SD Enterprise and Personal Development Blog

Chi Kung - A practice for true well-being

I learned Tai Chi - Chi Kung about 5 years ago and I sometimes forget how much it has helped my focus and change aspects of my health and wellness over the last few years.

Chi kung helps the body balance out its own energy system and reduces the bodies stress levels while increasing the minds ability to chemically cope with emotions, injury and fatigue.

There are a number of schools of thought when it comes to practicing Tai Chi and which exercises and forms are better for different people.  I learned 18 exercises of Tai Chi - Chi King which I practice now and then as well as meditation and relaxation practices that help me sleep like a baby and relax on demand.

I also find that the Chi Kung really helps get rid of my back pain too, which in turn gives my more energy and makes me enjoy my day more.

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Meditation for success

you can use simple meditation exercises to improve your life, create balance and achieve your goals.

Preparation

Get yourself in a place and a position where you can relax with no interruption (don’t do any of these exercises while driving a vehicle or operating machinery… you would be surprised!).

Sit comfortably and close your eye’s and only take these exercises to the point where it is comfortable, do not force it if you have any bother… also see your GP if you recognise any problems or are in any doubt about your health.

Breathing

Breath in and out through your nose for this exercise.

Take a deep breath in and slowly out.

Repeat this deep breathing at least three times (up to 11 repetitions of deep breathing).

The minds eye - the meditation bit

In your mind imagine yourself standing in a peaceful countryside scene with beautiful blue skies and rolling hills.

Feel the nice comfortable warm air on your face, hands and feet.

Notice the sounds of the stream close by, the sound of the peaceful countryside around you.

Imaging yourself placing your fingers in the stream, with a feeling of warmth and cleansing.

Take all of your fears, any self doubt and negative thoughts and let the stream wash them all away off the tips of your fingers and far down steam.

take your hands out to dry in the suns warms glow, feel the energy of the sun on your hands as it fills you with confidence, energy and success.

Imagine the suns warms over your whole body all the way from your finders to your arms, from the top of your head down your body, heating your legs and energising your feet and toes.

Take this energy into your day and long into the future.

You will soon walk back to the countryside scene where you first began, with the warm air and the rolling hills, the warm clear blue sky and the long meadow grass reached to your fingers.

Think of having an energised day ahead or a restful sleep that night depending on what time of day it is and what you feel you need most from the exercise.

Bring your attention back into the room you are in, to the sounds and feelings around you, take a stretch and open your eyes when you are ready.

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Neuro Linguistic Programming - Tools for success and development

NLP came from the study of how successful people differ from the rest… how they feel about things, what they say to themselves, how they feel things, how they think and the way they carry themselves in any situation.

NLP is a number of techniques and tools that can help you reach your potential. Many business people and sports men and woman use NLP and similar techniques to achieve success and great results.

Tony Robbins the motivational and personal development speaker and guru also uses NLP and promotes the techniques used in NLP.

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Message to all you social entrepreneurs out there!

The Melting Pot in Edinburgh is having open day events! 10 June 2008 and 10 July 2008 from 9am till 9pm.

You could pop in and work from the melting pot for a day or pop in and have a look around.

Are you:

• Self employed and missing a sense of structure within your working life?
• Looking to benefit from improving your network of like minded contacts?
• Looking for a socially aware space to use for meetings and events?
• Aiming to broaden your horizons and get exposure for your ideas?
• Looking for a professional space in the city centre location within Edinburgh?
• Looking for a green or eco space to work out of to compliment your business or enterprise?

If you answer yes to any of the above you should head along to the open day at The Melting Pot and find out more about what is going on…

Contact Information for: The Melting Pot

5 Rose Street,

Edinburgh,

Scotland.

EH2 2PR

Telephone: 0131 243 2626

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Please let The Melting Pot know you seen them on sdenterprise.co.uk

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What makes you happy?

…and would make you want to jump out of bed in the morning?

One of the key things that people who succeed in life seem to have a grasp of is making sure they identify what makes them tick, what will drive them to success, Why do they want to achieve that something?

So how do you find out what makes you happy?

• Try new things!
• Look at what you have enjoyed in life in the past.
• What did you get excited about in childhood, teenage years or early adulthood?
• What things in life get you really passionate, is it injustice, is it people, is it working with animals, are you really keen on helping others?
• If you can’t get anywhere with the above questions, just keep looking and asking, what makes me happy in life just now or in the future?

If you look at identifying what you get most out of in life you can really make a shift towards a life of abundance and true riches (happy, contentment, successful.

Also, it makes sense to define what you do like about life at present, in the recent past, and in the near future as well as dreaming about the long term possibilities in life.

