Conscious Competence

The conscious competence model is a key part of personal development because it shows the stages that are potential traps for us. There are four stages, but it is the first two stages which tend to be banana skins for most people’s personal development. Stage 1: Unconscious Incompetence This is the first of the stumbling blocks. …

Improving Emotional Intelligence

Peter Salovey and John Mayer defined emotional intelligence as a form of social intelligence that “involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions’. Daniel Goleman echoes this, observing that emotional intelligence is the “ability to manage …

In defence of running. An argument for a focus on performance as a means of weight loss.

As a follow up to my post “In defence of cardio“, this post makes the argument for focusing on improved performance as a means to lose weight. What I’m suggesting is that weight loss should be the outcome, not the purpose, of running. Parallels can be drawn with what Akio Morita, the founder of Sony, …

In Defence of “Cardio”

The title of this article is somewhat misleading but, as I will attempt to illustrate, the word cardio has been bastardised to such an extent that people all over the world are being deterred from losing body fat and getting healthier using activities that are traditionally classed as “cardio”. First things first, though – I …

Enjoy the Process for Better Results

The happiest clients are always those who find a sport or activity to help them enjoy the process of achieving their fitness or aesthetics goals. However, it’s important to try and find a match between the two (training for fun and training for an aesthetic goal) as there are loads of “fit” people who are …

More time for you, your business and your family!

If you’re a busy professional then time is precious, time is money, time is best spent on high value tasks such as playing with the kids. We all have 24 hours a day – how we use it and how we prioritise its expenditure can be a key differentiator between success and mediocrity; between stress …

Get out of your comfort zone

A couple of clients really surprised me today. Client 1 who has been training for around 5 months –  strength gone through the roof because he’s been doing loads of extra chest work. Conversely… Client 2 who has been training for a couple of weeks – general fitness making massive leaps because he’s done just …

Do you know some who makes excuses like this?

It could be argued that rationalisation is the psychological process most damaging to personal development. It acts as a severe restraint to growth, learning, improvement, success and ultimately happiness.  Unfortunately, it is also one of the most common – thus a recipe for underachievement en-masse! Rationalisation occurs when a person (possibly due to a need …