Niyc Pidgeon

Tuesday 17 March 2015

What is the key to being happy?

This Friday, 20th March, is the third International Day of Happiness! The International Day of Happiness was originally created by the United Nations, with the intention of recognising the relevance of happiness and wellbeing as universal goals and aspirations in the lives of human beings around the world, and highlighting their importance within public policy objectives. I truly love that happiness and wellbeing is being recognised so broadly, and that how we feel is being taken into account, alongside what we do and have.

To celebrate this week in the run up to the International day of Happiness, I created a free 5 Day Happiness Plan which we have been sharing through optimallyou. Today is Day 2, and we are focusing on move! I suggested that everybody take just ten minutes out of their day today to get moving, and to share with us what they had been getting up to. I wanted to share my move with you too!

This morning I went to boxing, which I am absolutely loving. This is one of my new years resolutions - to learn a new skill - and it is still going strong! I am loving seeing myself make progress and have really noticed how much my reactions have improved across the past few months. My technique is much better now and it is such a good workout! Boxing is really different from my usual workouts and I definitely notice the difference in mentality compared with my running. When I run my mind is open and I my thoughts can run wild - I have some of my best ideas when running and sometimes have to stop to make a note of them in my phone. There is no way that would happen when I'm boxing! Boxing requires so much focus and concentration. Focus but not thinking at the same time. As soon as my mind wanders I get knocked out. Not really, but the potential is there!

I ran tonight too, so it was interesting to notice the comparisons in the same day. I ran with Tyne Bridge Harriers and one of my personal training clients, Sophie, and we did a pyramid training system which involved a mile of jogging to warm up, followed by 1-2-3-2-1-2-3-2-1 minutes of running, each with half the time ran as recovery, and then a mile of jogging to cool down. This was so much fun! I have ran for a lot of years and have never ran like this. I really enjoyed it, and it was great to run in a group.

Everyone at Tyne Bridge is lovely, and there were a few familiar faces from parkrun. I think it is always nice to get out and train with other people, as it helps to motivate you, and you experience so much positivity from the social interaction as well. This is an actual fact, and when I researched running as a positive intervention, it was the combination of the physical activity and social interaction that created such a powerful impact on wellbeing and flourishing. Working out makes you happy!

I hope that you can all incorporate some move into this week and that you enjoy getting on board with the positive focus on leading a happy life that the International Day of Happiness has helped to create. I will be offering more happiness tips in Day 3 of your happiness plan, and the optimallyou vlog tomorrow.

If you would like a copy of your 5 Day Happiness Plan then just get in touch, or leave your email on our website at www.optimallyou.com

Have a fab week!

With Gratitude,

Niyc xx

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Tuesday 10 March 2015

What makes us keep on going when we face big challenges?

Today, between 3-4pm local time, the world will have the opportunity to participate in the hour of Sisu. In this hour, you are encouraged to do one thing that you know will benefit you but that you have been putting off - something that might seem a little scary to you, but that will help you to push out of your comfort zone in a really empowering way.

Sisu is a concept that originates from Finland, used to describe the power that enables individuals to push through unbearable challenges. It is also a new term in the field of Positive Psychology which is being researched and applied to contribute to understanding other areas of the science, such as resilience, and post-traumatic growth.

This whole year of 2015 is dedicated as the Year of Sisu, to spread the message that we as humans are stronger than the adversities we encounter and we can take action to move past these experiences, and break through to positive and empowered futures.

From Sisu researcher Emilia Lahti:

"Sisu denotes extraordinary determination, courage, and resoluteness in the face of extreme adversity. It relates to an action mindset that enables individuals to take action against very slim odds and reach beyond the observed limitations of their present moment. Sisu begins where grit and perseverance end. As a construct, it is an integral part of the Finnish culture but it is also a universal capacity of humans all across the world."

I wrote last week about defying your own limitations, and this fits so well with the concept of Sisu, as a means for breaking through barriers and tackling things head on. We all have so much potential inside of us, and so much strength and courage when it comes to the things that really test us. Sisu allows us to celebrate this and honour it.

There is so much change that occurs in our lives, and if you were to look back on some of the things that you have experienced, you will probably notice that you have changed too.

It is often the times that try us, that end up being the times that make us.

How can you push out of your comfort zone today and participate in the hour of Sisu?