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‘I am the greatest’ Mohammed Ali

If you want to achieve something extraordinary then you have to dream something extraordinary, imagine, see yourself getting what you really want, feel as though you are living it, smell what you would smell, hear what you might hear.

You simply are aiming to leave your subconscious believing that the vivid day dreams are actually real and exist in the ‘real world’.

I listened to one of Jack Blacks CD’s today, a Motivational and development speaker from Glasgow in Scotland. The CD has three tracks on it and the 3rd track is great, I was impressed because I could really relate to the ideas he presented as well as the people that he used as analogies. I have listened to hundreds of personal development and motivational CD’s but this one really struck a note with me.

One key thing that I got from the Mindstore CD is that you should not do as many motivational and management materials preach, by only dreaming of achieving things that are ‘achieveble’ and ‘atainable’. I feel free to dream of achieving things that may be a far off dream to others even if they are extremely difficult for people to achieve.

Dream big! Achieve loads and be the greatest!

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Achieve success and realise your dreams

When studying how successful people in business, life and relationships get to where they are in life the one thing that really stands out is that they all set goals and targets to what they want to achieve in the short, medium and longer term.

They tend to base the goals on principles and values that help drive them towards achieving their desired outcome and keep on going, they take action to achieve what they want!

What are goals?

They are just something to work towards, something that you want in life, they may fall under one or a few of the following headings. Relationships, career, financial, family, health and life. There are other headings that goals can fall into, but this gives you an idea of where you may want to start.

Your Role in Life!

It helps to take a look at two main things in life. Firstly, what are your long term dreams and goals that may be seen by other as just a dream… or pie in the sky stuff!

secondly, define the things in life that really motivate you, do you like helping people, do you want to make a difference in the world, what could you achieve if there was nothing holding you back, what will make you happy?

Setting Your Goals!

• Define your goal! (set out on paper, what you want to achieve clearly and simply).
• When will you aim to archive your goal by? (make all goals time sensitive).
• Be optimistic and aim high, but don’t go into a fantasy land. (still aim for dreams though).
• You may want to define how and when you will know that you have achieved your goal.
• To achieve a large or long term goal you may want to set out a number of small goals to get there (you can eat a whole big fat elephant, but only if you do it in wee bits).

Tell us what you think of this post!

Please feel free to post a comment and tell us what you think about the information we have in our post!

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What can we learn from the Apprentice?

I watched The Apprentice on BBC One last night and I actually really enjoyed it, I had avoided watching it this year as in the past (one seriese in particular) many of the partcipants really got on my nerves.  I am usualy open to listening to most people and taking everyone at face value, but for some reason I could not be bothered watching them… anyway.

What can we learn from watching these programmes? here are some of the things that you may pick up from watching these types of shows.

• If they can do it, so can you.
• If you want to learn something, push yourself and get out of your comfort zone.
• Actions speak volumes, dont be affraid to try.
• Think Ideas through in your head first.
• Take on what other people say, but go with your gut instinct.
• Leadership is not about saying ‘your fired’, this is all for TV and is edited like crazy to make it more exciting to watch.
• If you have a dream, make it clear in your mind and go for it.

What do you get out of watching the Apprentice programmes? Do you even watch it, or does it drive you nuts? 

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Straight from the Horses mouth

Have a look at the horses mouth web site for access to mentors and support through your life decisions and development.

I think it is a great idea and I registered as a user today, I will spend some time on the site soon but I wanted to share the link with anyone out there that wants to make changes to their outlook in life.

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New Statesmen Magazine - On social enterprise and the voluntary sector.

Last night I had the opportunity to attend the Edge Upstarts Event in Edinburgh, with speakers including Brian Tannerhill MBE - Chief Executive of the McSence Group and John Swinney MSP Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth.

The main question to the floor of speakers was simply ‘where do charities and social enterprises differ and what are the similarities?’, but the discussion seemed to go in circles a bit and focused more on the definition of what a social enterprise ’should look and act like’.

I am glad that I attended the event held in the Grape (function room) in St Andrews Square Edinburgh and I did get some learning from going along.

I can’t help but wonder exactly why I was there, I have had a keen interest in social enterprise for about 5 years and I have had experience of small business and enterprise projects since I was about 16 years old, but I could not help but feel that I did not fit in, that I was not quite expected to be there.

It was strange, I was asked by a number of people ‘how did you get an invite?’ and ‘what are you doing here?’ as though I should not be in a room with the ‘elite’… but deep down I dont really care (well just a bit) as it is all part of the old thing about learning to deal with all kinds of people and deal with rejection.

I am sure many young euntreprenuers out there have experinced the same thing, the advice that I would give anyone who is just starting out, go for it, unless it is a waste of your time and taking you away from your desired goals and dreams… go for it!

Visit the New Statesman web site click here!

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