Category Archives: Reaching Your Potential


Don’t wait for an epiphany before making a change

By Sarah Cooper | Published February 8, 2010

“How can I be sure that this time I’ve got it right?”
One of the fears that keeps would-be career changers paralysed is that the new direction will prove no better than the last. Having got it wrong before, we don’t trust ourselves to be wiser the second (or third) time around.
That’s why I [...]

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How To Be Brave When You’d Rather Hide Under the Duvet

By Sarah Cooper | Published January 18, 2010

“I’m very brave generally” he went on in a low voice,” only today I happen to have a headache.” So said Tweedledum in Alice Through a Looking Glass.
The key to successfully changing career isn’t understanding your values, identifying your favourite skills and passions, creating a killer action plan and gathering support and inspiration to keep [...]

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Who is the choreographer of your life?

By Sarah Cooper | Published November 10, 2009

A few days ago I downloaded a talk from the TED website that has been replaying itself in my mind ever since.
TED is a non profit organisation dedicated to spreading “ideas worth sharing.” TED believes that through powerful ideas we can change our lives, and ultimately the world.
In this particular talk, brain scientist Jill Bolte [...]

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Why Getting Happy is the Best Career Change Strategy

By Sarah Cooper | Published October 6, 2009

What we do for a living is such a big part of our lives that if work isn’t going well, our career-related unhappiness often spills over into other parts of our lives.
Our relationships suffer because we moan all the time
Our finances suffer because we keep making extravagant purchases to cheer ourselves up.
And our life balance suffers [...]

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Are you accommodating or bulldozing your career obstacles?

By Sarah Cooper | Published October 1, 2009

When it comes to changing career, no-one can deny that you’re likely to meet a lot of obstacles. But are these barriers set in stone?
Early this morning I was struck by an apt analogy. I live, as many of you know, in a Chinese courtyard house, full of charm but somewhat tatty around the edges.
Half [...]

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Identify Those Elusive Transferable Skills: The 3 Pronged Attack

By Sarah Cooper | Published July 24, 2009

Not long after starting my coaching practice I delivered a workshop to young Chinese professionals on creating the perfect CV.
I was shocked to discover that the majority of participants were simply incapable of naming something they were good at – despite them all being competent English speakers with better jobs than most of their peers.
Half-way [...]

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Are You Cinderella or The Ugly Step Sister When It Comes To Your Career?

By Sarah Cooper | Published July 10, 2009

Photo credit: www.flickr.com/photos/glamhag/
/CC BY-SA 2.0
You remember the classic fairy tale. Cinderella flees the Royal Ball at midnight, accidentally leaving behind one glass slipper.  The captivated Prince Charming picks it up and searches the land to find its beautiful owner.
All sorts of hopeful candidates, including Cinderella’s evil ugly stepsisters, try to force their feet into the [...]

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How To Recapture The Optimism Of Youth

By Sarah Cooper | Published July 3, 2009

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CC BY 2.0
We all know that being positive is a Good Thing. But as we get older, it’s not that easy to break long-held habits of negative, self-defeating thinking.
I wonder if it’s because our thoughts are both so familiar and invisible that we don’t always appreciate their serious effect.
Imagine that every negative thought we [...]

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The Importance of NOT Being Earnest (with apologies to Wilde)

By Sarah Cooper | Published June 26, 2009

Photo credit: flickr user fernallan

As a relatively new blogger I know it’s important to spend some time getting acquainted with the experts. My favourite is Pamela Slim of Escape From Cubicle Nation. She always manages to sound like a real person, which is harder than you’d imagine.  This “living your dreams” territory can be a minefield [...]

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Ann’s Story - Why You Should Never Give Up

By Sarah Cooper | Published May 1, 2009

One of the few downsides of my coaching practice is not always knowing how things turn out for a client.
People come to coaching when they want to make a major change - and that’s not easy. In an ideal world, we’d continue the coaching until the client successfully made all the changes they wanted. But [...]

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