It’s that time of year again.  Full of frantic activity, fun, family, friends and frankly finishing off!  As a busy professional you will no doubt be working hard to tie up loose ends to position yourself well for some down time and if you are lucky, some rest.

In preparation for this blog I asked a few of our team to contribute some final 2013 reflections to inspire our readers as they prepare to close one year and begin another.  Clare Neal, a senior executive coach and facilitator described how she has become recently curious about what we need to let go of in order to free ourselves to move on with the next phase of our lives. How clinging on to all sorts of stuff (emotional, material etc) just slows us down or even stops us getting there.  She wants to encourage us to think about what we need to let go of so we can move forward and selected the following quotation to capture the thinking:

“We must be willing to let go of the life we’ve planned in order to have the life that is waiting for us” (Joseph Campbell)

Katherine Farnworth – executive coach and leadership facilitator, wants to encourage us to live in the now so we can be healthier, happier and more focused on the areas of our lives that will make a positive difference.  She chose the following quotation as inspiration:

If you are depressed you are living in the past

If you are anxious you are living in the future

If you are at peace you are living in the present

(Lao Tzu)

From Simon Philips, a leadership facilitator and OD expert he shared with us his new mantra:

“You can buy Talent, but Attitude is priceless.”  Perhaps we could take the festive period to reflect upon our own attitude to different parts of our lives and consider how that might be impacting the results we achieve.

Space2BE has seen a busy year.  Our client work has been about: continuing the development of managers and leaders to constantly improve their impact on their organizations through leadership programmes and one on one executive coaching programmes; helping businesses write people and talent strategies that are aligned to business strategies; helping organizations execute change in a way that delivers sustainable positive outcomes; designing and delivering exciting employee engagement interventions and raising the awareness of corporate wellness for long term business success.  We have also launched a 360-feedback tool that measures high performing behaviours based on the Schroder’s framework (if you haven’t seen it already check the short video out:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4697286/Spce2BE_This%20is%20James_ok.mp4) and modified our holistic employee engagement diagnostic tool which places brand, customer and people at the heart of what you do, capturing the locum of engagement and asking all the right questions to elicit their emotional rather than transactional engagement.  The ENGAGE video is coming soon.

The team is going to take some time over the next two weeks to rest and recuperate.  As we often say, time is our most precious resource.  As we shift our focus from “work” to “life” at this festive time of year I am reminded of how quickly time passes, and how we need to make the most of what time we have.

We will blog again before the New Year and share with you a powerful exercise for achieving healthy endings and beginnings.  In the mean time, I will share with you a personal favourite source and his advice on reflecting and planning. Robin Sharma describes the approach fully in his blog, http://www.robinsharma.com/blog/ and here is a summary:

Have a wonderful Christmas all and we looking forward to working, collaborating and partnering with you in 2014.