Success, Happiness and Love. All are made out to be these grand, beautiful, life-changing things that one must seek and find in order to have lived a truly fulfilled life.
However, like with almost anything in life, meaning & importance are not fixed values but vary depending on your perspective which is also shaped by various factors such as your own values, life experiences, personality, beliefs, etc.
Thanks to James, I have the opportunity today to share my perspective on success with you.
Lockdown has given us all some time to take a step back and reflect on how we see ourselves, as well as how we live our lives. This time has been an enlightening experience for many and has led them to relight their creativity and passion for life itself. Today’s blog is guest poem by The Brown Minimalist, all about The Lockdown Reflection. I hope you all enjoy it!
Failure is something that we all face at one point or another in our lives and provides us with the opportunity to learn about where we went wrong, to ensure that we improve or learn a particular thing for the future. As we grow older, our concept over what the word “failure” changes, but can we use our failures as a measure of how successful or not we are in life? That’s what we’ll be looking at in today’s “What do we mean by Success?” blog!
Grit is a trait that we commonly use and require in life, but can it be used to determine whether we are successful or not? Today’s blog in the “What do we mean by Success?” series is going to look at what we mean by ‘grit’, the effects that it has on our life and if we can use it as a measure of how successful or not we are in life!
Social Media has very rapidly become a part of every way that we love our daily lives. For something that we use multiple times a day, can we use it as a measure of how successful we are in life? This is what we are going to be looking at in today’s “What do we mean by Success?” blog!
To mark Mental Health Awareness week, we asked blogger and Henley Business School student, James Sweeney, to cover what it is, and what we can all do to help work through any difficulties.
The way that we see ourselves and why we do the things we do can play a major part in a persons life. The way that we feel about ourselves can have a dramatic effect on how we go about living our day to day lives but can we use it as a qualifier for being successful or not? This is what we are going to be looking at it in today’s “What do we mean by Success?” blog!
How we see ourselves and see each other is one of the underlying principles of Society. Everybody in life has their own role to play which to many makes their public image very important. The question that I am now asking you all to think of is your public image a reflection of how successful you are or not? This is what we will be taking a look at in today’s What do we mean by Success blog!
Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!
Today’s blog is the fifth blog in the “What do we mean by Success?” series that we run on the page and is all about your public image! A public image is something that we all have and is something that plays a big part in how we live our day to day life! While everyone has a different part to play in life, can we use our public image as a determiner of whether or not we are successful in life?
Firstly, to answer this question, we need to take a look at what I mean by our “public image”. Public Image to me is both a combination of how we are seen by others and what our role in society is. Are you seen as a caring person who anyone can talk to or are you more of a quiet person that just does a job quietly?
Nearly everyone we meet in life will be different and will react in their own way to different circumstances. Some people will instinctively panic if a problem arises and will go frantic whereas others will be able to keep their cool and thin rationally about how to solve the problem that they are in. Is it fair to say that the person that keeps calm is more successful than the person who stresses out and panics?
The answer to that question is a matter of opinion, it reflects how you see people and indeed society. I don’t think we can judge whether someone is successful or not simply by how they react in a crisis, but to many it is a determining factor. Again I am not saying you are right or wrong in whatever your view is about the question, I just think it is quite an interesting question to ask ourselves.
The thing that this comes down to in my opinion is how important is your public image to you? If you see your public image as being very important then it is more likely that it will be a determining factor of whether you consider yourself and others successful or not. There is again no right answer as for how important your public image is to you, it is all down to what you think of it.
People come in all different shapes and sizes. Some people are tall, others are short, some are great at Maths, others English. We are all different and it is what makes the world interesting. We find as we go through life that there are people who are natural leaders and then there are people that work better being told what to do by someone else. Is it a fair thing to measure success simply by if you are a leader or not? Alternatively is it a fair view to say that someone is not successful in life because they are not a leader?
Personally I think that whether you are a leader or not does not matter in regards to being successful or not but in saying that , there will be others that think completely differently. I am really interested in seeing what you all think to some of the questions I have been asking all throughout this series. I feel like they are all very thought provoking questions that really make you think of how to answer them and how you see yourselves in general.
