December 2007 Newsletter

In the run up to Christmas while you are juggling the demands of work, family and friends as well as finding the time to cram in your shopping, you may be left feeling stressed out, time hungry and exhausted.

This month we’ll show you how to prioritize your time by learning how to say “No!”, we’ll reveal our top tips on how to boost your energy levels, we’ll share the nutrition training that we recently delivered to VocaLink, and we offer you the opportunity to join us on our latest taster event where you’ll learn useful skills to help you improve your relationships with challenging individuals. 

Just say “No!”

It sounds simple but for some it’s not always easy to assert yourself.

For some people saying no can be one of the hardest things to do …how do you assert yourself without causing offence? What if saying no means you won’t be asked to get involved in exciting work projects in the future? What if you upset your boss, your colleagues, or your loved ones?

So instead you say yes and are left feeling put upon, stressed and resentful when a simple no delivered in the right way would have solved your problem and left you with the valuable time you need to focus on your priority projects.

Here we share our tried and tested strategies for learning how to say no with confidence:

Don’t be apologetic, don’t feel bad
It’s ok to say no. You just need a little bit of confidence. Learning to say no to the requests you genuinely can’t accommodate means that when you do say yes it’ll be meaningful and much appreciated. 

Be polite but firm
Try phrases like “I know you are going to be disappointed but on this occasion I’m going to have to say no” or “I’ve really enjoyed working on these projects with you in the past but I simply don’t have the time” or “Thank you I’m really flattered that you’ve asked me to get involved / come along but I can’t make it this time” 

Value your time
Your time is valuable. Your time is your own. Only you know if you have enough in your schedule to accommodate any new requests. 

Offer an alternative
You can still show willing and be accommodating by saying no but offering an alternative. Perhaps a colleague would be willing to get involved? Maybe you can’t help now but perhaps you’ll have time in the future? 

Preempt
If you know there is a big project coming up and you’re likely to be approached to get involved and you don’t have the time try discussing the project in advance with your boss and offer your thoughts on how the project can be managed more effectively. 

Practice, practice, practice
Practice saying no …at home, with friends, with sales people. The more often you do it the easier it’ll become. 

Be clear, confident and take your time
Again remember its ok to say no, but if you feel put on the spot say you’ll get back to them, this way you can think about your response in a measured way and deliver your no with clarity and confidence. 

Be interested in the request, listen and respond thoughtfully
So as not to cause offence and get flustered. For instance: “I understand this is important to you …” or “That sounds like a really interesting project ...” 

Don't make excuses
Try to avoid listing all the tasks you have on your list which mean you can’t help this time around. Simply state that you are busy and can’t take on any more. You’ll look more confident and you’ll feel in control.

And finally if you really feel put on the spot and want to buy yourself some time, one of the following holding statements my help you until you have time to collect your thoughts.

“That sounds interesting – can I think about it and get back to you?”
“Thank you for the invitation, I’ll just need to check my diary”
“I’ll let you know in a couple of days”

Good luck.

If you’d like to talk to us about assertiveness skills training please contact:
john@you-unltd.co.uk or call on +44(0)20 7407 0044.

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Nutrition training with VocaLink.

We recap on the training to help you learn how to keep your health at its best.

Are you feeling a bit drowsy? Do you often find your mind drifting off in the middle of an important meeting? Do you watch the clock towards the end of the day, desperate to get home and crash on the sofa?

One of the most common symptoms of poor health reported by busy professionals is lack of energy. Our body’s health meter influences our energy levels, our mental capacity to remember and focus attention, and even our happiness. In fact, our physical health is an essential factor in our general well being.

What did we do for VocaLink?
VocaLink is the company that operates the LINK cash machine (ATM) network, connecting over 60,000 cash machines in the UK. We got ready to revitalise the VocaLink team, packed our bags and journeyed over to their headquarters in order to deliver our nutrition training.

The aim of the day was to enable the participants to have a real think about how their health affects their every day life, and to give them the tools to improve the things they decided needed to change.

How did we do it?
Setting personal intention
As with all our workshops, we invited participants to think about their "intention" and what it is they really want to get out of the session. By encouraging personal engagement we could deliver individual benefit to attendees, as personal intention encourages participants to take responsibility for their learning.

The Health Scale
We tend to keep a good watch over the maintenance of our homes, cars etc. but when it comes to maintaining our health our fast-paced lifestyle often gets in the way. We were interested to see whether the VocaLink team made time for their health, so after being presented with a few helpful facts and figures, participants were put in the spotlight by taking ‘the health meter’ questionnaire.

Where next?
Once the results were on the table, participants were invited to analyse which area of their health profile they could work on, and how boosting it would affect their life. We then went on to give participants a series of helpful tips as to how they could achieve this.

Healthy Lists
When it comes to health tips people often begin reading and think ‘well I know this’ and turn the page. However, the real question is not whether you have been told the facts before, but whether you have put them into practise AND maintained them.

Participants were asked to choose three realistic trial points that they could commit to for the three weeks after their course. In this case, you:unlimited offers support and advice on the commitments that participants make. For more information on this please see our ‘buddy coaching’ below.

