The last few days have held many accomplishments for me. Last week I did my first radio interview. It was for Passion for the Planet radio, which is a fantastic digital radio station dedicated to environmental and health issues. (See http://www.passionfortheplanet.com/ for more info). My interview was on the theme of “don’t give up your day job tomorrow but do start doing something towards your dream” and will be played throughout January.

And last weekend I, at last, completed my NLP Practitioner course. This course should have taken about three months but because of the severe back problems I had last year I had to keep deferring the final module of it. I was supposed to do it last October but had to defer it to January. Then I had another back episode two days before that attempt so it got postponed again. There was another opportunity to do it in the Spring but I was on holiday so we booked it in for August. Unfortunately the training company had to cancel the August course so it ended up being November, over a year since I was originally scheduled to complete it!

It was definitely worth the wait and really pulled together all the strands of learning and my experience of using NLP with clients over the last year.

We finished the course with an arrow-break. This is a fantastic exercise where you break a proper archery arrow with your neck and sheer determination. It is a bit daunting as the metal tip of the arrow goes in the soft bit of your neck where your throat is and the other end is braced against a piece of wood held by someone else.

The exercise goes back to Red Indian folk lore where a wise old Indian decided that the arrow represented all his fears and everything that was holding him back. He had noticed that a puma gathers himself and pounces in a single attempt and with all his might on his prey. The Indian challenged himself to break the arrow with this same determination and thus shatter his self-imposed limitations.

I had seen the exercise done before so knew that it was possible but when I found myself standing with an arrow propped against my throat I did briefly question my enthusiasm and sanity! However, I stepped forward into the arrow with great determination and it broke very easily. I then had a feeling of tremendous elation and left the course feeling that I could conquer the world.

Hi all. It has been a couple of weeks since I blogged so here is my latest update. I have now written a completely new chapter one to Tales of the Countess and am now working on Chapter 2. I think by the end of this chapter I should be able then to make the link to my existing draft. From that point onwards I’ll be editing rather than writing afresh. So I’m about half way through the hardest part! I have quite a bit of time to write this week so am hoping to make good progress.

Last week I heard the most wonderful tip. It is called a Gratitude Book and it works like this: at the end of each day you write down three things that happened in your day that you feel gratitude for. I heard about this on Tuesday evening at the end of what had been a very s**t and frustrating day. I decided to try out the technique and it was fantastic to overlook my irritation and to find and pick out three positives from the day. I’ve been doing it since and it is really good fun.

So often when we are working in our own businesses or in creative pursuits (and I’m doing both at the moment!) we can get very bogged down if we don’t see immediate results from our labours. This can lead to a plummeting self esteem which can then create a disastrous negative cycle. I think that spending a couple of minutes at the end of the day to pull out three positives (or three small achievements) and feel gratitude for them will boost self esteem and result in a new upwards and positive cycle.