Julia Pitt
ISLAND LIFE COLUMNIST
Julia Pitt, MA is a trained Personal Development Coach, certified NLP Practitioner, writer and public speaker. Qualifying through the Coaching Academy in London, England, Julia uses coaching methodology and tools to help her clients achieve their true potential, break through barriers to success and fulfillment and attain the goals they set for themselves. Dedicated to Bermuda's success and putting her passion into action, Julia writes her column in the Royal Gazette offering the fundamentals of coaching in weekly installments. Her hope is to provide an opportunity for readers to increase self-awareness and insight into human behaviour and by achieving individual goals, so collectively improve ourselves, our relationships, how we relate to our surroundings and ultimately, have a positive effect on the community. Julia also volunteers with the 'Coaching for Success' sidearm of the Mirrors Program, which brings coaching to Bermuda's youth.
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May 21, 2013 8:00 am
Steps to success: Maximise your sense of style
What makes us who we are?
We each have characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviours that make us unique and form our personalities. -
May 14, 2013 8:00 am
Speaking your loved one's language
How do we speak so that someone hears us? And I don't just mean how loudly.
I'm referring to the ability to connect with others, and truly communicate our message.
I have previously written about ways to enhance rapport and tune-in to another person's world.
But once you're there, if you're speaking Danish and the other person's speaking Japanese, you may not recognise what each other are saying. -
May 7, 2013 8:00 am
‘The deepest prinicple of human nature is a craving to be appreciated’
Steps to Success: The Value of Appreciation
Being a mum can be a pretty thankless job. Rewarding beyond measure, but one rarely hears a thank you for the years of wearing baby sick, the sleepless nights and the grey hair from a lifetime of concern for our children’s safety and well-being. And even with my best efforts, my son will probably do what I did: grow up and blame all his shortcomings on his parents! -
Apr 30, 2013 8:00 am
Taking the fear out of feedback
Last week I suggested that one way to turn disappointment into a learning opportunity is to ask for feedback. I suspect, however, the prospect of doing so makes many a toe curl, for both the person asking and the one having to give it.
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Apr 16, 2013 8:00 am
There’s no crying shame
“It was so embarrassing!” a friend confided. She had a hard time fighting back her tears at the launch event for a project she’d been working on for several years. Other people shuffled and looked away awkwardly. Afterwards they said they understood she must have been sad to say goodbye to it. But she told me she wasn’t sad nostalgic perhaps, but more relieved. She’s since returned to her work with renewed vigour,...
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Apr 2, 2013 8:00 am
Winning the war on clutter
I write this from the UK where I face the daunting task of emptying a storage unit full of possessions leftover from my former life here before I moved back to Bermuda. “Just get rid of the lot”, was the advice from friends, which makes sense as I already have everything I need at home. But it does not feel that simple. The truth is, I’m a bit of a hoarder. Not enough to make a TV show about, but I tend to cling to things. So in...
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Mar 26, 2013 8:00 am
Optimise your listening to optimise your success
Steps to Success
Have you ever had one of those thwarted, unsatisfactory conversations, when you come away feeling frustrated, ignored or questioning your ability to say anything interesting? -
Mar 19, 2013 8:00 am
It’s a question of questions
Spot the difference:
1. Are you having a good day so far?
2. Tell me, what’s gone well in your day so far?
In both I am asking about your day, but which is going to garner the greatest response?
Questions are at the core of my job as a coach: to ask the best question to help the client draw out their options, their truths and choose their best way forward. -
Mar 5, 2013 8:00 am
Are you working from inspiration or desperation?
My five-year-old son has a rather painful habit that makes me cringe whenever I see it. If someone (usually his cousin) is doing something special, singing or telling a story, he starts to cough loudly or talk over her or he sings his own song (deliberately off-key). And when she gets praised he’ll try to belittle her efforts or out-do her with his own heroics. It’s as if he thinks that attention and praise are limited and if...
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Feb 26, 2013 8:00 am
Unpack your bags and cancel that guilt trip
Guilt that icky feeling that gnaws at you, sinks in your stomach; the cold leaden weight of remorse and self-recrimination, tail between your legs, bad feeling as you wish you could hide your head in the sand.
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Feb 19, 2013 8:00 am
Switch on and tune in …
Steps to Success:
Lae’ula … in Hawaiian, being lae’ula (lie oo’lah) is “to live brilliantly. To experience extraordinary success. To master your craft” at least, according to a leaflet about sunglasses which I picked up.
It sounds like a great state to aspire to. Following on from the theme last week of living with passion, I’m drawn to the notion of living brilliantly, yet often I find myself on autopilot. -
Feb 12, 2013 8:00 am
A life without passion is no life at all
‘Live With Passion’.
This is the printed slogan on the refillable water bottle I carry round with me a freebie from a conference I attended. I like it. I certainly like the idea at least. It seems like everyone who is quotable, from Harriet Tubman to Charlie Sheen, has made some reference to passion and its importance for success, fulfillment or self-expression.