That’s all I want to talk about in today’s blog! The blog is a little bit shorter than I originally planned but I think that there are some very good questions asked here that can really make you think. What do you think success means? Do you think your pubic image is a factor in whether or not you are successful in life? What do you think your public image is? Let me know what you think either in the comments below or though our Facebook page!
Thank you all for reading and I hope you have a great day!
Sweeney’s Blogs
Any money donated here is greatly appreciated and will be directly reinvested back into the page!
Education and indeed the qualifications that you have are too many the foundation of their definition of success. People see education as an all or nothing when it comes to being successful or not when sometimes it just simply is not. The question that we are going to be looking at today is: does education factor in whether you are successful or not?
Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!
This is the third blog in the “What do we mean by Success?” series! Today’s blog is all about if education and qualifications are a factor of whether we are successful or not in life. As with many of the other blogs in this series, there are a lot of different opinions on this topic, I will give my opinion but I am in no way saying that it is right or wrong , it is simply my view on the subject. If you have a different viewpoint or question let me know in the comments or on our Facebook page and we will discuss it further.
The education that we have had the qualifications that we have achieved will most likely differ with each person you meet. Different people prefer different subjects, some people may find Maths and English as the easiest subject in the world, whereas others may see them as the hardest. The qualifications and education we have does play a part in where we end up in life but should we define our success simply by what we may have acheived 10-20 years ago?
It is very true that education can help you get a better job in the future but simply having the qualifications does not guarantee that you will get any or every job that you apply for. They play a good part in it yes, but they are in no way a guarantee. The value that we place on Education is very important growing up and is something that I personally value very highly but the question is: does it determine whether we are successful or not?
If you have 10 GCSE’s with grades ranging from A*- C and your friend has 9, does that make you more successful than them? Does it make you smarter than them? If another one of your friends has 11 GCSE’s ranging from A*-C does that make them smarter or better/ more successful than you? These are the questions that I would like you to think about when reading this blog. How do you see success and does your education act as a factor in that or not?
What I love about writing this series is all the questions that I ask are all down to a matter of opinion. You can talk to 10 different people about these questions and each time you will get a different response. The concept of success is one that we all see differently and it is something that should be embraced, not swept to one side.
Education is constantly evolving to adapt to a forever changing world, therefore the education and ,of course, the qualifications change with them. An easy example to look at here is the change from O Levels to GCSEs. This change was made for people who wanted to leave school at 16 without doing A levels or attempting to go to University. Education always changes eventually so should we deem how successful we are by the things that we are taught?
The way that we see Education also differs depending on who you talk to. The traditional way as it were would be to go through school to get your GCSEs, then go to College to study for your A Levels and then go to University in your chosen filed and eventually get a job. That is just one way that people can do it. There are so many alternate routes that people can take ranging from BTEC qualifications, to vocational qualifications, professional courses and so many more.
Personally I did not take the “textbook way” to get to University. I went through School doing really well and got very good GCSEs, even with a very large operation during my last year in School. When I went to College unfortunately I did not do as well as I hoped and did nowhere near what I was capable of. After College I did the Level 3 AAT, Accounting qualifications as well as a HNC in Computing and Information Systems at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David and went on to Reading University to study my chosen degree path.
Do I see myself as less successful than others as I took a different route to University? Should I? Personally I am glad that I did not take the traditional way. Not doing so well at College taught me a lot of lessons that will be very valuable to me in later life and the extra qualifications that I now have, alongside my AS and A Levels are a great asset when entering the world of work down the line.
There is no right or wrong answer for how you rank education as a factor in whether you are successful or not in life. It is all down to a matter of opinion. I base success off of a large number of variables of which my education is a part of. This blog is not meant to make you feel like you are wrong or right in what you think, it is made to open the door on questions that you may not have thought of.
Personally I love having debates on topics like this, I feel that because everyone sees them differently it can lead to a very interesting and thought provoking debate. All that I ask is that when you think of Education as a factor or not in relation to Success consider all variables. Remember what I said at the start of the blog if you have 10 GCSEs and your friend has 9, does that make you smarter or more successful than them? Success to me is a term of an amalgamation of different things but the way that you see it may be completely different.
That is all I want to talk about in today’s blog! Thank you all for reading! I hope everyone is doing alright in the lock-down that we are facing currently. What do you think of today’s blog? Are you enjoying the What do we mean by Success series? What would you like to see me talk about next? Let me know what you think of these questions and any other comments that you have either in the comments below or on our Facebook page.
