Is Fashion Losing its Style

June 11, 2010

Fashion has been a form of self expression and representation since time immemorial.  It is the way we choose to make a statement when we walk in a room and visually let others know of who we are.  Fashion has always interested, inspired and impressed us, for it is fuelled by creativity and ongoing breakthroughs in colour and design as well as culture.   The question that springs to mind as I look at the world around me is where has it all gone wrong ?

There seems to be a parasitical growth in so called fashion, but at the same time diminishing taste and style.  Branding has become an art form in our modern age to saturation point.  Names such as: Tommy Hilfiger, Versace, Armani, Ralph Lauren, Calvin Kline, Moschino and the ever popular Burberrys to name but a few are not necessarily creating stylish fashion in everything they do, yet we want their names on our T-shirts, jeans, socks and underwear.

It doesn’t just stop there I’m afraid.  Brand names don’t seem to give us enough, we now want new noses, breasts, botox injections, “Hip” and “Cool” this, that and the other as well.   Even self-help seminars such as NLP are becoming venues of showing off the new pair of Prada shoes and the recent nose job, yet hardly anyone seems to genuinely grasp the concepts of such courses.

I recently had a beautiful and very tasteful fiftyish year old client who came to see me because she wanted less stress in her life.  Within twenty minutes into the session, she confessed to wanting a face lift.  My immediate reply was: “Perhaps you can try smiling instead of a face lift”.  She lit up with a sincere smile and realised the point I was making.  She had felt so pressured by her peers that she started doubting her natural beauty.  She felt depressed, unimportant and quite isolated.

Remember, other people’s insecurity and self-doubt can be infectious, and before you notice it you can begin to lose you’re inner peace.   The fact of the matter was that my client had a very solid marriage, two wonderful healthy children and an overall well balanced life – not to mention a natural beauty that Catherine Denouve would envy.  Everyone around her was raving about the latest plastic surgery and the new Chopard watch because without realising it, the irony was that her friends were jealous of what she had.  As soon as she became aware of her blessings, she felt more comfortable and began to frown upon the idea of going under the knife.

Yves Saint Laurent once said: “ Fashions fade; but style is eternal”.  Well style is not what you wear, but how you wear what you do.  It is about tastefully combining ingredients of beauty and carrying them with confidence and charisma.  I have seen beautiful people think and behave as though they aren’t and one would hardly notice them; and other times a mediocre looking person may walk into the lobby of a hotel with such radiating confidence and charm that one cannot look away. Beauty is such a subjective and relative concept that it is difficult to have a universal definition for it.  Ultimately, beauty is about what makes you feel good, not what branding experts say.

Moreover, if you constantly look in the mirror and criticise yourself and how you look – no matter how much money you spend on the latest fashion accessory, or surgery – you will always feel low, and such spending will only blanket the true problem of low self-perception. Note that language to your mind is what food is to your body, and it is vital that you nurture yourself internally as well as externally.  If you wear a gorgeous Ben Delisi dress, sprinkle yourself with the finest DeBeers diamonds along with the most popular Beverly Hills nose job, then stand in front of the mirror and say: “Yuk, I don’t like what I see” – What is the point ?  Beauty comes from within, self-worth comes from within and so does confidence.  They are all solid vessels that will carry you well even if you wear a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.  As the saying goes: “The best vision is insight”, and to find the ultimate element of style one must work from the inside out.

Finally, question what you believe !  Everything you’ve come to believe around you is learned, and they can be unlearned and re-learned in a new and helpful way.  Ultimately we don’t see things as they are, rather as who we are, and it is up to us to create those little changes that will yield big results.  Sophia Lauren who is a true icon of beauty once said: “Nothing makes a woman more beautiful than the belief that she is beautiful”.  Changing your beliefs about yourself and taking steps to create true and lasting happiness is the key to an internal fashion that will never go out of style.

Until Next Time……….Live, Don’t Just Exist!

