you want from your job with regard to:
  • your personal development, be very clear on what you require for your career, your CV, you’re on a journey this is not your last job, look to the future, plan and be focussed
  • what is needed to enable you to enjoy your day to day work
  • the organisation you work for
  • the clients
• Take care of yourself! Giving up your personal life, being constantly tired and drained and trying to get through an ever increasing to-do list and an overflowing in tray, is no way to live, it is also not a good way to do a good job.�
  Be the best person you can be to yourself first and everyone else second. When you are the best you can be, you are also the best you can be for your job too. Don’t be fooled by believing that working in a stressed and pressured manner has any value, it will just result in damaging you psychologically, emotionally and physically.
• Know your priorities. Be clear on what you can actually achieve in your job. Once you have a plan it is achievable. Write a list of what is actually achievable and stick to it – forget the rest.
• No job is for life, if you were not there someone else would be doing the job. Stop taking it so personally. Know what you want in your life as a whole – work/career AND personal life and manage your life. You are a role model for your clients – show them someone who has a balanced life.
• Know where your career is going, enjoy your whole life and remember these key points:
  • you are the engineer of your life
  • you really do make all the decisions, even the excuses
  • make sure you are living a life not an excuse

Find out how we can support you and the communities you work with by contacting Janet on
023 8061 8388 today.