Women encouraged to get the most out of life

Inspiring: Power house New Zealand business woman Lindy Nelson encourages women to get the most out of the short time they have to realise their passion, potential and purpose. 

 

New Zealand Agri-Women’s Development Trust (AWDT) founder and executive director Lindy Nelson would have to be one of the most inspiring women I have come across in my career.

She names among her friends, New Zealand business woman power-house former Spark (Telecom) CEO and My Food Bag founder, Theresa Gattung and rural business woman and Rural Women of New Zealand national councillor, Fiona Gower.

I attended an inspirational and challenging day-course called ‘Reveal’ at Whangarei, hosted by Rural Women New Zealand, where Lindy was speaking to over 100 enthusiastic women.

Her message was that life is short and it's about how we get the most out of it to realise our passion and potential.

Topics she covered in connection with the above message included; people operating using their strengths and skills, being courageous to move forward toward what they want, thinking properly, people finding their passion, goal setting and taking small steps towards them and success celebration.

I found the workshops helpful, interesting and informative.

One where she asked attendees to write down what they thought six of their strengths and skills were, and then asked to grade them from 1 – well developed, 2 being ok and 3 – needing development, was an eye opener to me and others I sat with.

If we scored low on any of the skills or strengths it meant that skill/strength was well developed but if we scored high, it meant we needed development.

Some attendees were surprised and disappointed at their results. She commented that they had perhaps been a little too hard on themselves in the grading process.

I felt the values of passion, potential and purpose and being asked to place our pens on paper and just write for 15 minutes, asking ourselves the question:

What is the highest purpose I can have for my life? If I couldn’t fail … was a view I needed to explore, as fear can really cripple people and impede them from going ahead.

She taught women how to refine their purpose, set realistic goals for themselves and be positive and find their own ‘fit’ in life, which made me think about my own path and made me more determined to follow what my true passion is.

A very short piece of red ribbon was used to illustrate the short amount of time we have left in life, to do what we really love, from everything else we need to fit into it, and we were encouraged to put this piece of ribbon in a place where it is a reminder of that short time-frame.

She taught about the importance of developing confidence and getting rid of negative self-talk.

I found the action of being encouraged to replace a negative thought with a positive one was magic because it means practising what we say to ourselves, can have an impact on the results we get in life.

This day was well worth giving up some time to attend. I highly recommend it.

For more information on Lindy Nelson and the AWDT go to: www.awdt.org.nz