Are you ready for a successful year?

Happy New Year!

I hope you are having a great 2017 so far!

I have been loving being at home for the Christmas period, we started the drive back from Spain on 21st December and arrived here on the 22nd, just enough time to put up the decorations, finalise the Christmas shopping and wrap all the presents!

Christmas Day itself was lovely, a really relaxing time, it was a well earned rest for everyone really.  We have been extremely busy in Spain recently as our company have just launched over there.  The children have also been having a really busy time at school with lots of homework and exams taking place.  So it has been great for everyone to switch off for a while.

A couple of days after Christmas I took my mum on our annual trip to the Trafford Centre, we can certainly shop till we drop! It was lovely to spend quality time with my mum.

And then just after New Year, we took our two daughters to London for a shopping trip, stopping on the way at Bicester Outlet Village.  We had also surprised them at Christmas with tickets for ‘Les Miserables’ at the Queen’s theatre, we have seen it lots of times now, but the girls had never seen it before so it was fantastic to share the experience with them.  We went backstage afterwards and met some of the cast and had photos, they were so friendly!

So, although we feel like we have done quite a lot of things, we have still had quality time in our home, which I appreciate more and more every time I return to the UK.  We have spent time talking about our goals for the future too which is always good to do at the start of a new year.

I have bought myself a couple of new books while I have been back.  Although I love my Kindle, I was feeling ready for a couple of paperbacks again, so I actually have 3 books on the go at the same time at the moment!  If I buy a new book, I have to start reading it straight away, I can’t wait!  It’s ok though because the books are quite different so it’s easy to switch from one to the other.  I feel that these books are setting me up for a great start to 2017.  I will share some tips from my new books at the end of this post.

I have also bought a new journal for the new year.  I got it from TK Maxx.  They have some amazing things in the stationary line, you can always find interesting and quirky notebooks and journals. I have to admit I do have a bit of an obsession with journals.  I feel that if I have a nice journal, I am more likely to take the time to write in it, and this is important as it’s such a worthwhile exercise.

I also met up with my friend Clare while I was back,  Clare is a very successful photographer and we get together whenever we can to discuss everything from our businesses and success, to children, education, and lots of other things. It’s great to share ideas and what we are learning from at the moment, whether it be books, podcasts or courses.  Today we also discussed how important it is to do what you love and she is proof of that for sure.

So here are 3 tips from my new books;

1. More important than praise from other people, is praise from ourselves to ourselves.
2. If you want to be able to talk to anyone, start with a smile, but delay it just for a few seconds and it will come across more genuine.
3. Don’t take your eyes off the person you are talking to, even for a few seconds when they have finished speaking.

I hope you are excited about the new year ahead, please comment if you would like any particular areas covered in future blog and social media posts, I would love to help.

I am off to Birmingham tomorrow for our company’s New Year Conference where we have one of our team members speaking on stage for the first time, it is going to be an exciting weekend!

Speak to you soon

Adele x

If you would like more tips and advice on success and shyness, have a look at my Facebook page – Shy People Can Be Successful Too!