Between 3-4pm in your local time, do something that pushes your boundaries - something that you know will benefit you but that you have been putting off.

In preparation for our next Thrive Live event, I am going to dedicate my hour of Sisu to making my own vision board. This is something that I have done in the past and is something that I am ready to do again. We will be making vision boards at our Thrive Live event next week and I want to be able to share with everybody in the class to give an idea of what is possible, and heighten the co-creation in the group.

Creative pursuits are often something that we know will benefit us but that we put off because we feel that allowing ourselves to be creative is something that is on the edge of our comfort zone.

I challenge you to discover what it is that resides on the edge of your comfort zone, and choose to do that.

With Gratitude,

Niyc xx

P.S. I will be vlogging about creativity this week too, and so don't forget to check out the optimallyou YouTube channel to catch up with that tomorrow.

Tuesday 3 March 2015

Defy Your Own Limitations

I had the idea for this blog a few days ago when I had got home from a run....a 50 minute run. It took me almost 90 minutes(!) to actually get round to going for that run. Not because I wasn't ever not going to do the run, but because I was procrastinating, putting it off, finding other "important" things to do first. It was my morning off, and I didn't have anywhere to be until lunchtime. I had a lie in until 7am and woken up naturally and knew that I had planned to run. The first hour was spent relaxing, catching up on news and doing a few bits for social media, then I thought that I would head out to run at 8am.

8am turned into a few emails, a phone call, some more social media. I thought about having breakfast, then I realised I wanted to run first. So I decided to go out and run. Then I tried on a dress that I love and have never worn, I thought about wearing it to a party that I have been invited to. I thought about breakfast again, and then finally decided to get my running gear on and head out. I stopped and sat on a chair first. It was 9:30am. I grabbed my headphones. Found a podcast lecture that I wanted to listen to. Hair up, gloves on. Fiiiiiiiinally out the door. Why had it taken me so long to get out and run? I LOVE running! It chills me out. It's my thing, and I've worked as a personal trainer for almost ten years. I am a master of motivation! It wasn't necessarily the motivation to do the run that i was lacking (because I knew that I was always going to do it at some point that morning), but rather the motivation to do the run right then. Hmmmm.

It got me thinking. What was so bad about taking the first few steps out of the door? It's something that we all deal with.The umming and ah'ing about whether to take action, or to put something off. It can be likened to getting out of bed in the morning - do you jump up at the first sound of your alarm, or do you hit snooze again and again?! Do you make it to your workout raring to go, or do you put it off or start late and miss part of your session? I guess in this situation I wanted to relax into my morning off without the usual military precision that my day demands. It certainly provided pause for thought though, and I realise nobody is exempt from the tendency to put off creating action in the moment.

I'm glad I went out on that run - it brought with it so many ideas and positive vibes. I do some of my best thinking when I am running, almost like thinking but not thinking. It was raining, but just drizzle, which was really nice, and I had chosen to listen a podcast about mindset. I always try to remind myself to listen to something valuable when I run, whether it be music to make me feel good, or a lecture to make me think. Sometimes just running without anything is valuable too, and it's nice to be immersed in the sounds of what's around you.

I ran through the park that I usually run around, and into the next park across the road, which has just been refurbished. I thought that I would just keep on running through the park, further than I had ever been, to see what I would come across, and I ended up coming to a gate which led into a piece of track that I used to run through when I lived in my last home, around four years ago. I was really surprised that the two parks joined and I kind of got a rush of memories of the old route that I used to run - with lots of hills and muddy paths, and a big long flat along the bottom. I ran along the flat and remembered running through there years ago and how it felt, and what I was training for, and which bit of the run I found difficult, and remembered doing sprint sessions running out along the flat as fast as I could and then walking back. The whole thing brought back happy memories and positive emotions - I'm sure I must look so strange running along with a huge grin on my face sometimes!

I felt so grateful for those memories, and also for the fact that I had chosen to keep on running and see what was at the end of the path. If I had just stuck to the usual route and turned around where I normally would, then I never would have realised that the two parks join, and would never had ran through the old park with a new perspective. It offers such a simple example of pushing past perceived boundaries to see what is on the other side.