But what does it really mean to live with passion? -
Feb 5, 2013 8:46 am
How to ‘do’ change: Effectively and successfully managing change
In pursuit of my personal goals for 2013, I am very excited to be attending the current Nutrifit Program, run by highly recommended nutritional therapist (and Royal Gazette columnist) Catherine Burns.
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Jan 29, 2013 8:00 am
Visulising success is the springboard to change
Last week, picking up my five-year-old from school, he said: “My dream is that all people stop throwing trash in the ocean and use a trash can instead.”
It was Martin Luther King Day and they had heard the famous “I have a dream …” speech (which stirs my heart no matter how many times I hear it and can be found on YouTube if you need some inspiration). -
Jan 15, 2013 8:00 am
Laughter is the best medicine
Steps to Success
When is being red in the face, gasping for breath with an aching gut, a good thing?
When you are laughing. -
Jan 8, 2013 8:00 am
Cut yourself a little slack on your resolutions
The other day I happened upon a gardening blog that started something like this: “As we enter the shortest days of the cold, wet season, it’s a good time not to garden.
“Take a break to rest and reflect … Clean up the weeds, rake the dead leaves and branches, and mulch … Reap any late harvest … Then start making plans of what to put in place for the approaching spring and the year ahead.” -
Dec 11, 2012 8:00 am
‘Tis the season for some peace of mind
I got home the other night after a frenzied bout of late-night shopping. I’d cursed over passing up the only available parking spot in hopes of getting closer, then forgot to eat as I rushed about, frantically grabbing more ‘this’ll do’ items to make the best of the sales on offer. I walked through my door exhausted, famished and downright miserable, not to mention in a flutter of panic about the tab I’d just run up on...
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Dec 4, 2012 8:00 am
The emotional needs that drive us
Last week I outlined the basic theory of Human Needs Psychology: that we all have six fundamental emotional needs and that we will find either positive or negative ways to ensure these needs are met. The needs are certainty, variety, significance, connection/love, growth and contribution. Of these, we each have two driving needs that are stronger than the rest and will most greatly influence our decisions and actions. Being aware of these...
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Nov 27, 2012 8:53 am
How are you meeting your needs?
Do you ever wonder why people do the things they do? Any given situation might elicit myriad responses depending on who is reacting to it. One person might shout, another might crumple up and cry and a third look for someone to hug, all from the same stimuli. What is it that is driving their behaviour?
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Nov 20, 2012 8:00 am
The power of getting over it
Sometimes, bad things happen to good people … they happen to all people. There are those occasions when things just don’t go our way, work out as we hoped or planned.
We get bad news or others do or say something we think is unfair or we feel hurt by, or disappointed at, or angry about — fill in the gamut of negative emotion. These are part of life’s natural ups and downs that seem to affect us all. -
Nov 13, 2012 8:00 am
The benefits of being wrong
Oops!
… A mistake.
Be it an erroneous fact or bad judgment call, we got it wrong, we messed up, we let someone down, if only ourselves. I’ve heard it claimed that statistically, an average of 70 percent of the decisions we make are wrong. What is certain is that, over time, we all make mistakes.
What makes the difference though, is how we decide to handle them.
How do you treat a mistake? -
Nov 6, 2012 8:00 am
Deciding to make better decisions
Steps to Success:
The red shoes or the blue shoes … mmmm. Decisions, decisions.
We are faced with a multitude of them every day, ranging from the banal to the life-changing from footwear to what kind of sandwich to make, to choices about our future career, whether to buy or rent, how to move forward with a particular project etc.
Have you ever stopped to consider just how you make those decisions? -
Oct 30, 2012 8:00 am
Resisting the temptation of procrastination
Tis the season of terrifying monsters. Have you ever left a task on your To Do list, perhaps even a mundane one? And because it’s a little unpleasant you’ve avoided it and left it there so long that over time it’s snowballed and grown until it’s no longer ‘just a box of papers to file’, or ‘a phone call to make’, but now some dreadful beast, and a far more horrifying prospect than anything you’d find...
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Oct 23, 2012 8:00 am
Put breaks into your schedule and feel the benefit
All work and no play makes anyone dull.
Alertness and attention-span have their limits. So what can we do to stay sharp and effective? -
Oct 15, 2012 5:28 pm
The problem with being perfect
‘What is your greatest weakness?’
A typical job interview ‘catch-you-out’ question. I was told the trick is to turn it on its head. My answer was that ‘I’m a bit of a perfectionist, I like to get things right’. You can’t fault that, surely? Isn’t that what we should all be aiming for, perfection? Shouldn’t we envy those seemingly ‘perfect’ people? -
Oct 9, 2012 8:00 am
The importance of being optimistic
Doing the school run the other day, the radio news reported a shooting and murder. My five-year-old son asked me, “Mummy, why would they do that?” Entirely too late to just lower the volume and pretend I didn’t hear, I had to try to answer.
