Penny Vingoe

I met her in the mid 90’s in Bath UK when she was the administrator of the NLP course I followed. We became friends and she even visited Mauritius later on my invitation. She helped me in doing some awareness sessions on NLP with colleagues at work as well with social friends. She ran for the Rotary club of Port Louis an NLP training session for social workers of organizations specialized in alleviating drug addiction. I am pretty sure a number of my old friends who are now reading my blog will recall Penny’s visit to Mauritius.

Retired from a very successful career in teaching, Penny today, still works as an examiner to some University examination boards, acts as a personal coach and still conducts seminars on requests.

My memory of Penny was awakened when I read the blog of Avinash yesterday on learning to learn. Penny’ web site immediately rang a bell in my mind.

Her latest newsletter, of particular interest in goal achieving, read as follows:

Knowing is not enough; we must apply!
Goethe


Without a doubt ‘knowing’ something is very different from being told it is true and that you should therefore believe it. I had one of those ‘knowing’ experiences this morning.

Every day I climb the very steep lane behind my house to give my heart some exercise. It is hard going even though I have been doing it for a number of months. As I look up the hill snaking away in the distance above my head I am daunted.

Today I was busy marvelling at the flowers in the hedgerows. There are still one or two primroses, and bluebells too; there is a wonderful display of harebells and the vetch is showing; Herb Robert is blooming alongside a proliferation of dandelions (have you ever tried their leaves in salad?) giving a bright yellow glow in the greenery. Added to that the lambs were curious and very noisy as they watched me walking.

I was up the hill without even realising. Instead of puffing and panting and wishing I was at my goal, I was so pre-occupied with the ‘now’ that I barely noticed I was climbing.

I know about focusing on what I am doing in order to reach my goals, but it had never been brought home to me so graphically just how easy it is to achieve what you want to achieve if you enjoy what you are doing.

In the discipline I am in it is called the ‘demon’ state. A state where you are so engrossed in what you are doing that time slips away. When you are in this state you are content.

So, as you choose your long term goals be sure to also create short term goals that are interesting, appealing, motivating, exciting or simply delightful and watch achievement become an absolute pleasure.

Setting quality goals isn’t as easy as you might think. As a coach I can help you to set failsafe goals. That is a big claim, but if you do it right you will achieve your goals. So get in touch or tell your friends how valuable coaching can be.