A NEW CHALLENGE AND A WHOLE NEW YOU

New Year is the best time to take your life in a new direction, so Sarah Williams looks at some of the lifestyle courses which can offer a fresh challenge.

BUSINESSWOMAN Colette Hill always had a nagging feeling she was being forced to choose between work and family.

Inspired by a writer who found juggling work and play increasingly difficult, Colette was attracted to the new lease of life promised by Transcendental Meditation (TM). Feeling overwhelmed by the rapid growth of her PR consultancy, Colette joined a short course at the Victoria TM Centre in October 2000. She took their advice to seize the moment - a great suggestion which changed her life.

"I have been practising TM for 12 months now and it has given me a much greater sense of perspective," Colette explains. "I was told it would enhance my creativity and it has; the seeds of three new business ideas were sewn while meditating. I am probably busier now than I was a year ago, but I am enjoying more time with my family as well as devoting more energy to the business. Best of all, the nagging feeling has gone." Colette encourages others to take up a new challenge this year.

Transcendental Meditation is one of thousands of lifestyle courses on offer across the capital. Traditional favourites include short courses in European languages - or perhaps you'd prefer something more exotic, such as Afrikaans or Zulu.

And, there's a lot more on offer this term: everything from balloon artistry to teabag folding, from chocolate cookery to shiatsu - no interest is too niche.

Learning a new skill is rewarding and can often lead to exciting opportunities. Sandy Horton from Wandsworth took a part-time course in stained-glass to make a panel for her Victorian front door.

She enjoyed it so much she decided to take up an architectural glass course at Central St Martin's College of Art and Design and now has a postgraduate diploma in advanced stained glass. These days Sandy divides her time as a professional glass artist and lecturer. She exhibits her work, and in 2001 was commissioned to produce a decorative glass panel for the communications giant, Nokia.

When choosing a course to embark on "be focused about what you really want to learn", advises Ruth Katz, a business and marketing management agent in the complementary health industry.

"If you do that, you'll probably be drawn to the course for you."

She should know. In the past few years Ruth has taken up various courses in her spare time, including Pilates, aromatherapy and acupuncture.

Disillusioned by her job in the music business, her hobbies were the springboard to a new career.

Ruth wanted to take hold of her own destiny and thought her new business idea for a complementary health business consultancy would be a winner. It was, and her company, the Complementary Group, which was launched in January 1999, has grown from strength to strength. Next month Ruth will be sharing her business expertise and experience with other entrepreneurs by running her own one-day course on "How to build a healthy business".

If the budget is tight, don't worry, courses aren't only open to people with disposable income. Charitable or community organisations and even local councils run some courses free or at discounted rates.

The Peabody Trust housing association, for example, runs free courses for residents and unemployed people in its local communities. Their bite-sized courses help adult students build their confidence and achieve goals in IT, languages, creativity, family issues and personal development.

Self-improvement courses, including assertiveness coaching and presentation skills, which can otherwise be very expensive, are also being piloted by the trust from this month.

And, if you would like to put something back into your local community with some newly gleaned skills, courses such as counselling, sign-language and lipreading are highly prized.

Lipreading classes are becoming increasingly popular not just among the hard of hearing and their families and carers. Brian Lamb, of The Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID) says: "Lip- reading courses are fun.

Whether you're hard of hearing or not, the classes will teach you how to communicate with people with hearing loss with confidence."

British Sign Language (BSL) is also great to learn. Brian adds: "It doesn't take long to pick up a basic understanding to improve confidence and communication with deaf BSL users." There are about 25 centres in London where you can study for BSL qualifications.

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