Category Archives: Reaching Your Potential


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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Also posted in Achieving Balance | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments
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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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Also posted in Building Self Belief, Managing The Transition | Tagged , , | 1 Comment
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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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Also posted in Building Self Belief, Managing The Transition, Useful Tools and Techniques | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment
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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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Also posted in Defining Your Dream Work | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
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How To Recapture The Optimism Of Youth

By Sarah Cooper | Published July 3, 2009

www.flickr.com/photos/zaqography/ /
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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Also posted in Defining Your Dream Work | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment
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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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Also posted in Building Self Belief, Defining Your Dream Work | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
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Taking Inspiration From My Daughter

By Sarah Cooper | Published March 13, 2009

 
Two days ago my daughter Elsa (3 1/2) announced that she’d like to cycle herself to school - a local Chinese kindergarten just round the corner from where we live. Her bike was last year’s birthday present from her ayi (like a Chinese nanny). But Elsa never really got the hang of it before winter [...]

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Also posted in Building Self Belief, Managing The Transition | Tagged , , | 2 Comments
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Embracing Imperfection: What You Can Learn From a First Pancake

By Sarah Cooper | Published March 9, 2009

 
In shifting from your former or current job to your dream work, it’s likely that you’ll be moving from a position of expertise to a position of relative ignorance.
 
Often, we’re a bit embarrassed by our lack of skill or knowledge in our new area, forgetting that we had to learn the ropes of our [...]

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Also posted in Managing The Transition | Tagged , | 6 Comments
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