Woody Wonders

I've always been proud of the fact that I'm adaptable, resilient and "fit" for change but recent reflections have made me question that fact.  Yes, I've always embraced change and adapted to it but I've realised that I don't always actively seek it out.  So how can I expect to be resilient if I don't build up my resilience in the first place by doing things that scare me?!   I have a love / hate relationship with change; once I'm in the middle of it, I love it, it's exciting but in the build up to change, I hate it, because deep down I'm scared of it and what it might entail. Lately, I've been reading more and more about "AQ", in other words "Adaptability Quotient".  Many of us know that the demise of Blockbuster came about because they didn't adapt quickly enough to launch a rival streaming service to Netflix.  Likewise with the Lotus 123 spreadsheet program, they sat back when Microsoft's Excel came along. ...

Do we ever really fail at anything?   No, I’m not sure we do.   Things may not go to plan, you may be disappointed that you haven’t achieved what you set out to do, but we always learn from our so called ‘failures’ so where does this idea of 'failure' being a ‘bad’ thing come from? In a workout situation you train to ‘failure’ but that never feels like you’ve ‘failed’ does it?   No!   In fact, it makes you feel damn proud that you’ve pushed your body and mind to your absolute limit.   It’s a good thing, you’re growing stronger every time you train to ‘failure’ .  When I run in races, and especially marathons, I take something from each race so I'm stronger and better the next time.  I don't feel like I've failed if things haven't quite gone to plan.  So why do we treat 'failure' so differently in other situations? Two of my most memorable so-called failures were just after I left school and these two events quite literally shaped my whole workin...

End of year check-in Today's blog is going to be a short reflection on 2020 before I close my laptop on another year. Despite all the odds stacked against me and humanity in general, I've had an incredible year.  Yes, it's been different, bizarre, unnerving and downright hard graft at times but I absolutely refuse to write this year off which is what most people seem intent on doing.   Am I looking through rose-tinted glasses and ignoring the bad stuff?  No, I don't think I am because I firmly believe that it's the sh*t times that make us stronger.  Did I write off the year I lost both my sister and sister-in-law?  Within the space of three weeks I might add.  No I didn't, because ultimately it made me a much stronger and more resilient person.  It's quite easy to drift through life but when something significant happens it's a real wake up call. So, what has this year taught me? I can still have strong relationships despite not being able to see ...

March seems a very long time ago When I did my review of Q1 at the end of March, we'd only scraped the surface of what the impact of Covid would be and we were in our first week of lockdown.  We had no idea of what would happen, how quickly and the devastating effect it would have all across the world.  We've seen the absolute best of people but have also witnessed the worst.  There's been lots of not so good things but thankfully a whole heap of positives to take from the situation too. We've made it to the end of Q2 and we're half way through the year.  That means we have a whole other half to turn the ship around and end this year on a high.  What we've learnt over the past few months will help us to achieve just that.  We've become stronger, more resilient and achieved things we never believed were possible.  I've tried to remain as focused as ever and, as always, let's take a quick recap at the 6 areas I'm looking to improve this year and ho...