How many emails have you opened in the first three weeks of 2022 that have had a version of ‘New Year, new you’ in the subject line? If you’re anything like me then I’m guessing it’s a lot.

Sometimes it’s felt like I can’t open my inbox without being drowned in a deluge of messages exhorting me to take up yoga, ‘do’ Dry January, rethink my entire wardrobe, find that dream job or book a summer holiday – all in the name of reinventing myself.

Three paragraphs in feels too early to go down the sweary path, but the whole ‘New Year, new you’ thing is all bollocks. Really, you’re fine just the way you are – and if anything, you probably need to be more of who y...

Continue reading...

Give a man a fish and he’ll feed himself for a day. Teach a man to fish and he’ll feed himself forever. Or so the saying goes. It’s probably true, but who really knows? Fish can be damned smart. Particularly the ones that have been caught before.

Here’s a saying which I know is absolutely true:

Give someone five minutes with nothing to do but think and they’ll find a way to beat themselves up about something, no matter how small or trivial.

It’s a sentence or thought that starts with the words If only I hadn’t …

… said that, done the other, been mean about Rachel’s new hairstyle,...

Continue reading...

We hear a lot about self-belief in relation to ambition and achievement these days, don’t we? It’s almost as if willing ourselves to succeed is the only ingredient we need to not just reach for the stars but also grab and keep them.

This is especially true when it comes to business. There isn’t an entrepreneur alive who hasn’t either read or been told at some stage that all he or she needs to do is believe in themselves.

If only it were that simple, right?

A healthy dose of self-belief and rhino-thick hide certainly go a long way to helping people achieve their goals, whether in business or in life.

If yo...

Continue reading...

Have we forgotten how to be cool?  And no, I’m not talking about being able to wear a beard, an ear stud and a mandigan all at the same time without appearing to be the unsuspecting victim of some sort of haute couture drive-by shooting.

I’m talking about the ability to hide razor-sharp elbows behind a winning smile and effortless charm and appear sufficiently interested to be engaging, yet aloof enough to not be threatening.

Think Steve McQueen in The Great Escape. Cooler King cool.

The reason I’m banging on about this comes hot on the heels of a conversation with a good friend of mine after we’d both been on the receiving e...

Continue reading...

Power is often a misrepresented word. A powerful person is usually defined as someone with money and status who can exert his will and control over others; considered smart, strong, lucky and perhaps more than a little ruthless.

But you can think of Power in two ways: Positional Power & Personal Power.

Positional Power is the authority you wield by virtue of position in an organisation’s structure and hierarchy.

This notion of power is more about what you ‘do’ rather than who you ‘are’. And it’s much more about your perceived power over others than the power you have over yourself.

Personally I’m much more interested in the concept of ‘Personal Power’, which I consider as power over yourself, your actio...

Continue reading...

Magnetism; that tangible yet often indefinable something that certain people possess.

They may not be the best looking person in the room nor the most powerful, rich or influential but there is just a certain something about this person that is especially engaging.

Think about the most magnetic person you know. Our guess is they’re charming, interesting and they make you feel special; wouldn’t we all want to be perceived that way?

So how then do we become more magnetic?

Continue reading…

Continue reading...

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be ace-ing all areas of your life?   What would that look like?   What would it feel like?   Most importantly, does it seem possible to you?

I write this because of the enormous amount of conversations I’ve had over the years: many people making statements along the lines of ‘I always have great friendships but I really struggle with romantic relationships, I’m just not meant to meet someone’, or ‘I’d love to move forward with my career but I don’t have what it takes to get up and present to a room’ or ‘I’m awful with money, I’m not the sort of person that is any good at business, I can’t ask for it’   These sort of statements are often delivered as ‘facts’, there is a certain resignation that this is ‘just how things are’.   ...

Continue reading...

“It’s alright for them”.

How many times have you thought that? Whilst resentfully side-eying someone’s career / body / relationship / financial situation / life?

More importantly how’s that working out for you?

The truth is whenever you compare yourself to anyone you are doing yourself a massive disservice as well as making an enormous assumption on his or her behalf.

The truth is, unless we know them intimately, we just don’t know what battles other people are fighting, no matter how glorious and glossy their lives appear from the outside.

I’m not saying, however, that envy is devoid of any usefulness, in fact envy can be an excellent window into desire and an opportunity to think ‘that’s inspiring, how could I inject more of that freedom / succ...

Continue reading...

“Whatever the Mind Can Conceive, it Can Achieve.” Napoleon Hill

This is a wonderful quote, and one that might ring true for some and not others. Many of us may want to believe that we can achieve our dreams, but after years of concerted effort could well be airing on the side of despondency, frustration and disappointment. We all have dreams, often big dreams, but may feel deep inside that we don’t have what it takes to reach them, that we lack that magic ingredient that successful people have naturally cultivated.

How many of us have been taught in our younger years to dream big, to go for what we want, to fulfill our deepest desires? Not many. Some of us may have been fortunate enough to have very positive parents, but sadly most of us didn’t, for some this has created more of a leg...

Continue reading...

Most of us desire to be more confident in a certain area or areas of our lives. Many clients that walk into Zoë Clews & Associates, looking for freedom and resolution from their problems in life, are confident in some areas but lack it in others: they may be confident in relationships but will do anything they can to wriggle out of public speaking, or they may find it relatively easy to excel at work but are riddled with self doubt when it comes to intimate relationships. Saying that, we also see clients who are lacking confidence in all areas and that’s when life really does get pretty painful.

Because self confidence is such a natural and basic resource, lack of self confidence is often one of...

Continue reading...