the power of coaching

Here is it. When you experience coaching for the first time and learn how it works and how to do it - as a coach - you may often fell into a trap of thinking that now you can coach yourself whenever you need. Well, the truth is, you can try but usually it doesn't work well, really. The power of coaching lies not only in the questions asked - it is the interaction between two people, two points of view, two perspectives and two minds. In the end, the questions are born in our brains, right?

As an example I can present my own case :)
So, I have been trying to sort some things out for a while now, and always ended up with a lot of doubt, hesitation and abandoning the whole idea. It's basically hard to stay motivated when there are issues growing on the way to your goal. Coaching myself in this situation didn't even cross my mind - I knew I would fail.

On Tuesday I was helping with the process of coaching accreditation for a new person, and I was playing the role of the coachee. Obviously I used my real-life example, and it worked for me, better than I expected! I tidied up my thoughts and options and I was to do two simple things, which would hopefully lead to some further actions.
And here I am - I did sign up for an open day at Birkbeck College in London on 18 May (they will even send me a prospectus!) and I wrote to a person who was my tutor last year at Open University, to get some opinion and advice.
I don't know yet what will be the eventual outcome, but I am happy I finally actually did something, and I am a tiny little step closer to my goal :)

let's talk

Tuesday evening. 2 hours of chatting with my Mum, via internet.
I'm so happy I don't have to rely on mobile phones - I would bankrupt immediately or I would have to limit speaking with my Mum to minimum, which is equally terrible...

changes

Today was a sad day.
Some things end at some point, then new things start... But not always this happens simultaneously. There are breaks in between, like dark spots between the areas of light.
The more unexpected is the loss, the more painful is the change.
The consciousness of the irreversibility of your life's ways makes you ponder upon your past and your future.
When your world turns upside down, it takes a lot of time to move bits around in order to make it work somehow. And there is this "meantime", when you have to live, work, talk, breathe, behave as everything is fine.
I wanted to pick a song, but couldn't find anything... and I do not dare to post another Fleetwood Mac's song! :)

red noses

Friday was a day of silence on blogs, but also it was a Red Nose Day - in the real, non-virtual world. Known also as Comic Relief, it is a day of fun, laughter, dressing up and collecting money for charity.
So on Thursday night, nearly dead after my spinning class, I baked muffins for a cake sale at work. I have to remind you - in case you don't remember - I am a terrible cook. This time my muffins had too many raisins in them and as a result they looked more like cupcakes. Very flat ones.
Luckily, they smelled nice and everyone liked the weird smiley faces, so I hope I helped to raise our collection a little bit...

...

Here it is!

My diploma finally arrived!
Celebrating? Highly doubt it. It's just another cold, cloudy day, and on top of that the boiler doesn't work - again... No hot water, no heating. No laundry, no dish washing, no shower :(
I guess I will just make another cup of tea and come back to reading...

Digging and dying

Yesterday our team from work spent the afternoon in a park outside the town. We went to a local farm to do some charity work. Basically - digging in the ground, making rows, planting trees, weeding, sieving... The sun was shining (up until 3pm, then it became cloudy), the birds were singing and we were sweating, chatting and laughing.
Trying not to think about the disasters we saw on tv, read online, heard in the news. While we were living our normal lives, agreeing willingly or not for the everyday-ness, on the other side of the globe people, just like us and just like that, were cut off from their lives in the least expected moments of their being. They were trapped, lost, panicked, hopeless. So many of them didn't even have time to think what was happening. And that it was the end of everything for them.
My thoughts are far away, around those who are scared, terrified, lonely, woeful, who lost everything and/or everyone, or anyone.

My first star

An achievement has been noted today. A small one, when it comes to my whole life, but quite a success at my current work, considering my attributes (being not a native speaker and not having much experience in that particular task).
Life is not easy, our customers sometimes complain (sometimes even often!). As a company of high customer service level (and of responsibilities before FSA) we have to respond to them.
Today my complaint response has been marked as non-returned by our Quality Team for amendments, which means it was done perfectly and ready to go (to send!). As I said, I haven't written many responses yet, and I am always aware that my knowledge of the English language, which still has some gaps, may lead me into wrong direction... But, with the help of my friends, their encouragement and support, I did it!
I put a first star for myself on our board. Each star is for a non-returned complaint response :) You might say it's like at school... I will say - it works! Everyone wants to get a star :)

Healthy

This weekend I managed to do a lot of stuff towards more healthy living :) Well, maybe actually they are small things, but it does count anyway.
Yesterday I went to the gym for my standard workout and then I went shopping. I got new cosmetics, after all the things I've heard from my brother about dangerous chemicals that companies put into most creams and gels not even telling anyone (it's good to have a brother studying at Medical Academy!). So, I got myself an antiperspirant without aluminium - I found only one like that in the whole huge store! And I also got face creams, scrub and body lotion without parabens, sillicons and paraffin (and paraffin-related) ingredients. That was also a difficult task. I don't even want to know how much time I spent in store in the end... The good thing is that I got everything I needed, and that they had a great deal for skin care products - buy 3 get cheapest for free :)

Ad that's not the end! I also got some healthy food. In this category my Mum is the best adviser, she knows a lot about natural remedies and healthy plants and vegetables, which are so beneficial to our organisms, but rarely used. I got some Goji berries and some Maca powder. Goji berries are very common food in China and in Tibet, where people live even 120 years. They have been well known for their beneficial properties for ages and used in Chinese medicine. Maca is a Peruvian vegetable and its roots are great for improving our immune system and regulation of hormones.
If you want more detailed information, you can just try google-ing and there will be plenty of websites about these. For example, you can read about the benefits for Goji berries here and about Maca here.

update :)

Fortunately or not, the new blog doesn't work as well as I wanted it to. I guess I am just used to blogger and more flexibility, more possibilities. So I am staying here. But - I will start writing in Polish as well! New, polish blog will be called Znad morza nad morze.
And this is definite :)

Anything else new today? Oh yes, I celebrated the "Fat" Thursday in the end... I got polish donuts (!) (from a polish shop) for my whole team, and also one for my Beloved. Didn't get any for myself :) I am so proud ;)

something new

And now information for those who don't visit my blog too often, because they would rather like to read it Polish than English... I started another blog. My second one, first one in my mother tongue. I set it up on a polish website and I am not sure how it's going to work (meaning: how well the website will serve my blogging needs), maybe after a while I will have to move it somewhere else. Well, but now, you can find it here (I hope!).

If you don't read in/speak/understand Polish, please stay here :)

sweets

The time of Carnival is coming to an end (after a very long time this year!) and as usual, before the Lent we celebrate... well, yeah, what exactly? Since I was a kid, we had Shrove Thursday one week before the Lent started and on this occasion we were eating donuts. But look quite not like the English ones. They look like this:

And the donuts we have in here in England are like those:


So, what am I supposed to do now? I would really like to have a traditional polish donut... I think, in the end, I won't be eating them at all tomorrow... I work so hard on shaping my thighs and destroying the layer of fat on my belly that eating donuts, even during this one day, would be like murdering all my efforts ;)
Besides, in England there is no Shrove Thursday - here's Shrove Tuesday instead, right before Ash Wednesday. On that day everyone makes, buys and eats pancakes. We called it our own way, to make it more familiar: a Pancake Day :)