You need to make a decision? You could try tossing a coin!

So you have a choice to make. You’re torn between two options. You’ve established all the pros and cons. But you’re still not sure which road to take.

It’s time to get a coin out of your purse—and make one option heads (that’s the side of the coin carrying the imprint of a person’s head) and the other option tails (that’s the reverse of the coin).

After a short pause and a deep breath, you can toss your coin.

Are you satisfied by the decision the coin made for you? Great. Then you know what to do. However, if you feel uneasy and are wondering why you are letting a coin decide for you, you know you should probably go for the other choice instead.

Tossing a coin is a great way for us to test our gut feeling or intuition.

Have you ever done anything similar? If you decide to give it a try, do tell me if it works for you.

Have you ever mixed up the sounds of letters or syllables from one word to another by accident when speaking? Then you’ve probably committed a ‘spoonerism‘!

This can happen quite often in everyday speech.

Let’s look at some examples:

Instead of saying ‘bad salad’, you might say ‘sad ballad’. ‘Jelly beans’ might sound like ‘belly jeans’ when you open your mouth. Or instead of ‘master plan’ you might say  ‘plaster man’.

Do you know the book by William Golding called, “Lord of the Flies?”. If you’re not careful, you might mix up the sounds and call it “Ford of the Lies”! 

Can you think of any spoonerisms that have slipped from your mouth?

Someone told me the other day that reading inspirational quotations is very much like eating chocolate! It makes us feel good for a short period of time. 

So what benefits do they have. 

They give us insights into the thoughts and teachings of many wise people. They can put our minds to work. They can even change our states of mind in a minute. 

One of my favourites is by Oscar Wilde:

“Be yourself: everyone else is already taken.”

Do you have a favourite quotation?

Now and again it’s good to take a step back and to ask ourselves a few questions. 

Here I some I like to ask myself now and again:

What new things am I learning?
How meaningful is my work?
What could I do that I’m not doing at the moment?
How can I get better at what I do?

Of course there are lots of other questions, I could add to this list. Perhaps you have some recommendations?

You might think it’s nerdy, but I do like reading about the rules of etiquette now and again. 

In this 2-minute video, British etiquette expert William Hanson talks about the different sizes of napkins and where to place them if you have to leave the table or after you’ve finished eating. 

My napkins look quite different to the ones William shows us. Mine are made of linen. And what is best of all, they don’t need to be ironed. I wonder if William would accept that? Most probably not.

And what about you? Do you use napkins? And if so, what are yours made of?

How often do we say that we ‘have to‘ do something?

We have to finish writing a text. We have to send an email to a client. We have to phone a colleague. 

Changing one word in each sentence can help us feel more relaxed.

So instead of saying “we have to“, we can say “we choose to“. 

We choose to finish writing a text. We choose to send an email to a client. We choose to phone a colleague. 

Isn’t it always a choice? Don’t we choose to do the things we do?

So instead of saying: “I have to finish working on the concept instead of taking a lunch break“, try saying: “I decided to finish working on the concept instead of taking a lunch break“. 

Now how does that feel to you?