By Maya Anderson

Looking for something that will offer you guidance, teach you inner strength and tolerate others? Perth-based psychotherapist Katie Altham’s book on archetypes could be the tool you need. Maya Anderson investigates and gets her personality profiled.

When Perth-based psychotherapist, inspirational speaker and author Katie Altham agreed to analyse my personality for this story, I was intrigued to see how a stranger would analyse and describe me. Secretly, I mused that perhaps to strangers I came across as an enigmatic figure; dark, silent and mysterious… possibly wearing a cape. But when Ms Altham sent me her reading, I was flabbergasted. How could a woman I didn’t even know read me so well? It is because of my archetypes.

First defined by Carl Jung, archetypes are compulsive personality traits with both light and dark, or ‘shadow’, characteristics. “We’re born with them, though how we’re nurtured greatly impacts their expression in our lives,” Ms Altham says. “Every archetype has two sides, one with light traits; our gifts and talents, and the other our shadow traits; our challenges, self-destructive patterns and lessons.” These may include bossiness, obsessiveness, sulking or suspiciousness. “Our shadow traits are all the things we wouldn’t mention on the first date or put on our resume for a job!” Ms Altham says.

She lists 108 archetypes in her wonderfully detailed to me Who Am I? – An Archetypal Quest. “From that selection, everyone chooses their unique combination of 13 that names every aspect of their personality.” You can discover yours by answering yes or no to questions in the book – if you answer yes to four of the questions for that prototype, you probably have it.

Types range from leaders, romantics, athletes, parents, artists, arrogants, hedonists, nurturers, philosophers, foodies, geniuses and spiritualists, to name just a few. “We all know what a princess, queen, teacher, mother, soldier, manager and gypsy are like – they’re archetypes,” Ms Altham says. “Children from as young as six years understand them. They’re in every book, TV show, drama, movie and myth in life.”

According to Ms Altham, I am a storyteller (fitting for a journalist), Artemis (the animal and nature lover), Apollo (the ambitious perfectionist) and the master slave (oops, perhaps my workaholic tendencies shone through.) She’d described me to a tee. But why learn what archetypes you have?

“Understanding who we are, warts and all, helps us to let go of trying to be people we’re not,” Ms Altham says. “When we learn that our shadow represents what we’ve come to learn in life, we judge ourselves and others much less harshly.”

Archetypes can provide you with a sense of self, direction and confidence and help you recognise inner talents. “They name our soul’s DNA, life purpose and validate our dreams.” Depression and addictions are often symbolic of people who have lost their sense of self – “soul sickness”, Ms Altham calls it. “To be happy in life we need to know who we are and have a focus or purpose.”

Discovering your archetypes can also aid with relationships and parenting. “To recognise who our friends, partners and children are means we stop trying to change them to be what we want them to be,” Ms Altham says. Being able to recognise your child’s archetypes means you can understand them better and help them form a stronger sense of identity.

Personality profiling can also help in the workplace. Ms Altham is currently sharing her knowledge with recruitment agencies and human resource managers to work out individuals’ innate talents and strengths and better match staff to jobs that fully utilise their skills. “The happier we are, the more efficient and motivated, and the more likely we are to show initiative.”

When we become trapped by the shadow parts of our archetype and don’t know where to turn, the light sides can provide faith or advice for how to deal with unpleasant situations. Her book contains a body, mind, heart and soul map that can be used with your unique set of archetypes to answer difficult questions.

Want to discover your archetypes? Check out Ms Altham’s book Who Am I? An Archetypal Quest or visit her website www.archetrek.com.

Why learn your archetypes?
-    Enhance sense of self
-    Judge yourself and others less
-    Discover your potential and talents
-    Improve confidence and self-understanding
-    Provides advice when in bad patches
-    Find a job that suits you

Maya Anderson is a full-time freelance journalist who specialises in health, fitness, nutrition and wellbeing issues. To contact Maya, email maya.anderson@hotmail.com

By Rosemary Marchese

You know you should exercise but you can’t be bothered…sound familiar? Well, why should you? If you don’t have any motivation to exercise, I’m sure that will be your answer! Motivation provides purpose and direction to behaviour. If the ‘behaviour’ you want to achieve is exercise, then you better sort out exactly what your purpose and direction will be!

When I speak to people unmotivated to exercise I liken it to a job that they’re stale in…they don’t like what they do every day yet either don’t know how to, or lack the motivation to, change. Imagine continuing on that path for the rest of your life! Do you really want to get to the end and say ‘life’s too short’ or ‘I should have done more with my life’ or ‘I have heart disease and wish I had exercised when I had the chance’? Well, finding the motivation to exercise is in essence no different. It’s time to GET EXCITED about exercise!

