This month I want to talk about the importance of perseverance.

Life is full of challenges and opportunities. Just when you think you have everything sorted, often you'll find yourself facing the most challenging of difficulties. Just when you think everything has gone wrong and all hope is lost, along comes an opportunity out of the blue.

I once thought the point of life was to sleep,
It seems that way when your nice and deep,
Inside your dreams which are so lovely and real,
When warm and comfortable is all you can feel.

When I first noticed my house was showing a covering of Ivy, it started a one place and over the years it grew to cover most of my house, for a while it seemed to give my house a certain air of maturity of longevity it seemed to say "I know things" it served to what seemed to me a useful purpose.

This month I want to talk about the importance of overcoming your ego.

What I have found in spending the last few years helping people make changes in their life is that one of the things that most often gets in their way is their sense of self. By sense of self, I mean the importance that they give to themselves which limits them rather than the importance they give to themselves that helps them.

Happiness Cake

Recipe for Happiness: Be in a great mood for as much of the time as you can. (Dr. Richard Bandler)

Little Katie offered to help her mum to prepare a cake for her sixth birthday party. “Well thank you Katie! That’s great! We’ll make a special chocolate cake this year, with custard and roasted almonds, and coconut flakes...” said mum, wanting to make the event really exciting for Katie.

And so, the preparations for Katie’s special cake started.

This month I want to talk about forgiving yourself

This month I want to talk about the importance of forgiving yourself. Often I work with people who find it hard to forgive themselves for something they did or someone they hurt. It occurred to me recently that we are all guilty of doing things that hurt others. So, is there a way that we can learn to forgive ourselves in a way that allows us to be free from the guilt that we hold about such things? Yes, I believe there is.

This month I want to talk about eliminating self pity. One of the biggest problems that exists for people is not just that they feel bad but that they can justify feeling bad. Many of us search for excuses that make our bad feelings justified. In terms of eliminating self pity, there are a few things to keep in mind.

The 'Poor Me' Syndrome as I like to call it involves feeling sorry for yourself by telling yourself that you are so unlucky and unfortunate and destined for a horrible time. The sad thing is that regardless of your cicumstances there are always far more people that are worse off than you. Still, feeling like you are alone and the world is against you can sometimes become quite addictive.

A few months ago, I had the opportunity to attend a workshop given by the well known expert of creativity and creator of 'parallel thinking', Edward DeBono. In it, DeBono highlighted a number of points which I wanted to expand this month in a way which helps us improve our thinking.

DeBono explained the difference between 'Intelligence' which is potential and 'Thinking' which is a skill. He quite powerfully refutes the idea that those with the best potential as measured by our tests reveals the best thinkers of our time. Instead, he reveals that it is those who learn to think who thrive far more successfully than those who have been classified as intelligent.

This month I want to talk about making Life Decisions and Choices. We live in a world which is radically different to how things were 50-100 years ago. We have so much more than we could have ever imagined even back then... but fundamentally our vastly improved lives have made us more miserable than ever. This paradox comes down to the greatest strength and weakness of human kind... the dignity of choice.

Happiness in Ireland is a concept which has started to provoke interest in the media over the last couple of years. It is about time that the focus was put on happiness instead of depression. So many people suffer from depression and what few realise is that the more 'depression' is a problem, the bigger it will get.