Call now to book an appointment

Tel:  +44 (0)207 602 5477

taymour@guiding-light.net

By Coach Taymour | Posted in Opinion, Taymour | Tagged | Comments off

Goals Goals Goals

June 11, 2010

OK.  We all know that a big part of helping yourself evolve and grow is to set goals.  In fact, success is the achievement of your goals.  Chances are, if you ask ten people to give you a definition for success, you’ll get ten different answers.  Success is highly subjective and everybody has their own version:  lots of money, a fancy car, a big house, a fulfilling career, a stable family, peace of mind etc..etc..

So let’s look at goals for a second.  What goals should you set?  Who says?  Are your goals dependent on your environment? Your social circles?  Or are your goals decided by your higher self who seeks to enrich your life and give it purpose and substance.  The most important question that has to be addressed when setting your goals is NOT “How can I achieve my goal?” but rather, “Why should I achieve this?”  Or “What would achieving this do for me?”

This question is the kernel of your untapped motivation, for it will reveal the driving force behind your chosen path.  Answering the “How” part of what you need to do, and deciding on the strategies of action are the easy part.

Here are a few points to consider when setting goals:

1)      Know who you truly are and make sure what you set out to do complements the real you.  Many of my clients change their goals after our initial session because they realise that they were trying to be someone other that their true self.  That path is always doomed.  Just be yourself and set goals that are congruent with your values and moral compass.

2)      It’s much better to aim for a “good enough” result, rather than a “perfect” one. The “good enough” result usually ends up being better than the perfect one, particularly if our quest for perfection has stopped us from producing any result at all.

3)      Create a running movie in your mind, and see your goal happening.  For something to happen in your real world it must first happen in your imaginary world.

4)      Approach failure as life’s feedback on what not to do.  If you become more mindful of this, you will also become more flexible towards your options and try every possible way until you achieve what you set out to do.  If your strategy and approach is failing, you’re NOT.  Simply change your strategy until it starts happening for you.

5)      Break down your goals into easy to do daily tasks that can add up.  Remember, little changes yield big results.  “A jug fills drop by drop” The Buddha.

Until Next Time……….Live, Don’t Just Exist!

Call now to book an appointment and set the right goals for YOU.

Tel:  +44 (0)207 602 5477  taymour@guiding-light.net

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The Time Of Your Life

June 11, 2010

Okay, how on earth do some single mothers juggle a full time job, two children and make it to PTA meetings?  Or some senior directors from top blue chip companies who find time to play golf on weekends and manage to be attentive fathers; while others struggle with their time and end up with stress ulcers?

The answer is rather simple actually and it lies in good time management.  Companies around the world are hiring executive coaches and time management experts to enhance the performance of their staff and improve efficiency, thus minimising stress and improving overall productivity.  Hummm, I wonder, do such gurus possess a magic pill that they hand out in their seminars that suddenly creates extra time?  Or ancient alchemical formulas they reveal to the selected few?  Perhaps a magic key to other dimensions of time?  No, nothing as dramatic as that.

The cornerstone of good time management is actually about being honest with yourself to identify your time thieves.  Time thieves can shroud themselves as pointless texts, emails, meetings, small talk around the coffee machine, catching up on childish gossip, surfing the net and even rifling through your desk.  In fact, some experts claim that on average we actually work less than three hours a day, and the rest of the time we waste on the above mentioned thieves.    Secondly, dedicating the first few valuable minutes of our morning to identifying our high priority tasks and low priority tasks can be invaluable as it will help organise our time thus increase our efficiency.

I have worked with some very high powered executives who have wasted precious time on small/low value tasks and later realised that these tasks can be like rabbits that multiply and derail your focus.  It is paramount that you identify what is worth your time, and focus on tasks of higher priority to cover more ground during your working day.  Even needless perfectionism can be the biggest time waster.

Since time management can be a broad subject to distil into this newsletter, let me leave four important points that Brian Tracy talks about in his personal success program.

The 4 Rules Of Time:

1- Time is perishable.  It can’t be saved, only spent.  So it’s vital that you decide what is of low value and what is of high at the start of your day in order to use your time wisely.

2- Time is indispensable.  There is a 10/ 90 rule that makes a lot of sense.  If you spend 10% of your day intelligently planning how to achieve your goals for the day, you end up saving 90% of the time you would have wasted otherwise.