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Oct 2, 2012 6:00 am
Six steps to balance
Do you ever feel that your wheels aren’t turning smoothly? That your life is a little unbalanced? We can sometimes find that our day-to-day existence is biased heavily in one direction, while other areas, also important to us, suffer or even get overlooked or ignored.
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Sep 25, 2012 6:00 am
Changing your behaviour through mental programming
Steps to Success:
There is always more than one way of looking at things.
Admittedly, sometimes it can be hard to get out of our own mindset, and either back down from or just let go of our position. After all, we see things the way we do based on our past experiences, our beliefs, and our senses. -
Sep 18, 2012 8:00 am
Shall we dance? Enhancing and influencing communication
Are there some people you just find it hard to talk to? They might be perfectly nice people and, on paper, might be someone you think you’d get along with, but in person it feels awkward. You might describe them as someone you don’t gel with.
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Sep 11, 2012 12:01 am
Lack of forethought can lead to chaos
“To be prepared is half the victory,” said Spanish writer, Miguel De Cervantes of Don Quixote fame. A notion that certainly echoed in the aisles of the various hardware and grocery stores as flashlights, batteries, barbecue coals, water and rations were being snatched up in After Holiday Sale-type frenzy.
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Aug 28, 2012 6:00 am
Steps to help you get your ‘house’ in order
Have you ever had that tightness in your chest, cold dread in the pit of your stomach, inability to breathe, panic and paralysis setting in with the urge to escape and hide? I’m not describing a heart attack, but instead some of the reactions associated with feeling overwhelmed.
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Aug 21, 2012 8:00 am
Healthy steps for dealing with anger
Arghhhhh! Have you ever been really wound up by something? Found yourself shouting instead of speaking? Felt like your blood was boiling and you might just blow a fuse?
Someone once described a ‘red mist’ descending over them (and then they punched someone?!). -
Aug 14, 2012 7:00 am
Time to start exploring your groan zone
Imagine walking out on an empty stage in front of an expectant audience, no lines learned, in fact, no script at all.
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Aug 7, 2012 8:00 am
Life lessons from the Olympics
This week I have the good fortune of being in the UK as they host the 2012 Olympic games. Not a typical sports fan, but being here one has little choice but to be swept up in the emotion, drama and excitement of it. And with every compelling story of victory or disappointment I marvel at what a testament this event is to the potential of the human body and the human spirit.
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Jul 31, 2012 8:12 am
The many benefits of a simple, thank you
Steps to Success: An Attitude of Gratitude
It is “the greatest virtue” described Marcus Cicero (circa 50BC). There are articles which claim it can transform your life, studies that suggest it is an antidote to depression and Oprah Winfrey’s website says that it’s a first step to ending violence. What am I talking about?
A simple: Thank You. -
Jul 17, 2012 8:00 am
Give yourself a break, you deserve it
Imagine, you’ve just achieved a personal best then a voice says, ‘someone else did it better …’ Or you’re heading out to a social event and you hear, ‘who cares what you have to say?’ or you’re filling in a job application and there’s a whisper, ‘you’ll never get it, you’re not good enough’.
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Jul 10, 2012 8:50 am
Time to step up your time management skills
Steps to Success: Take Time to Make Time
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Jul 3, 2012 8:00 am
Accepting stress as way of life is not healthy
Do you remember how ‘stress’ was a hot topic of the 1980s? Everyone was suffering from it and getting tests. Stress, unfortunately, didn’t disappear with bat-wing sleeves and shoulder pads — quite the opposite. Increased technology, heightened expectations and lifestyle demands have increased our potential stress load. And the effects of it remain a hazard to both our physical and mental health. However nowadays, although...
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Jun 26, 2012 8:00 am
The many benefits of improved physical health
Steps to Success: The Wealth of Health
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Jun 19, 2012 8:00 am
It’s not what you do, it’s the way that you do it
It’s not what you do, sometimes it’s how you do it that makes the difference between success or not.
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Jun 12, 2012 8:00 am
There’s always a choice even if you have trouble seeing it
Going to a restaurant, isn’t it great? We browse through a menu of all the delights on offer and then get to pick what we want, what suits our tastes and our needs, what’s right for us right now (plus we don’t have to do the washing up!).
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Jun 5, 2012 8:00 am
There are no winners in the blame game
Sorry I’m late, the traffic was terrible!
I can’t get a job because of the economy.
I had a stressful week so I ate the whole cake.
Drugs are ruining our island.
He’s a jerk and treated me badly for years… his mother spoiled him.
The dog ate my homework, no it really did!! -
May 29, 2012 7:00 am
How to resolve the toxic soup of conflict
Steps to Success
How does leaving the milk out end up in divorce, a misunderstanding result in an employment tribunal, or the ‘wrong’ look from a person lead to a war?
- Should liquor stores be able to sell alcohol on Sundays?
- Yes
- 71%
- No
- 27%
- Don't Know
- 1%
- Total Votes: 2016
- Poll Archive