I had created a perception for myself, that the edge of the park was the edge of the park, and it was only until I kept running, that I realised there was another gate, and in fact another whole park behind it. What you think is your edge really isn't your edge, and you can go so much further and experience so much more than you think, just by pushing past what you think is there, and by breaking through the perceived boundaries that you set yourself.

Where do you impose limitations on yourself? Are these limitations real or only perceived?

What can you do to break through your perceived boundaries?

What might be on the other side of that gate?

The biggest limitations are the ones that we make up in our minds.

Choose to defy them today.

With Gratitude,

Niyc xx

PS. The optimallyou video blog will be released on YouTube tomorrow so keep an eye out for that - it is all about feeling grateful :)

Tuesday 24 February 2015

Things that make you feel good!

Saturday saw the launch of our brand new optimallyou Thrive Live series at Yogalilies studio in Newcastle. Thrive Live is a weekend wellness workshop that runs once each month and combines a positive psychology group coaching session led by myself, with an aroma yoga and meditation experience from Lissa of Yogalilies. This event was focused on “Show Yourself Some Love”, which aimed to help the group to work out where in their lives they felt stress, and how to combat it.

Stress is the mental or emotional strain that results from demanding circumstances, and involves both the stressful situation, as well as how we respond to it. 39% of all work absences are attributed to stress, and it is something that is increasingly being noticed as being so detrimental to our health and wellbeing. Before Thrive Live I created for each member of the group their own Thrive Live Personal Growth Book, which included questions and exercises related to dealing with stressful situations, and how to develop a greater self awareness and self acceptance.

I arrived at Yogalilies, and helped Lissa to set up the studio, then welcomed our fourteen guests to sit down at their yoga mats and get comfortable. We set the intention to clear away any feelings of stress, anxiety, and fear, and work on allowing ourselves to experience more self love. The first 90 minutes of the session were focused on creating a conversation around strategies for reframing stressful situations, and talking about the things that made us feel good. It was really interesting to see and feel the energy in the room shift as we moved away from talking about the things that stressed us, and began to share what makes us feel good.

It is so easy to get stuck in a negative dialogue with yourself and find yourself complaining all of the time, almost as a default setting – we all do it! I challenged the group to complete one whole day of no complaining in between this Thrive Live session and the next, and to see how it can help shift your mindset and wellbeing for the better. You should try this with us too! Just choose one day when you commit to no complaining from start to finish, and tweet us your views of your experience or share with us on facebook! One member of the group had actually given up complaining for the forty days of lent! I’m excited to hear the results of her challenge!

An interesting point was raised by a member of the group, about how to deal with other people that are negative and complaining all of the time, and I have actually commented on this in this week’s optimallyou vlog, so check it out for this cool piece of advice!

Everybody claimed one new healthy habit to install into their lives going forwards, and taking time to appreciate the beauty of nature and flowers in particular was one of the hot new habits from the day. Other ideas for creating more self love included taking more alone time as rest, listening to more music (positive playlist coming right up in this weeks optimallyou newsletter, just subscribe here), spending time with family, and for Lissa, enjoying time with Watson her dog.

Our intentions for a new positive habit were carried through into the second half of the session where Lissa led the aroma yoga experience with essential oils to help imprint the positive emotions of the day into the brain. We practised some deep twist movements and core work to fire up our energy centres, and worked through a dynamic yoga session followed by a meditation which guided us to focus on our new habit, and the one action we could take today to bring our new positive habit into reality.

Lissa is truly amazing and our aroma yoga experience was so incredibly powerful! There is such value in allowing yourself some time, whether it be half an hour, a day, or in this case, an afternoon, to dedicate to yourself and really give yourself something that nourishes you and makes you feel good. I loved it and can't wait for our next Thrive Live event on Saturday 21st March which is called "Dare To Be Creative". I will outline some keys steps to take towards creating the best version of you, and we will be creating our own manifestation vision boards to help identify what you want to bring in to your life and what the best version of you actually looks like. Lissa will then lead the aroma yoga experience, this time focusing on hip opening exercises, and a mandala colouring meditation.

Until then I will be practising my daily positive habits for more self love, and working on not complaining. Hopefully these things can be of use to you too. Have an amazing week!

With Gratitude,

Niyc xx

Tuesday 17 February 2015

Nourish Your Body Right!

Every time you eat a meal you have an opportunity to nourish your body. Each meal is a choice. Your choice.