3- Time is irreplaceable.  Time is all that matters in relationships, and how we express our love to our loved ones is by spending time with them.

Q: How do children spell love?

A: T I M E

4- Time is essential to achieving your goals.  By identifying your goals at the start of your day, or week, you’ll have a clearer picture of how to use your time to get things done and have enough time to play.  Working efficiently and productively is not always about manpower, but mind-power.  In other words, working smart, and not just working hard.

Let me finish off with a final point that is food for thought.  I recently had a client who wanted to finish his MBA without seeing a drop in the quality of his performance at work.  Within a 90 minute session, we identified his time wasters, eliminated them and suddenly created ample enough study time that was spent on completing his MBA.  His time wasters were, frequent after work drinking, excessive socialising and freezing in front of the TV whenever there was a football match or anything else that piqued his interest and distracted him from getting on with the task in hand.

There is plenty of time to do so much more, it’s simply about identifying what will serve you in the short and long term and what will harm you.

Until Next Time……Live Don’t Just Exist.

Call now for an intro session to manage your time more efficiently.

Tel:  +44 (0)207 602 5477

taymour@guiding-light.net

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Clean Thinking

June 11, 2010

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.”
R.W Emerson

Have you noticed how sometimes all is going well during your day, the lights are green, you’re energetic, light hearted, your favourite pastry is not only available but fresh from the oven at your local cafe, even people at the office smile and say good morning; but something shifts during the day and it starts to go downhill from there.  Well, that something is your thoughts.  All might be going well until you remember what someone once said that upset you, or how last month you had an argument with your brother, or even a painful day five years ago.  Such thoughts will automatically derail you from your positive day and throw you into a downward spiral of thoughts that can leave you feeling drained and bitter.  Thoughts are energy, and for something to happen in your reality (good or bad), it must first happen in your thoughts.  After all, like attracts like: Bad Thoughts & Bad Reality and vice a versa.

A few months ago, I had a very determined client who wanted to shift her life for the better.  After careful probing, she came to realise that her actuality was fantastic, she was healthy, attractive, independent and very intelligent; but her reality was full of painful past memories, a patronising critical voice inside her head (which she believed and listened to) and a very subjective and limited view of life that no doubt dampened her spirit.  As soon as we addressed this and distinguished her actuality from her reality, she suddenly smiled and became aware of how powerful her limited perception and thoughts had been breaking her days rather than making them.

By now you’re probably wondering what on earth the difference between actuality and reality is.

It’s quite simple really- actuality is a very objective perspective of your life as a whole.  It is free from opinion and is limitless in opportunities and possibilities.  A person may have gone through a bitter divorce, but that doesn’t mean that they’ll never find love again.  Likewise, an entrepreneur may become focus on the actualities that exist in order to maximise the potential of his business plan.  In other words, your actuality is an unbiased angle on your life that can always provide windows of opportunity and potentials to shift things for the better.

Reality on the other hand is a highly subjective and limited perspective on your current situation.  Your reality is a product of your past experiences (good and bad), your beliefs (limiting ones or otherwise) and your emotionally fuelled understanding of your life as a whole.  A person may have a fantastic business idea, but because of his negative and pessimistic circle of friends and family, ends up extinguishing any hope of success.  Most negative and depressed people tend to live in a limited reality that disallows their potential to flourish.  Additionally, optimistic high achievers with a positive “Can Do” attitude tend to approach life from an unbiased angle thus being more aware of the actualities that exist rather than just their own reality.

This does not in any way, shape or form mean that you should ignore your understanding of your world, after all, there are many good lessons that you’ve learned from your past experiences that have contributed to how far you’ve come.  However, if you feel that there are areas in your life that can do with some fine tuning, then by all means explore other perspectives that might be just outside your comfort zone and in the realm of actuality.

Try the following:

1) Spend five minutes a day to relax and go inside to clean your internal dialogue.  This is the voice inside your head that fuels your thoughts.  Speak kindly to yourself as though you’re encouraging a young person who’s full of potential, or even your own best friend.

2) If something doesn’t go how you had hoped, re-frame it.  In other words, change its context to see the good in it and carry on forward.

