The Year Starts Here

Family and domestic commitments can result in women – especially those with children – putting their personal dreams on hold. Jan Edwards discovers why now is a great time to start your best year ever.

The English writer W Somerset Maugham said: “A woman will always sacrifice herself if you give her the opportunity. It is her favourite form of self-indulgence.” Although the latter sentence sounds dubious today, it’s still true that women – particularly mums – make sacrifices: it’s in our nature to nurture and many of us seem to have been hard-wired to put the needs of family and friends before our own.

It’s also true that women who do make time for their own needs, dreams and goals are happier, more fulfilled and therefore probably better mothers, wives, partners, siblings or friends. Mallorca-based professional coach Jo Orgill has a favourite analogy: “During the safety demonstration on a plane, parents are always advised to put on their own oxygen masks before putting masks on their children. If you don’t look after yourself, everything else suffers.”

Any woman ready to give her own needs some attention, would do well to check out the aptly-named online coaching club My Best Year Ever, founded by Jo and fellow professional coach Michaela Partridge. These empathic and warm-natured women first met last summer and share an enthusiasm for helping others to identify and achieve their personal and professional goals. So what are their credentials?

Jo previously worked in marketing for Thomson TUI in the UK, then moved to Argentina for a year (where she learnt Spanish and her passion, the tango). Although it was “never part of the plan”, she returned to work for TUI and moved to Mallorca, using her marketing experience and language skills (Jo also speaks French). For the past two years she’s been a Practitioner of Life Coaching, holding the LCH Diploma accredited by the European Coaching Institute. Her face-to-face training was in the UK with Achievement Specialists, tutored by one of the country’s leading coaches.

Michaela has worked in the field of human resources and recruitment for 20 years. She began her own freelance business in 2000, coaching redundant employees through their career transition. In 2005, she attained the Advanced Diploma with the Coaching Academy; a year later she became a qualified NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming) practitioner. She’s also a practitioner of the People Model – “a terrific coaching model, created by the People Academy.”

Like many business people on this island, Jo and Michaela have other professional interests as well as their coaching work: Jo teaches her beloved Argentine Tango and Michaela runs a greetings card and stationery business. “I wanted to feed my two passions of greetings cards and stationery, and supporting individuals and companies to achieve their best year ever,” Michaela says. Last November, she and Jo met for lunch to discuss how to combine coaching with the publication of a calendar. Some four hours later, they’d not only come up with the idea for the My Best Year Ever calendar, containing helpful coaching tips, but also a Web-based club of the same name. They chose a stylish logo – a glamorous illustration of two women – by Lizi, a favourite greetings card artist.

A new business was born, combining the respective skills and expertise of these two dedicated coaches.

They published 65 calendars for 2010, selling out by the end of December, through Christmas fairs, and their own contacts – both personal and those made at networking groups, “including the abcBusiness Club,” Jo says. Purchase of a calendar came with free membership of the My Best Year Ever club, website access and a free place at the January 2010 ‘Kick Start

Your Best Year Ever’ half-day workshop (which, due to popular demand, has since been repeated twice). Their membership gift vouchers – perfect for a female friend or family member – make a gift that keeps on giving.

This workshop really lives up to its name: with Jo and Michaela’s guidance, participants identify and set goals, then prepare an effective action plan, with the all-important target dates. One of the sessions involves making an individual collage, encapsulating what’s important to the creator; using cuttings from magazines, some glue and coloured pens, it’s like releasing your inner child but, at the same time, it focuses and clarifies the adult mind. It all happens in a supportive atmosphere, in which participants are invited to ‘buddy up’ for ongoing support.

It costs just 15 € to reap the benefits of the My Best Year Ever website’s password-only pages, accessed, with its wealth of tips, articles, book recommendations and monthly activities – all designed to motivate and inspire members in their quest for a terrific twelve months. Members also enjoy priority booking and special rates for the different workshops led by Jo and Michaela. In April, they ran a ‘Feel the fear’ workshop; their next is ‘Focus on what you want and make it happen’, on Thursday, June 10 (30 € for members; 35 € non-members), in the Palma area.

There are also informal monthly coffee mornings, when members can join Jo and Michaela to chat about their progress and exchange experiences. “It’s a very supportive group,” Jo says. “We’ve had women come who’ve recently moved here to set up a business and they’ve found these sessions very helpful.”

My Best Year Ever is a young business but, Jo reveals, already in profit: “Our income has exceeded our costs – as long as you don’t factor in our time!” Their investment in terms of time and effort has been substantial, but rewarded with an enthusiastic response from English-speaking women on the island. As a spin-off, there’s an opportunity for additional business for Jo and Michaela’s respective coaching consultancies: members seeking specific one-to-one coaching are offered reduced rates for their individual services.

Some of the My Best Year Ever 2010 calenders were sold in the UK, where the dynamic duo will promote the club and deliver some workshops this summer. They’ve also launched the concept in the business world and plan to develop their ideas further. It’s proving to be a good year . . .

And it’s not too late to start your own best year ever. The dusting can wait; dreams shouldn’t . . .