I think that the idea that we have such power in the moment is something that is easily overlooked or forgotten. I know that it can be all too easy to write off a day when you make a poor choice with one meal or one snack.

Because last week saw both the International Day of Self Love, as well as Valentine's Day, I have been thinking about how we can love ourselves more, and about all of the ways that you can fill yourself up with love and goodness. Choosing to nourish yourself right is certainly one of them.

Through eating well, we are able to give our bodies the love and respect that they deserve. They are so amazing after all! We have the choice and the power to do good to our bodies every single day, through how we sleep, how we take care of ourselves, how much we choose to move, how we think, and how we eat.

Think of your body as a fuel tank that you are constantly filling up with positive energy, nutritious food, happiness, health, and love. At the same time, your fuel is being used up and can be depleted by stress, negative energy, poor nutrition, and inactivity. The result, if we are not careful, is an unhealthy body, with a low immune system, and greater risk of lifestyle diseases. You need to keep topping up the tank with goodness to help your body operate at its best!

I like to focus on what we can choose to include rather than putting the emphasis on what we lose out on, thinking about being on a diet, of lack, or deficit. By choosing foods with an abundance of nutrients and making sure to include lots of vegetables, healthy fats such as nuts, seeds, and avocados, complex carbohydrates like sweet potato, brown rice, and quinoa, and additional super foods, we are able to nourish and show love to our bodies.

Being more mindful of what we eat, and how we choose to feel when we eat, is something that can also really help. Saying grace before a meal is a tradition that would likely not be seen in many modern homes today. However, there is a lot that we can take from this tradition, to create a sense of gratitude for the food that we have, and for the opportunity to nourish and love ourselves through the meals that we create.

I have been practising more mindful eating this year, choosing to take a moment to feel gratitude for the abundance of food we have available to us, and the choice that we have at each meal to be able to add energy and life and health to our bodies. It has really helped me to slow down and to feel really good about the things I choose to eat, and so I invite you to try it too....

Before you begin a meal, take a moment to feel gratitude for what it is you are about to eat. Take in the sight and the smell of your food, and think about how lucky we are to be able to choose what we eat every day, and to have such an abundance of health giving food available to us. Think to yourself, "I am grateful for this food that I am about to eat, and I am grateful for the opportunity to nourish myself and to practice self love in this way". Just by thinking this, and stopping for a moment, we can begin to break the pattern of stressed out eating, help our food to digest more easily, and give our well-being a little boost too.

If you have made a poor choice with one meal, choose to feel grateful at the next meal, to be able have the opportunity to choose to eat something nourishing and nutritious, and feel how your mindset can shift. Don't beat yourself up if you made a poor choice, focus on making a positive choice for the next time, and feel the power of the moment, and how you can fill up your fuel tank at each meal.

In this week's optimallyou vlog I will be continuing with the theme of nourish, and will be talking about Diet Danger Zones, and what you can do to help avoid them. Make sure you check it out on Wednesday when it is released.

Have a fantastic week!

With Gratitude,

Niyc xx

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www.optimalyou.co.uk
(Current site & online store - order your products and book your event places here! Coming up we have our very first Thrive Live event, "Show Yourself Some Love", and our "Be The Best Version Of You" Power Hour too.)

Tuesday 10 February 2015

Letting Go To Feel Good!

Letting go is often something that can be thought of as being painful to experience. It can be associated with loss, and with hurt and with anguish, and can be perceived as being negative, and of leaving a gap in your life.

Letting go might resonate with you in many different ways - letting go of a loved one that you have lost, letting go of a relationship that is no longer healthy, letting go of a friendship that is past its best, or letting go of a pet that you can no longer give the best home to. It might be letting go of your favourite clothes or pair of shoes that you have been clinging on to but never wear, letting go of a business idea that just doesn't seem to work, or letting go of a home, or a job, that you have grown to love.

What if we think of letting go from a different perspective?

What if letting go is actually a good thing - something that allows us to let go, in fact, of the pain we feel, instead of leading us to feel pain as the end result.

What if we look at letting go as a positive process that is releasing us from things that no longer serve our best path and highest self?

I like to think of letting go, as prone to sadness or resistance as it may sometimes be, as something that is making way for better things.

In every life experience there is a lesson for us to learn, a lesson that can provide purpose, direction, and motivation, for us to continue on and do great things.