Thank you all for reading and I hope you have a great day,
Sweeney’s Blogs
Any money donated here is greatly appreciated and will be directly invested back into the page.
Success – A small word that many people see very differently. You hear people use the word success from time to time but the question that I always seem to have is what do we mean by success? That is what we are going to be looking at in this series, what success is, what makes us successful and how we can change our mind-sets to see that we are all successful in ways me may not have even considered!
Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!
Today’s blog is going to be the 1st blog in the new “What do we mean by Success?” series! This series is designed to tackle what we see as success and to try and transform how we think to see that we are all successful in our own ways. It is far too easy to get swept up in a competition with others and feel like a failure when in reality you are successful, just in a way that you may not have thought of.
Success is a term that I often undervalue in life and after reflecting on it I found that a lot of people also undervalue their own successes in life. It is not a criticism in any way , however, I strongly believe that if people understand the great things that they have achieved and the great skills that they possess then it will be a great mood booster and will make everyone ultimately feel better about themselves.
A background of various tan letter tiles
Whether you have climbed a mountain or simply learned how to spell a new word, success comes in many different shapes and sizes. That’s not to say that climbing a mountain can be compared in any way to learning how to spell a new word, but they both are achievements in their own right, just on a different scale, they still make us successful!
That is all I want to talk about in today’s blog! Thank you all for reading! What do you think of today’s blog? Are you looking forward to the new series? How do you value success? Do you think that we need to change what we see as success? Is success impacted by your surrounding environment? Let me know what you think of these questions and any other comments you have about my page either below or on our Facebook page!
Thanks for reading and I hope you have a great day!
Sweeney’s Blogs
Any money donated here will be greatly appreciated and will be put back into the page!
Today’s blog is the secong blog in our Time to Talk series and is all about The Reality of Grief. The idea for the blog and the blog itself came from a new guest writer on the page Kyra Fehrman. It is Kyra’s first blog on the page so let us know what you think and if you want to see more from Kyra! Hope you all enjoy the blog and learn something new about grief!
January only has 31 days, however, for me, it felt more like 100. January was a long and arduous time, certainly one you wouldn’t qualify as the best start to 2020. We all have days where everything seems to go wrong, where the world seems to be fighting against you, creating misery and chaos wherever you go and in whatever you do. For me the battle seemed to last the whole month with my grandmother going into hospital on the 1st and then finally succumbing to pneumonia and end stage COPD on the 9th January and her funeral was the 28th January.
Grief is not fun I am sure no one needs to tell you that but what they don’t tell you is that the five stages of grief isn’t as easy as going from one to two to three etc. It is a stressful process, one minute you’re in shock, numb to the core unable to process the reality of your situation, next you jump to anger and you end up not knowing what is going on and what to do with yourself. You play the blame game take it out on those around you maybe after that you cry, sob your heart out over the loss.
What no one tells us is that you can be stuck in that vicious circle for a long time, my partner lost his mother almost ten years ago and he is still grieving, stuck in the numb phase unable to speak about it or face the reality of his loss. My point here is that you never stop grieving and it will have a major impact upon your mental health, before January I was a different person with a different mindset.
Now after losing my grandmother I am seeing the world in a different light, faced with my mortality and the idea of my loved ones dying eventually has forced me to appreciate all the time I have with them. It is hard to talk about these things and a lot of people may say to you to just “move on” that they are in a better place and while the sentiment is nice it invalidates your feelings. You have every right to grieve your loved one and regardless of if they are in a better place or not they are not here with you, they are gone and all those things you would want to tell them, the jokes, the memories you’d want to remind them of you can’t.
Mental Health is a major topic nowadays with a rise in suicides, people taking anti-depressants and antipsychotics, we are in a mental health crisis and this post aims to encourage people to speak up. No matter how silly it may seem there is always someone out there who is willing to listen. If you are grieving a loved one and think life is not worth it anymore just remember this, they loved you with every fibre of their being don’t give up because they don’t want you joining them any time soon.
It is paramount that you look after yourself during these difficult times, hard as that may be, it’s crucial to remember that life will always go on and no matter what you will survive. You are strong enough to endure this pain help and support is out there. A light can be shone in even the darkest of places. Below are numbers and websites for Mental Health organisations.
