new2london

The Best Curated Trades In London

Mark Andrew

How To Fire Bad Friends

· · Leave a Comment

You are the architect of your own dreams. But not solely; the people who you surround yourself with influence can you without you even knowing. If you want to take control of your life and live your dreams here in London, you need to know which friends are a positive influence and which friends will just drag you down.

If you are in a relationship, you tell your friends about it right? You tell them when your partner annoys you, don’t you? Consider this, you tell your friends about certain aspects of your relationship and they make up an opinion of your relationship based on what you tell them. But the problem is it tends to be one sided.

We all get pissed off with our partners but it doesn’t mean it’s a bad relationship, does it?

Our friends will influence our decisions and we influence them too. What happens when you bitch about your partner? That’s it; they get a negative opinion about your partner. What if you told them, you were annoyed because your partner wants to co-ordinate things together.

This is a normal aspect of any relationship, right?

Then, one day, you call your partner up because you miss them. As soon as your friends find out they may get the wrong picture that your partner is being controlling. As much as you try to persuade them they have made up their opinions.

The point is your friends will influence you, regardless how small, regardless how big. In the example, what do you think will happen?

You will try to persuade them that your partner is not controlling but you’ll have planted doubts within your own mind, by way of your friends because you trust them, and every time you argue with your friends about the matter you’ll just reinforce the doubt. This is influence. 6, 12 months down the line the relationship could be over due to negative influence.

How to tell when you are being influenced by your friends

Ask yourself: who do I spend the most time with?

Consider your friends – think about their positive and negative aspects – the good parts of their personalities and their flaws.

Ask yourself: where do I see myself in the next 10 years surrounded by these friends?

Ask yourself: how do my friends influence my life?

Ask yourself: Do I need to tell this friend that? Be selective about what information you choose to tell certain friends.

Ask yourself: Will the people around me stop me from reaching my dreams and goals in life?

If the answer to that question is ‘yes’ or ‘maybe’ then you need to reconsider your friends role in your life. I’m not saying you need to end the relationship just minimise the time you spend and their influence over you.

Influence is fine, as long as it’s healthy.

Become aware of your thoughts

Most of our decisions are made unconsciously – all you need to do is monitor your thoughts and recognise when the influence of others is apparent.

Stop comparing

When you find yourself comparing yourself to others, stop! Who are you comparing yourself to? Remember, you could always do better than them- comparisons are extremely limiting.

Be yourself

Don’t stick to norms of the group – it’s ok to be different. If your friends do not like it when you be yourself, simply, they are not friends. Then its time to stop returning their calls and cut them out of your life

How To Stop Negative Programming

· · Leave a Comment

Do you have a low self esteem? Does it stop you from making friends in London? Does it stop you from living a positive, fulfilled life? The chances are the cause of your negativity is the result of negative programming.

What is negative programming?

In the past you will have probably been told off by your parents or teachers or someone upset you – even if it didn’t feel bad at the time –giving you a negative message. Maybe you had sad moments in your life or at some point interpreted hostile body language that caused a negative reaction in you. Even advertising can have a negative effect, sending messages that you are not good enough. Negative programming occurs when such messages are received repeatedly.

The result of negative programming is a low self esteem, poor confidence and negative thinking which will stop you achieving your full potential.

1) Recognise damaging thoughts

Negative thoughts and low esteem cause you to become unconfident – they are not helpful to you, they only damage you and stop you from being the awesome person you are. They must be stopped! By allowing these thoughts, you are basically letting someone else do the thinking for you, someone who wants you to fail.

These thoughts are everyone from your past who told you that you couldn’t do something or told you that you were bad at something – they are ruling your present and future – don’t let them win!

Every time you try to do something and the voice in your head says something such as ‘I’m untalented’, ‘I’ll never get anywhere’ or ‘I am not beautiful’ – that is your negative programming doing your thinking for you. Listen for these negative statements – how many times do they speak to you and take over your mind and, ultimately, make up your mind?

When you give in to a demand made by negative programming – a statement made by the negative voice in your mind which demands you to think negatively – you are reinforcing your negative programming. And if you allow it to become reinforced it will only get stronger!

2) Positivity results in action

Negative thoughts create a negative reality.  Often because a negative mindset results in not taking action. If you have a positive outlook, positive things will happen because you will take action. Failure is the path to success, if you never try you will never fail, if you never fail you will never be successful.