3) Live in the now.  Imagine how you’d drive if you spent 90% of your attention focusing on your rear view mirrors.  Learn from your past, thank it and the lessons it has taught you and centre yourself in the present.

4) Improve your attitude to life and what it has to offer. “There is no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothes” Billy Connolly


Until Next Time……Live Don’t Just Exist.

Call now for a constructive session for yourself or a loved one.

Tel:  +44 (0)207 602 5477  taymour@guiding-light.net

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Material Love

February 14, 2010

One of the most irritating things I find in our post modern, fast paced and hectic world is the irrational emphasis on materialism.  Don’t get me wrong, I am an avid patron of quality and the finer things in life, and I do sometimes express my affection and love for people whom I care for with offerings of substance and worth.

Not because I want to prove my fondness with the value of my gifts, but because I have standards I abide by.

So, here we are with another Valentine’s day.  A day where introverts suddenly have to play the extrovert, a day we forgive and move on, a day we release feelings we’ve bottled for months, a day we unleash our romantic side and a day we spoil our beloved.  Spoil them with flowers, chocolate, cards, balloons, pendants, earrings, watches, diamonds, the latest handbag, perfume, and trips to exotic locations and on and on and on…..   I can carry on into different tangents of satirical complaining, but let me stop with one simple question: Is that all necessary to express your love to your beloved?  Necessary? No.  Perhaps tempting?!

Materialising love can be insulting to the fundamental principles that govern its worth.  Love is not about what you spend, but what you give from your heart and soul.  It’s about sharing moments of truth that you can hold on to and cherish for days to come.  What good is a Cartier watch as a gift when the relationship lacks respect?  Ultimately, Valentines day is a day to go deep inside your heart and share a piece of it with the one you care for.  It doesn’t matter how you share that piece – there is no right or wrong.  But, let me emphasise the essential ingredients to universal love.  Ingredients that compose the cornerstone of every towering love that has withstood the test of time.

They are:

1)    Respect.  Quite simple really.  Can you love someone you don’t respect?  Clearly not.  If you truly respect your beloved, your loyalty becomes effortless.  Your value of their well being and happiness becomes your own.  Even their point of view and opinion will encourage you both to make wiser and better thought out decisions. Most importantly, the way you’ll live your lives as a couple will strengthen against the challenges of life and society when an ever present respect becomes the vehicle that propels your two lives as one.

2)      Honesty.  Since I love asking questions to make my point, here’s another one: Would you be dishonest to someone you respect?  Honesty fuels honesty.  When a certain type of attribute is conveyed, it is generally mirrored back.  I always associate dishonesty with a bacteria that infects a healthy relationship.  Luckily, my next point can sometimes be the antibiotic to such a bacteria.

3)      Communication.  Any emotionally seasoned person would know that relationships have their ups and downs.  We argue, we disagree, we unintentionally hurt one another and at times things can get challenging.  The good news is that the cleanser of such lows is an open line of communication that always includes the sum of the above two points. Mathematically:  Good Communication= Honesty + Respect.  This can also include a gesture, a smile, a caring touch or a sincere embrace.  A very large part of communication is non-verbal.  Notice couples who hold hands, or share an expression that signals affection across a room.  Top that with clean and sincere words of delight and passion, then you can overcome any difficulty.  Remember, words can heal and injure; so use them wisely.

Having said all that, let me also stress that the catalyst to an overall happy relationship is laughter.  Laughter lightens the heart, and most importantly helps the brain produce happy hormones such as endorphins, dopamine and serotonin.  Such chemicals have scientifically been proven to heal and toughen the immune system.  Funnily enough, a recent university research proved that couples in healthy and happy relationships tend to live longer and have better defences against disease.

So this Valentines, make sure that the fundamental factors mentioned above reign your relationship.  The decision on how much you decide to spend and how well you’re going to express your love MUST be sourced from your heart and soul and not just your wallet.

Until Next Time……Live Don’t Just Exist.

Call now for a constructive session for yourself or a loved one.

Tel:  +44 (0)207 602 5477  taymour@guiding-light.net

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