Thank you all for reading! We hope that you have enjoyed today’s blog and have learned something new about grief! What do you think of today’s blog? Would you like to see more of Kyra’s blogs on the page? Has grief ever impacted on your life? How did you manage it? Let us know what you think in the comments below or on our facebook page.
Sweeney’s Blogs
Any money donated here will be greatly appreciated and will be put back into the page!
Today, February 6th 2020, is the annual Time to Talk Day! Time to Talk Day is designed to encourage people to speak up about any problems or issues they have been facing in regards to their Mental Health. It is an enormous day of the year in regards to Mental Health and is a day that I feel is not focused on as much as it should be, this is one thing that I am hoping to change over the next few years.
Having the confidence and indeed the courage to stand up and talk to somebody when you are going through problems with your Mental Health can, to many, be seen as an impossible hurdle to get past in life but I firmly believe it is a crucial step in both accepting and resolving the issues and problems that we are faced with in life. The spotlight is slowly starting to be shone on Mental Health but in my eyes there is still so much more that needs to be done. As a society we need to try and understand how hard it can actually be to say that you need help. Too many simply asking for help can be an impossible task, and that is something that we need to try and change.
The first thing that I believe we need to change is how we see Mental Health. The video below will help give you an insight into what Mental Health actually is and how it affects us in day to day life:
As we can see from the video, Mental Health affects each and every one of us. it is a part of who we are and is something that we should be proud of, not ashamed or embarrassed of. Time to Talk day is designed to encourage us to speak up and talk about our problems which is also one of the key principles of this page!
We all have our good and bad days but it is crucial to remember that they are normal in life! I openly admit that I have days which seem like they last forever and then days that go by in a second. There are days when maybe you will be more upset than you usually are but if we focus on those days then that is all we will ultimately see. Learning to identify when you are having an off day can sometimes be a lifesaver. Remember talking to people can make a massive difference, even if it is just over a cup of tea, this is where Time to Talk Day comes into play!
If you are not quite sure what Time to Talk Day is then the video below will hopefully give you an idea of what Time to Talk Day is all about!
In celebration and appreciation for Time to Talk Day I am going to be launching a new series of aimed at encouraging people to talk about the times they have come into contact with Mental Health. It can have affected you or somebody you know and if you want too, you can remain anonymous. If you have any ideas or want to share your own story please get in touch! I’ll more than happily listen to any suggestions or ideas!
Thank you all for reading today’s blog! Happy Time To Talk Day! What do you think of today’s blog? Have you heard of Time to Talk Day before? Are you doing anything special today? What do you think we need to do regarding Mental Health as a society and a community? Let me know what you think in the comments or through our Facebook page!
Sweeney’s Blogs
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Written by Dr. Eric Perry, PhD Image Credit: Pixabay “Adopting the right attitude can convert a negative stress into a positive one.” ~Hans Selye Sublimation is a subconscious psychological defense mechanism whereby we take a negative impulse and channel it into a positive behavior. This is similar to displacement (click here to refer to my earlier […]
We are currently looking for people to share their stories for Time to Talk week! If you have ever experienced something to do with Stuttering, Stress or Mental Health and would like to share your story then please get in touch!
If you know anyone or have a story you would like to talk about, please let me know! The story can be as long or as short as you want, it’s the message that’s important. If you have a story but are unsure about how to write it, I can help you out with that as well. If you are nervous about sharing your story and want to do it anonymously then that is completely fine as well!
In regards to when I will need the stories by, any time is fine! If you can get it to me fairly quickly then even better but if not then simply get it to me when you can. When you send it to me I will read it through and then if it reads well and has no mistakes, it will be published shortly after. If I have any suggestions for edits or changes then we will discuss them first before we move forward.
Thanks for reading! If you have any ideas or suggestions, please get in touch! See you all in the next blog!
Sweeney’s Blogs
Any money donated here will be put back into the business. This can be through marketing campaigns, upgrades to plans or for setting up future events!
Here’s a great blog I found today all about knowing your self-worth. It’s a great read, let me know what you think of it!
Realizing your self-worth has nothing to do with checking your bank balance, it is about you, the person you are in life. We give others respect, love and consideration but how often do we give ourselves what is due? How you value yourself is based on the self-esteem you have, your self-esteem shows you how […]
Sweeney's Blogs 