3) Eliminate Negative thoughts

Once you’ve recognised the negative thoughts, simply replace them with positive thoughts. All you have to do is decide you no longer want or believe this negativity – clear your mind. It’s so easy! When you catch a negative thought, say out loud, ‘No. Delete that.’ It’s just like selecting bad text on a word document and pressing the delete key on the keyboard.  Replace the negative thought with the direct opposite i.e. ‘I’m bad at this’ with ‘No. Delete. I am good’. This stops reinforcement – positive statements will eventually change the way you think and deprogram the negativity that rules your life. It really is that simple.

4) How to stay Positive

a) Focus on the present and future. The past is gone – the hurt, pain, rejection and negativity are actually gone but you are choosing to relive it.  Say No! And negativity that used to rule your life will disapere, for good.

Think about what you have today. Focus on that and what you have to be thankful for. Think about something specifically – it can be anything your health, possessions etc.  Let the joy it gives you fill your mind.

b) Focus on how you can make your life and the world better – not what others expect or expected of you.

c) Visualise positive moments – think about positive things that have happened to you – this diverts your mind to a good place. Think about positive events in the future – create a picture of it in your mind and let the energy flow around you mind.

How To Improve Your Self Confidence

· · Leave a Comment

Do you want to boost your self confidence? Lack of confidence affects your relationships, friendships and your career. Here’s how to improve your self confidence and get on and have a fulfilling successful life in London.

You don’t have to get it right; you just have to get it going. – Mike Litman

Believe in yourself

The best way to build self confidence is to believe in yourself.  Try to ditch any negative thoughts by counteracting them with positive thoughts.  Each time you hear that, ‘you can’t do it’ voice, tell yourself ‘No. Stop!’ And then use, what I call, your ‘you can do it voice.’  Some people find it helpful if they imagine this voice as that of a positive role model.

Comfort zone

Confidence, and lack of confidence, is not universal. Have you noticed that there are some things which you are very confident doing, whilst there are other things which actually scare you?

The things you are confident about are inside what is known as your ‘comfort zone’.  The things which you are unconfident about are outside your comfort zone and you will do everything to avoid them.

He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else. – Benjamin Franklin

The things you are confident about are usually things you have already achieved or have been reinforced by someone telling you are good at it.

The more you choose to stay in the comfort zone the scarier the outside becomes.

Work out what is in your comfort zone and what is outside. What patterns of behaviour do you do to avoid stepping outside of your comfort zone? Recognise these behaviours by using your ‘you can do it!’ voice.

Establish your strengths

Make a list of everything you have to be grateful for – this shows you what you have achieved and what motivates you.

Now write down 10 things you are good at. These can be your greatest skills or achievements. Read the list back – look what you have achieved!

And Weaknesses

Make a list of your 10 biggest weakness and the things you want to become more confident about. Now you have to address each point at a time. Do not try to do too much at once – this needs to be a gradual process.

Trick your mind

For each thing on your list, take a piece of paper or a Post-it note, and write it as if you’ve already done or achieved it and stick it on your mirror or somewhere where you will see it every day.

Every time you see it repeat what you have written. It sounds silly but it really works – it changes negative thoughts and tricks the brain into thinking you has already achieved it. This in itself will help boost your self confidence.

Get your of the comfort zone

Go back to your note written as if you’ve already achieved it. Now do it! The best way to become confident at something is to do it! Try it. How easy was that?!

Quite simply, building confidence is about moving your comfort zone out so it becomes larger. This is step by step process gradually taking on one thing outside your comfort zone.

Get out there and achieve it, extend your comfort zone. Overcoming something which you were previously worried about will boost your confidence – and will affect all aspect of your life.

Surround yourself with confident people

‘Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence.’ – Vince Lombardi

Are your friend’s negative people? Are they unconfident? They might be dragging you down. When we are part of group people tend to adopt similar behaviour. If you surround yourself with confident friends in London, you’ll have a much more positive outlook and begin to doubt your doubts – helping you become much more confident.

How To Be Lucky

· · Leave a Comment

I can categorically state that there is no such thing as luck- science has proved it.

I’ve always thought luck was really just about being in the right place at the right time. But there is a reason  why certain people are in right place at the right time. And if you are unlucky, you can change it. It’s as easy as opening your eyes.

Take a lottery winner, they are not lucky, per se, they just bought a ticket and when the balls came down with the number they chose the odds were in their favour. Luck is much more about opportunity – the lottery winner bought an opportunity. That is all.

Heres how to be lucky.

Luck is a state of mind not a state of being

Psychologist Richard Wiseman conducted a study on luck. He surveyed two groups of people. Group one were the people who considered themselves to be lucky, whilst group two consisted of people who found themselves to be unlucky.

Both groups were given a newspaper and were asked to find out how many photographs the newspaper contained. The findings showed that those who were in the unlucky group took, on average, two minutes to count the photographs. But those in the lucky group took just a few seconds, on average, to count the photographs.