Yes, that’s right…get yourself excited about the act of exercise and excited about how you will feel with the results you will achieve! Set yourself daily, weekly or even hourly goals. ‘I will walk for 30 minutes every day’, or ‘I will exercise four times this week’ or ‘I will get up from my desk every hour to move my legs and walk around the office’. You have to find something that suits your lifestyle. As a busy mother I like to aim for four to five workouts per week rather than have strict days each week. With little children I acknowledge that my weeks need to be flexible and fitting in exercise becomes less stressful with this approach.
Next, in order to get excited about it all you have to be confident that you’ll get results. If you’re one of so many people who have committed to exercise before but with little or no results here are some things to consider:

• You can’t spot reduce fat! Just get moving, and then move a little faster so that your intensity rises with your fitness levels. Always challenge yourself - believe me the fat will move!
• You can’t eat what you want and expect to get results just because you exercise. Unfortunately exercising does increase your appetite and many people mistake this to think that they can indulge in some extra calories. While I’m all for some treats and a bit of a relaxed diet with some limitations, if you start over consuming you wont lose weight, in fact you may even put on a few kilos!
• Women don’t bulk up on muscle overnight! Weight training is great for toning muscles and increasing your metabolic rate. You’ll burn more fat at rest as a result – that’s right, imagine being a fat-burning machine while sleeping! The thought of becoming too bulky can be a turn off to weight training for many women but the truth is women don’t carry enough of the male hormone testosterone for this to be a problem. Adding some weights to your exercise sessions can often speed along some of your results.
• You don’t have to spend a fortune to get results. Gym memberships can be hard on the budget, especially at the moment. Try being creative at home and tap into free (but reputable) resources on the Internet to help give you tips and ideas. Check out www.fitforlifeonline.com.au to help you get started. Home exercise DVDs are also worth the investment to add a bit of variety.
• Take care with your choices of low fat food. These foods are often riddled with artificial sweeteners and preservatives – all bad for your health and your health and weight loss campaign. Choose natural and wholesome foods wherever possible, just watch your serving sizes!
• Check in with your doctor and your fitness trainer regularly. Sometimes there are other reasons for not achieving results, such as illness.
• Lack of time is no excuse! Yes, you heard me and I’m happy to argue with you on that one! If the ex-Prime Minister of Australia found time for a daily walk, then you can too! Are you running the country? Is the world going to fall apart if you take a 30-minute break for a walk? I severely doubt it, sorry! Don’t get me wrong, I’ve often used that excuse but I make sure it’s short-term only. I use the threat of what will happen to my body if I don’t exercise, as a motivator during extra-busy periods in my life!
• It’s time to change your attitude, and truly get excited about exercise. Get yourself mesmerised by the changes that can happen to your body and how good your will feel during and after. The results will come; you just have to find the motivation first!

Rosemary Marchese is the Editor of fit for life online www.fitforlifeonline.com.au, a site dedicated to reliable and accessible health, beauty and fitness – a site for everyone; the individual, the family, an expectant mother or an elite kid.

As a registered physiotherapist with over 15 years of experience in the fitness industry Rosemary brings to fit for life online a wealth of health and fitness writing and editing experience.  She has published a best-selling fitness book and is also a former Editor for Ultra Fit magazine.  Rosemary is a fit and healthy mother of two young children dedicated to helping busy mums achieve their health and fitness goals.

By Tony Wilson

We like to improve.  You might not realise, but being able to achieve is a major factor in your happiness at work.  Research from Harvard Business School suggests that one of the pervasive elements of a miserable job is when people are not allowed to achieve and develop and progress.  Our first thought is to blame our managers, but, as strenuous as this may sound, you should actively look for ways to improve if you want to enjoy your job a little more.

It is so true - all you need to do is look at a child’s development years from one to six years old to see that we are learning machines.  And what’s more, learning is fun – just look at the delight in the eyes of that very child who has just caught a ball for the first time, or just realised how to get the square peg into the square hole.  What about the last time you went travelling?  Didn’t you just love learning about the intricacies of the culture, the history and (possibly) the language?  We like to learn and we like to achieve.

Why does learning seem boring?

We are conditioned to believe that learning is boring.  A few years ago I went back to University to do my MBA.  There I was, first day back, desperate to get into it, full of energy and enthusiasm.  The lecturer introduced himself, the lights went down, the PowerPoint presentation came up………….and I started falling asleep.