Dispelling the myths…
"Never eat more than two eggs week", "always eat fruit at the end of your meal" etc. There are so many food myths flying about now it is no wonder that half of us feel guilty whenever we open our mouths. We helped to calm the VocaLink team down by putting some real facts on paper, and then creating some realistic goals to achieve optimum health.

Buddy Coaching
Finally we arranged peer coaching pairs. Participants partner with a "buddy" who they arranged to meet 4 weeks after the workshop. Setting up this simple support structure with a pre-arranged meeting time to ask questions and swap experiences promotes action, holds individuals accountable to each other and helps to embed the learning.

If you would like to find out more about nutrition training for your teams contact: john@you-unltd.co.uk or call on +44(0)20 7407 0044

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Claire Lokie at VocaLink tells us about the benefits to her health having attended our nutrition training.

1. How did you rate your nutritional awareness before the workshop? Good? Could be better? 
I thought that my awareness was fairly good but didn’t put a great deal of my knowledge into practice.
2. What was the most surprising detail that you learnt during the training? 
I was really surprised to learn that the GL (glycemic load) content of certain foods, was much higher than you would imagine. (GL is a calculation for carbohydrate content based on their GI and includes both the quantity (portion size) of carbohydrate in a food, and the quality of that carbohydrate)
3. In what ways do you feel that you have managed to take what you learnt from the workshop and successfully apply it to your every day life? 
I now think about the food I take to work, and its far healthier then before. I try to use low GL foods as much as I possibly can.
4. What was the most interesting thing that you learnt about yourself during the training? 
The knowledge that I have should be put into practice because I, like most of us, can and need to eat more healthily.
5. To what extent do you think nutrition is an issue for people today? 
With the fact that most people work long hours and all the processed food available it’s sometimes hard not to choose ready meals. You have to make the time to cook tasty, healthy meals rather than choosing the shop bought option. It’s not that difficult, just be a bit creative!
6. Anything else you’d like to tell us? 
Kenny our trainer was extremely knowledgeable and everything was put across in an interesting way. Nothing worse than a dull course!

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Managing challenging people at work

Join us for a free taster and learn how to “Herd Cats”. Essential strategies for improving relationships with tricky personalities.

Essential strategies for improving relationships with tricky personalities. Rather than simply tell you about our great training we like to show you.

Our Herding Cats event will give you a 90 min taster of what we do every day. You'll meet some of the you:unlimited team, mingle with other training and HR practitioners who are also considering using us and discuss any specific training needs you may have.

If you haven’t worked with us before this engaging and energetic workshop will give you a taster of our training style and will also equip you with proven tried and tested techniques to help you improve communication with important and challenging individuals.

The team were fab and the training was excellent. I have come away very positive and ready to tackle those “big cats”!” Lorraine Shirley, Training Manager, OneBiIl Telecom.

Join us
Our “Herding Cats” taster session will be running in central London from 9am – 11am on Wednesday 27th February 2008. We’d love you to join us. Spaces are limited, so if you are a Manager or HR & Training professional with responsibility for booking training contact john@you-unltd.co.uk or call on +44(0)20 7407 0044 and we’ll book spaces for you and / or a colleague. 

Meow.

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Top tips for eating healthily without missing out at Christmas time.

1. Eat. Yes, it is allowed. In fact, the common method of starving oneself before the big Christmas dinner will only encourage you to eat faster when the feast arrives and feel more bloated as a consequence. Try slow-release foods such as porridge for breakfast and allow you body to prepare itself.
2. Understand. One of the secrets to all-day energy is to balance your blood sugar levels, it is also one of the best ways to lose weight and reduce stress. To learn more about how your body controls these levels see our nutrition training course.
3. Snack. Another tip for maintaining energy is to eat little and often. As long as you keep them healthy, regular snacks are perfect for keeping you warm and wide awake.
4. Exercise. Heard it all before? Yes, but that’s because it makes sense! Regular exercise will leave you not only looking and feeling great, but again it will actually increase your energy levels, ensuring you are on full throttle for all that extra shopping.
5. Balance. Many of the diets we find ourselves dipping in and out of seem to encourage us to give up one or more of the food groups, and we are not quashing these methods but its Christmas! So try to keep a healthy balance by combining low-fat proteins (e.g. skinless chicken or turkey breast, tuna), fibres (e.g. fruit and vegetables) and carbohydrates (e.g. bread and pasta).
6. The good… Believe it or not there are some fats the body needs - omega 3 and omega 6 are found in oily fish such as salmon, tuna, herring, mackerel and sardines and some seeds such as pumpkin, hemp & linseed.
7. The bad…However, don’t try and kid yourself that all fats are healthy. The bad fats to minimize are the saturated fats found in red meats and dairy produce.
8. ..and the ugly. Don’t let guilt ruin your Christmas. Instead, remember the 80:20 rule; when there are no healthy choices don’t beat yourself up, it’s what you do most of the time that affects the results.
9. Go Green. Although they do not spring to mind as one of the highlights of Christmas foods, imagine the big dinner without the brilliant greens and oranges they add to the plate. Pile up the portions to keep your eyes bright through the dark winter nights.
10. Chill. With all the family get-togethers and chaos it is important to have some ‘me-time’. Find the time and shut yourself away, whether it’s 15mins in the bath or a quick stroll around the block. It will clear your mind and get you ready for the next hurdle.

 

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