Ok, so lucky people have an amazing ability to be able to count photographs, right?

No, it’s much simpler than that. The people who were super-fast at counting the photos, the so called lucky group, found a message on page two that read, ‘stop counting. There are 43 photographs in this newspaper.’
The unlucky group, of course, missed this message because their main focus was counting photographs.

So what does this tell us about Luck?

Luck has nothing to do with being lucky. But it is about being in the right place at the right time. Why? Because if you keep yourself open to opportunity, you’ll have a greater chance of being in the right place at the right time – do you get me? Because the ‘lucky’ group were more open and observant, they found the message.

Secrets of the lucky

According to Wiseman, “Unlucky people miss chance opportunities because they are too focused on looking for something else. They go to parties’ intent on finding their perfect partner, and so miss opportunities to make good friends. They look through the newspaper determined to find certain job advertisements and, as a result, miss other types of jobs. Lucky people are more relaxed and open, and therefore see what is there, rather than just what they are looking for.”

Wiseman carried out a second test – which involved participants looking at a computer screen. They were told to focus on a large dot in the centre. Then, without warning, a number of other large dots appeared on the edges along the screen. Most participants saw the extra dots.

Another test was carried out where the subjects were told they would receive money if they looked at the centre dot accurately. Nearly all missed the extra. According to Wiseman, ‘The harder they looked, the less they saw.’

So, focusing on just one specific thing makes you blind to what is out there. If you look for specific jobs in specific places you could miss the opportunity of a lifetime. Same goes with relationships – if you have a specific ‘type’ you’ll probably miss out on meeting or having a relationship with someone really special.

Get out there, keep yourself open to opportunity and be lucky in London.

How To Create A Successful Meet Up In London

· · Leave a Comment

Why create your meet up in London?

Becoming an event organiser is a great way to make new friends in London. Start by researching for other similar groups and see what they are doing and where they are meeting in London. Try and create a meet up group that is slightly different to everyone elses.

When you are ready you need to write a compelling statement to explain exactly what your meet up group is about. Make sure it is clear and descriptive and not too vague. Also try and convey your passion and excitement about the group. Ensure you finish with a call to action such as “What are you waiting for – sign up now!”

Inviting new friends to your meet up

The secret to creating your meet up is to have a clear idea of what you want to do and where to meet. Or open up a discussion to your new friends of what they would like to do – then pick a time and place to meet. If you are too vague with your event details people will get scared off or bored and find another event.

You should use the check list below to ensure your meet up will be a success

1) A date and time to meet (with at least 2 weeks notice)
2) What will happen at the meet (plus the benefits of attending eg make new friends fast!)
3) A specific meet up location (somewhere easy to find and visible is best)
4) How you will identify the meet up leader
5) Give everyone the contact details of the meet up leader

Venue for the meet up

Once you decide on your meet up activity, you need to tell people where to meet in London. Ideally you will want find a free venue. If your meet up only has 10 or so attendees you could just go to any pub or bar. More than 10 friends coming? You will likely need to let the venue know you and your group are arriving.

Avoid busy nights for bars if you want the venue for free. Bars and pubs are busiest Friday and Saturday nights.

Ensure there are signs both outside and inside the venue letting friends know where to find the event.

Managing event responses

Once you have the meet up activity agreed, the venue booked and the meet up time sorted… Thats it – post up your invite and wait for responses!

The responses you receive to your meet up will fall into 3 categories:

1) I cant make it because: Im busy that day, I live too far away etc
2) I can make it that day but can we change the location, meet up time etc
3) I can make it – look forward to seeing you all there

Avoid the temptation to change your event once it has gone live. As this will just irritate the people who said they could make it at the start and potentially cause chaos on the day of your event with some friends missing the changes to the event.

If some guests want to change the meet up location in London – suggest to them that on the next meet up we can meet at their favourite location.

The day before the meet up

Remind your new friends that the event is still on. Perhaps personal message some of the key people coming to double check they can still attend.

On the day of the event – before the meet up starts:

1) Send one final event reminder
2) Print off a list of people who are coming and contact numbers
3) Give everyone your contact number
4) Double check reservations you have with the venue for the meet up
5) If there is a reservation, make sure attendees know what name it is under

Day of the meet up

For everything to run smoothly on the day of the event do some last-minute preparation before your group meets.

At the meet up venue make sure that the staff know who you are and ask them to direct your event visitors to the correct room where your meet up is happening.

Keep your phone on at all time and ask a friend to help you welcome guests

So there you have it – the secrets to organise a successful meet up in London