The content wasn’t bad, and I wasn’t overly tired, but I have been conditioned from an early age to believe that this environment is boring.  Something inside of me switches off automatically.  You would be hard pressed to find a teenager in school who thinks that learning is fun, right?  There is some research to suggest that our rate of learning and our ability to learn declines dramatically a couple of years into school.  Isn’t that odd?  The very institution that is supposed to be teaching us actually contributes to the decline in our learning.

Why Learning Sucks

When we are developing as children, learning is fun.  It is unstructured and it is done on our own terms.  But then we begin learning in a structured environment, which doesn’t seem like much fun at all.  Despite the efforts of most well intentioned teachers, they are not professional speakers, and while they try to impart their knowledge the best way they know how, it is rarely engaging.  You can probably count the teachers you really liked on a couple of fingers and I bet you they were engaging – either naturally or self-taught.  The bottom line is, after a couple of years of doing this every day, we decide that learning and developing is boring.

What’s more, achieving is hard work, not fun.  We are told this every day and again it is what we believe.  Getting better, finding ways to do our job more efficiently and trying new things is hard and they are only for crazy people or that Energiser Bunny that sits in the far cubicle.

But the fact remains, that we do like to achieve.  Even if you know someone who doesn’t care about their job or how they perform, even if you are sure they just turn up every day to go through the motions, I will guarantee that they get some satisfaction out of crossing things off their to-do-list, or clearing their inbox, or getting a “well done” from the boss.

Look for ways to improve:

You have the opportunity everyday to engage in unstructured learning on your own terms.  Ask yourself these questions:
“How can I do my job better?”
“What is something that I can change today in order to be more efficient?”
“What are the small things I can do every day to get some sense of achievement?”
“What are the things I hate doing?  Why?  How can I change that?”
I guarantee that if you find just one thing that you can change today - something that will make you better at your job – you will immediately feel the buzz.
And what an amazing by-product………if you find the right thing to change, it will actually make your life easier.

Tony Wilson is the founder of Teamcorp Australia, and has spent over a decade working with elite performers in business and in sport. His ability to help athletes reach their potential and maintain motivation has been a large factor in their success, and many corporate leaders throughout Australia now also apply Tony’s philosophies with outstanding results. Tony’s practical background, coupled with an MBA, give him a unique perspective on personal and team performance.

By Fiona Cosgrove

What is worrying all about?

The very word “worry” makes many of us worried.  We know we have the tendency to do too much of it and we have a guilty assumption that it is a waste of time, at best, and a destructive, confidence-killing habit at best.

What is worry?

Worrying is what we do when we turn things over in our minds and explore different outcomes to situations – we usually fixate on the negative outcome rather than the positive outcome - otherwise it would no longer be worrying.  We then imagine what else (bad) could happen if that negative outcome were to occur.  It’s a way of exploring and anticipating what could go wrong and in a way can help us mentally prepare for the worst!   The words, “but what if..?” are frequently formulated in Worry Time.

The main reason for worrying receiving such bad press is the belief that it doesn’t change a situation and only stops us sleeping or doing something more productive with our lives.

But can worrying be productive?

If you revisit the statement above that contains the word “explore”, we start to see worry in a different light.   Imagine if we were never to worry and managed to block all slightly distressing thoughts from our minds.  When unfavourable events happened (as they do from time to time) we would be ill-prepared to deal with them.  So perhaps we need to refine our worry so that it becomes a something of value to us.  Perhaps a lesson in worrying constructively might be of use?

Sports psychologist  Dr. David Krauss believes that daily practice in worrying is advisable.  He encourages his top athletes to worry “on their terms” rather than being the victim of anxiety. In his book, “Mastering the Inner game” he  suggests setting time aside each day to worry.  Do the job, tick the box and get on with the rest of your day.

So how do we worry constructively?

First, identify the main issue  or issues that are causing concern.  Sometimes we think we are worrying about one thing but it hides something bigger.  If we can identify the value underneath the area of worry, it will help us focus on what the emotions it’s producing – usually anxiety – and we can give it our full attention. So let’s say we worry about not meeting a deadline.  The real fear behind this could be the realization that our motivation to complete the task is not that strong, which could mean that we don’t enjoy our job.  And if we face up to that fact, it might then necessitate some greater, scarier decisions.

Worrie is associated with anxiety.    By recognising anxiety and sitting with it for a while, we avoid blocking the fear with worry.  Worry is a generic, dull feeling and hard to put aside.

Tools we can use:

When we have identified the real fear we can then test its validity.  For example,
•    I am afraid I am going to lose my job?
•    What will happen if I do lose my job?
•    What would that open up for me?  What would I need to do?
•    Is there anything I can do now to either a) prevent losing my job or b) prepare myself for the next action required if I do?

