Tips from Masters: Tim Brownson on values and spontaneity
This is one in a series of interviews of self help experts and bloggers in the Tips from Masters series.
Tim Brownson is a life coach and NLP Master Practitioner from UK. He is also also the author of Don’t Ask Stupid Questions and co-author of How To Be Rich and Happy. Tim runs a great self development blog, The Discomfort Zone, for people with a sense of humor.
1. How did you find your passion? What do you think is the best way to find it?
I was lucky in so much as I stumbled into coaching after 20 years working in sales. It’s an entire book describing how you find your passion, but I think the starting point has to be knowing your own values. If you don’t understand what is at the core of your identity and what really drives you it’s going to be difficult to know what you’re passionate about.
2. How do you go from goal setting to implementation? How do you make sure that you take constant action toward your goals?
That really depends on whether you’re talking about me, or what I do with clients. With clients it’s really about understanding what motivates them and using that to keep them going. They may be primarily motivated by what they have to gain by sticking with their goals or they may be the type of person that is driven by what they have to lose. Again values come into play as they can be a great indicator as to what will help somebody keep on track.
For myself, I’m honestly not sure. I set goals and then try and achieve them. Sometimes I’ll use leverage by asking my blog readers or friends to keep me accountable, but that’s as far as I feel I need to go. Goals should excite and motivate us and if they don’t then I’m not sure of the long-term value in using tips and techniques to push through with them. Maybe they were the wrong goals in the first place?
3. How do you stay focused? How do you keep distractions at bay?
In short, I don’t. I am a highly right-brained person and if I try and focus all the time I take a lot of the spontaneity and fun out of what I do. I prefer to wing it and let my mood dictate what I do most of the time. As I work for myself this is seldom a problem for me. I know it’s not great advice from a Life Coach but it probably explains why when people call me for help with time management I refer them on!
If you want to learn more from Tim, visit his blog, The Discomfort Zone.
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Tags: spontaneity, The Discomfort Zone, Tim Brownson, values