What can you choose to let go of this week to allow more positive things to enter your life?

Are you holding on to any stresses or worries that you will do well to release yourself from?

"Worrying pretends to be necessary, but serves no useful purpose."

You may be presented with situation where you decide to let go on a small scale, or on a larger scale, and your mindset and perspective when working through this can determine the impact and outcome of what you learn and feel.

Letting go of things can actually be incredibly empowering, as we release our attachments to a particular outcome or object, and allow ourselves to become open to the possibilities and opportunities that surround us.

By letting go - and sometimes by being forced to let go - I notice that I have experienced increased connection and development of new relationships and solidifying of existing ones, more freedom and a sense of inspiration and motivation for the future, and a sense of alignment with what is meant to be, and what is best for me.

Think about the lesson in what you have experienced. Look for the positives that can come out of a negative situation. Notice the opportunities that lie ahead.

Letting go might simply mean that you stop worrying about something and let go of the outcome, leaving you to feel light and free.

Sometimes it is our negative mindset, thoughts, and perspective that we are in need of letting go of, and sometimes this key element can be the hardest to crack.

Ill be talking more about negative thoughts and how to release yourself and let go, in my new video blog which will be coming up tomorrow. Keep an eye on the optimallyou YouTube channel where this vlog will be released, and subscribe to the channel to be the first to see :)

In the meantime have a wonderful week!

With Gratitude,

Niyc

Tuesday 3 February 2015

Remember Your Why

I went out to dinner with the girls this evening, for an early meal after everybody finished work, at 6:30pm. I figured I would be home by 8pm, so that I could write a blog post here, and then get an early night before my usual 5am start tomorrow. Our food took over an hour to arrive though, and one of the girls almost didn't get her meal at all, and so I arrived home at 9:15pm. I found myself moaning to the girls at the end of our evening, telling them that I have an hour of work to do when I get home, and that I have a 5am start tomorrow. The car journey home involved me weighing up the relative benefits of writing this blog post versus not writing it. Will I feel better if I just don't write, and I go to bed instead? Possibly. But what about my commitment to write something every day, and to blog every week?

This made me think. Who did I make that commitment to? Myself. Who am I letting down if I don't write? Myself. Who creates the pressure in the first place? Who makes the rules? Me. It made me think about why it matters if I do, or don't do something that I set out to do, if the only person that has created the standard and the pressure is myself. Then I realised that I needed to stop looking at WHAT I had to do, and instead think about the WHY.

Why do I blog every week? Why is it important to show up and do what I say I am going to do? I guess that showing up and following through with my commitments are part of my values, something that is important to me. I also choose to remind myself that I love to write, and that writing is a creative expression of my ideas, thoughts, and feelings, even if it does end up as a late night post on a different topic to the one that I initially planned.

I do what I do because I love it. Because it makes me happy, and hopefully somewhere along the line it makes some other people happy too. I'm going to wind up my night tonight thinking about some of the great things that I have done in the past week - things that I've done because I've wanted to do them. I've worked with fourteen personal training clients, and almost the same amount of coaching clients. I have delivered a corporate health and wellness talk, done a course walk around for the new Rising Sun parkrun event I am creating, and ran a successful Power Hour event, as well as leading two bootcamps, and recording the new optimallyou vlog. All of these things I have enjoyed so much, and have allowed me to make progress with my mission to serve others and spread happiness, by living my passion, and showing up for what I love.

I always like to look for the lesson in a situation. Tonight I felt resistance, and that prompted me to explore and process what I was really feeling. Looking for the lesson made me remember my why. I mentioned the power of remembering your why in a previous blog post about exercise motivation, and I found myself shouting it at one of my bootcamps last week too - "remember why you're here, remember why you showed up, why you exercise, why it is important to you". Tonight it deserved an entire blog post.

For the week ahead I intend to remember my why. I'll be looking forward to another Power Hour event this week, in Alnwick, and will be collaborating on our new Thrive Live event which is coming up in a few weeks time too. I'll be enjoying what I do, and resisting the urge to feel pressure attached to doing it. I will remember that in working for myself and pursuing my chosen path, that I always have a choice. I am choosing to do the work that I love and can be grateful to be afforded the opportunity to do so.

Take the pressure off yourself this week, and choose to remember your why too.

With Gratitude,

Niyc xx