Worry sometimes goes hand in hand with indecision and procrastination

If you find yourself in that uncomfortable place, try coming up with the age-old  list of pros and cons. In coaching we call it a Decisional Balance as it provides a list that highlights the negatives and positives of taking a certain action.  When they are written down, they are often easier to evaluate and assess.  And guess what?  When they’re on paper, they are usually not scurrying around our head in a scrambled (worrying) fashion.  This is a great way of problem solving but worrying is a bit different.  We often worry about things that we have no control over at all.  That is a waste of time unless it produces actions that we can take that will improve the situation.

In our daily worry time we can aim to have an action plan that concentrates on things we can do that will reduce the anxiety.  So change your thinking.  Instead of worrying about how much you are worrying, make your worry work for you!

Fiona Cosgrove has over 20 years experience in the wellness & fitness industry - owning and managing clubs in Australia and Asia, including No 1 Martin Place, NSW Fitness Centre of the Year, 2006. Fiona is the author of Coach Yourself to Wellness and she regularly runs corporate seminars and workshops in the areas of healthy lifestyle, motivation and wellness.

By Dr. Adam Fraser

Why do some people achieve greatness and others get left floundering behind. Psychologists have determined that the ability to get into FLOW is one of the most important aspects of high performance. FLOW is also know as being “In the Zone”, it is a state where everything seems easy, you are very efficient, there is zero stress and you feel invigorated after it.

When I was working with elite athletes at the AIS and in America, special forces soldiers, some high profile people in the entertainment industry and more recently with high performers in corporate organizations, I noticed that these high performers regularly go into this FLOW state.

So how do we get more of it? The good news is that it is not all about talent, ability and potential, it’s more to do with how people execute on a daily basis. One of the most important principles that help you get into FLOW is the ability to focus deeply on the tasks that you perform. When you are deeply focused you have a greater chance of slipping into FLOW.

However as a society we are losing our ability to focus. It seems like the whole world has ADHD. There are three main reasons for this.

1. Attention deficit habit (ADH) - ADH is a condition where the habits in our day are sapping our ability to focus. For example most people leave their email open and every time it alerts us to a new email we stop what we are doing and we go off and check it. Also we leave our phone on constantly during the day even when we are writing a report or meeting with someone. These habits actually set ourselves up to be distracted and train us to have poor focus.

2. Information Obesity – This is the result of shifting from a physical economy to a digital economy. We are overloaded with information and we have so much information coming at us we don’t have to focus on one thing for too long before something else will come and take our attention away. A recent report released by Proud Foot consulting said that information overload was responsible for a 10% decrease in productivity.

3. Multi-tasking - The greatest enemy of focus is this idea of multitasking, multitasking suggests that you can focus on many things at once. Reality is multi tasking is a very inefficient process and in reality all you are doing is focusing poorly on a number of tasks rather than focusing well on one thing. So what is the solution how do we improve our focus?

Well there are three simple techniques we can use to have the focus of a high performer.

1. Control Your Environment. Set up your external world to support focus, turn off the email, turn the phone off, and educate your staff on when you are not to be interrupted. Push back on the environment, don’t be a slave to your environment.

2. Formal Practice. An example of a formal practice is meditation. Years ago I thought that meditation was tree hugging, hippie stuff, however a huge amount of evidence shows that meditation has a beneficial impact on our cognitive ability. In its purest form meditation is about calming the mind and focusing on one task, this ability will translate into work.

3. Be Present. During the day practice focusing your attention on what ever is in front of you. Lose yourself in what ever you are doing. If you are writing a report focus entirely on that report without thinking of the other things you need to do later in the day. Likewise if you are having a conversation with someone totally immerse yourself in that conversation don’t let your mind drift. So often we have conversations and we are not really present. Business is built on relationships, the greatest complement you can give another person is your undivided attention. However we all have a highly tuned BS detector, and we know when people are not truly engaged with us. Some people believe that being present is the key to team building. Companies spend millions of dollars a year getting people to build better relationships within an organization. They usually spend this money on personality profiling, isn’t the first step getting them to engage and be present with each other? In addition some psychologist are now talking about the concept that people are creating fewer and fewer memories. The reason for this is that memories are created in the present and the fact that most people are either obsessing about the past or worrying about the future means that they are not laying down current memories. How sad!

This is the first step towards high performance. Go forth and focus!!!

“Dr Adam Fraser is one of Australia’s leading educators, researchers and thought leaders in the area of human performance! In this time he has worked with elite level athletes, the armed forces and business professionals of all levels. Check out his websites www.dradamfraser.com & www.theglucoseclub.com.au.”