Fulfilling your potential

Are you really valuing yourself? Are you really appreciating your unique and special life and the people around you? It is worth it to take the time to do so. Every person is different, with a different potential, with different strengths and talents and all will have their own, different way of looking at things. Every person has greatness within them… This I truly believe.

What makes one person ‘tick’ is different to what makes another. Life to me, is about ‘enjoying it,’ being the best you can be and serving others well. It is about slowly getting better and better at figuring out, then doing and putting yourself in situations where you can be your best and help others. I feel grateful that I am on the path of living at my highest potential – it doesn’t mean that I don’t have problems or challenges, that I am perfect or that I don’t make mistakes! Simply that I am able to learn from those and grow and keep taking my life in a valued direction.

The last few months for myself and my family I feel have been blessed and that we are really appreciating our lives. In January, we took the family on a an international vacation to Hawaii and Canada and witnessed our friend’s beautiful wedding. Billy began his Timbertop year at GGS, where he is living in the country, near Mansfield Victoria with a little over 200 other year 9 friends/schoolmates. They chop firewood to light fires to make their showers warm, partake in multiple day hikes and fulfil a compressive running program that leads to a 28km marathon run at the end of the year. They also learn the usual academic studies. He seems to see this for what it is, an amazing opportunity, one which he is making the most of – by all accounts in his letters home via Australia Post (no email either!). Amelia has started prep at IGS and is happy and well. She loves her schooling, friends, family, dancing, sport and everything creative. John and his family business is doing well, he has just finished the Rottnest swim, which is around a 2okm swim challenge from Perth to Rottnest Island in WA. He did this as part of a team with friends and they came second in their age group and had a great weekend of adventure. We are surrounded by awesome friends and family.

I am so lucky to be supported and surrounded by great people. I am training well with my friend and coach Annie Martin who is guiding me for Ironman Port Macquarie in May this year, it will be IM no 8! I am grateful to be supported by sponsors Liv Giant, Giant, CBD Cycles and Oakley. I’m still loving swim squad with all my MG buddies and Dave Wilson and Buddy  Portier – love my friends here! I am healing my knee (mild tendinopathy) and staying positive and have been supported by sports doc Bruce Reid, Doc Parma, Dave Morarty and have had two great hypnotherapy/counselling sessions with Deborah Stevens.

Amelia and I are heading over to WA from 10-24th March – where we will stay with my sister Caroline and her family. Amelia will do school in the country with her cousin Lilli- so exciting! She is looking forward to collecting eggs from the chooks every day:) Caroline and  I will spend time together on our own ‘triathlon boot camp!’ We will also deliver my speaking presentations, working with great organisations…. oh, and I think I’ve been roped into baby-sitting while her and husband see Rod Stewart live!!

It is dry in the outback where I grew up, so I’m praying for rain for Mum and Dad and their organic properties. Mum and Dad always give me strength just thinking about them. They are engaged in finding ways to manage the dry and keep the businesses, stock and land going well.

My speaking and workshopping work is growing fast and my PA and sister Alice and I, are enjoying helping schools and corporate groups lift, value themselves and their teams, achieve their goals and be their best. I am being booked out very quickly so if you are interested, please let me know. grace@gracemcclure.com.au

I am mindful to deliver quality presentations that really help empower and are awesome. I will begin studying the year long certificate in Positive Psychology in May this year, with Tal Ben Sha-Har and GGS which I think will add even more value, variety and depth to my speaking/workshopping work. I was thrilled to receive this feedback from students at last week’s workshops:

FROM IVANHOE GRAMMAR NEWSLETTER 26th FEB, 2015

 The School and House Captains took part in a special half day leadership workshop with Grace McClure last week which was a great success. Some of the participant’s reflections are detailed as follows:

 ‘Working with Grace McClure in the leadership workshop has made a difference in the way I now think. She has inspired me to believe in myself and others. She told us that the longest journey starts with a simple step. I learnt a lot from Grace’s speech but the message I got was to do your best and be yourself.’

‘As soon as I walked into the room we were going to be doing the workshop in I was gob smacked. It looked amazing! The large table everyone was going to be sitting at had everything – name labels, timetables for the day, and even jugs of water! I couldn’t just walk in and observe, so I said “Wow, this is exactly like a real conference!”

‘No-one could have asked for a better host to go with this exciting event. Grace McClure taught us lots of important lessons, but the thing that really made my jaw drop was when she said she had done SEVEN IRONMAN TRIATHLONS! Yep, you read it- SEVEN! This was the perfect example of persisting and never giving up. But what made me nearly tear up was when she said she had run the last four kilometres with her child, and showed us a video about it.’

‘We also did some very interesting activities. The most memorable one to me was this one called ‘Self-esteem Boosters’. In this activity we had to go around the room and give everyone ‘genuine’ compliments for 30 seconds. Now, I am going to be perfectly honest about this – at times it did get a little awkward. Well, what I mean is I had to talk to others I don’t know very well (and I am not saying there was a shortage of compliments, because, there was actually too many for me to remember). In my opinion, it was harder receiving the compliments than giving them.’

‘What I really got out of this was the motivation and inspiration to be a good leader. Grace taught me everything I need to know about being brave and achieving my goals. So many of the activities pushed me out of my comfort zone and made me think deeper about what I really wanted to achieve as a leader. I believe it brought the best out of all of the School and House Leaders.’

‘We were really fortunate to have Grace McClure to teach the Year 6 Leaders about leadership, our School values and to hear about her successes in her life. She taught us to never give up, to work cooperatively with our peers and to stay positive in life. Now we have skills and ideas to help us in our leadership role.’

 ‘I learnt that you might not be amazing at something first up, but if you use your growth mindset and never give up you will achieve that goal soon. I realised that once you believe in yourself, you are already halfway there. Most of all, I learnt how important it is to be a leader, and how to be a leader your OWN way.’

Here are a few pics of life – memorable moments lately that fill my heart with joy. I think taking photos can help us look for more moments of beauty in life and appreciate them afterwards.