Your Time With James Sweetman

Episode 175 How I manage my mental health

This week I'm sharing the habits and rituals I practice that help me to manage my well-being and mental health. There is no doubt the world is going through challenging and stressful times and we all need ways to help us manage our fears and sense of overwhelm. I hope by sharing my self-care routine that you will be inspired to take a proactive approach to your own wellness and mental health.

Episode 174 Lost and Found

This week, I’m offering some suggestions to help you during those times when you feel lost or stuck. They’re my go-to insights and strategies, what I reach for when I feel directionless, demotivated and distracted. I explore themes including getting curious as to what change is trying to take place, how clarity is not certainty, but the quality of our seeing and how unexpressed creativity will always erode our well-being.

Episode 173 Managing nerves before a big presentation

This week I’m looking head on at the challenge that is front and centre for most people tasked with delivering a presentation and that is managing their nerves. Even if you’re an experienced presenter, there will be times when anxiousness and fear kicks in, as they do for me. So if you want to feel more confident at the top of the room, then this week’s episode is for you. I share many practical tips and strategies, including a game-changing insight that transformed my own impactfulness as a presenter.

Episode 172 Patience - the forgotten virtue

Today more than ever, patience is a forgotten virtue. When so much is accessible by the touch of a button, instant gratification has replaced the slow burn of anticipation. Decisions driven by immediate benefits rather than consideration of future consequences impact our lives at an individual and global level. This week, I explore the different causes of impatience, and offer some tips for dealing with frustration when things don’t go your way, or when the world is simply not working to your preferred timescale.

Episode 171 The moments of truth that shape your leadership brand

This week, I’m exploring the synergy between two related business topics – personal or leadership branding and moments of truth. If you think about your leadership brand as the mechanism through which you market yourself to others, moments of truth are those instances when customers or colleagues form an impression of you, for good or for bad. I’ll take you through the steps that will help you to create your brand blueprint. A critical moment of truth is when a client or colleague hears that you value them, I explore this and the other moments of truth that build trust and generate loyalty.

Episode 170 The midlife chrysalis

The word most associated with midlife is crisis, but this week I suggest a new word – chrysalis. I delve into the challenges and opportunities of midlife and how we can see our middle years as something more than a crisis to navigate. I speak about the ‘U-Curve of Happiness,’ make the case for pro-aging and how mid-life gives us an opportunity to explore an encore career, a chance to harness our experience and align our profession with our passions.

Episode 169 Burnout or bored-out?

We’ve all heard about burnout, but what about bored-out? Bored-out gets far less attention than it’s workaholic cousin and because some of the symptoms are the same, it can be misdiagnosed. I explore the difference between your core work and phantom work, the politics, the red tape of bureaucracy and the personality management that drains the spirit. Whilst the behaviours that lead to burn out are applauded in organisations, to admit feeling bored is taboo. I also speak about how you may love what you do, but can still get bored by it.

Episode 168 Am I successful yet?

Many people struggle to enjoy their accomplishments or to find lasting satisfaction in their successes. If you’re dragging yourself along, with so-called success always seeming to be just out of reach, then this episode is for you.

Success in one area of life, does not guarantee satisfaction in life. I suggest that it’s time for us to redefine success and we start by viewing success and satisfaction as independent variables. Remember success is a measure that is decided by others. Satisfaction is a measure decided by you.

Episode 167 Curing the disease to please

Are you a people pleaser? It’s nice to be nice and we will do kind and thoughtful things for many reasons, but that’s not the same as people pleasing which is defined as ‘striving to please others in order to gain their approval, or to avoid criticism or conflict, whilst sacrificing your own needs and wants in the process.’ This week, I’m taking a deep dive into the ‘disease to please’. I explore the causes, the symptoms and the cure, including 9 practical ways to overcome the ingrained habit of excessive people pleasing.

Episode 166 Reframing pain - in conversation with Paul Rock

In the first of a new series of episodes, I’m delighted to be joined by Paul Rock. Paul is a musculoskeletal physical therapist who specialises in pain management. I started working with Paul a few months ago for back pain and I’ve found his work and approach not just worthwhile, but eye opening. His holistic approach prompted me to question many of the unconscious rules I’d established for myself, rules I’d built up around my sense of identity – who I am, what I can do and what I can’t. He has quite literally turned my perspective of pain on its head. www.skerriespainandinjuryclinic.ie