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2023 Energy Boosters Self Care and Self Love

Is “Worry Mode” your default setting?

I have something for you to ponder today…do you have “Worry Mode” set as your default?! SO many of us do, or know someone who does. It’s an exhausting way to live, or to be around.

If your brain is always automatically trying to find what could go wrong in your plan or dream, or your nearest and dearest are doing that on your behalf (disguised as “caring” and “being helpful”), it is not only a total buzz killer and mood downer, it creates doubt and therefore procrastination. It costs you focus, time and quite often, money.

We can end up slipping into “Worry Mode” being our default habit of thought, and therefore our most constant mood. It’s easily done, and it’s deceptively destructive. The REALLY IMPORTANT thing to realise is that that is ALL it is…a HABIT or thought. And like any bad habit, with focus and intention, it can be broken and replaced with something healthier.

Great graphic: @worrywellbeing

When we are stuck in worry mode we are continually asking the WRONG questions…:

What could go wrong with this?

Why might this not work out? 

What if this all goes wrong. What could you lose? 

Who might this upset? Who might not like it? 

I’m all for a pragmatic, objective assessment of reality and risk; it’s essential before any significant venture. However, “Worry Mode” as a default before any damn decision…is absolutely life and positivity sapping.

 

Here are some far healthier questions for you busy brain to be asking instead:

What if things work out super well? What’s possible?

What if my hard work pays off?

What could go better than I think here?

Who might help me?

How can I make this as enjoyable as possible?

 

Excessive worry is just a bad habit of thought.

You know about habits

They are not permanent.

They are not written in stone.

They live in your brain and you can change them any time you like.

 

How about now?!

How good would that feel?

What if it’s easier than you think?

What if it goes even better than you imagine?

Who might help you?*

How can you make it as enjoyable as possible?

Mmmmmm…food for thought, yes?!

 

*That would be ME! I can help you! You can start by clicking here for the The Real Self Care Kickstart, which the elves have put on special for you today! 

 

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2023 Happiness Resilience Self belief Self Care Sunday

You can write yourself a new ending, starting today.

Here’s an interesting wee factlette for you this morning: I see more clients coming for life coaching to make transformative change at the ages of 29, 39, 49 and 59, than all the other years put together. There is something super powerful about that change in decade of our age which naturally gives us pause. We take stock at this turning of the chapter, a whole new decade, and reflect in a way we don’t seem to as much in the in-between years.

 

When a whole new decade is bearing down on us we seem far more likely to ask ourselves if our life is all that it “should be” by this stage. Are we hitting the milestones we had always privately set for ourselves at this marker? Life can be thrown into sharp relief by contemporaries around us ticking past the same clock and the same milestones.

 

 

A change of decade can be the most incredible kick up the pahootie to refocus and get serious about what we want to achieve in the next decade, harnessing that natural motivation can be all powerful. But I also see it as a time where more regret will also surface as a result of the reflection. Of milestones not met or exceeded, statuses not reached. The trick here is not to get sucked into a whirlpool of regret, but to take any relevant lessons and use them to push forwards once again. To not look sorrowfully at the time that has been “lost” but focus all that is to come. To take it as a clean fresh page and begin again. Start anew. Double down. Make it happen.

 

The quote attributed to C. S. Lewis says it best “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending”.

 

We have the power to write ourselves a new ending any time we choose. We can do it whenever we take the time to reflect and refocus: not just when the year reads “9”, or a day of the week starts with an M. That no matter what is past, we get to say how our story will end. Starting now.  You can write yourself a new ending, starting today.

Categories
2023 Happiness Positive Thought Strategy

1 rule to be really successful at anything.

A question for you: How does anyone get to be really good at anything?

Look at the people you admire in any given field. Not necessarily famous people, or awards winners or whatever – just successful people. How do they get to be so successful? What’s the common theme that connects them? The winning golfer and the Always Onto It Mum, the high flying medic and the leading lady?

It’s very simple.

They focus on Their Own Stuff.

Which bit of your life are you doing really well in?

Guaranteed that’s the area where you are focussing hardest on Your Own Stuff. Happy marriage? Bet you are focused on regular loving communication, and date nights or whatever works for you.

Fit, strong body? Sure as eggs are eggs, you are focused on eating well most of the time, getting organised to put healthy meals together, and make exercise a regular thing. Focused on Your Own Stuff.

Beautiful immaculate home? I can guarantee you make time to organise the plumber to fix the leak pronto. You clean or get it cleaned every week. You fix up little maintenance issues as they arise. All. Your. Own. Stuff.

Where things have gone off the rails a bit is we are tending to spend too much time focused Not On Our Stuff. If the bod isn’t rocking we are likely continually prioritising other peoples needs and wants before the desperate whispers of our body.

If our business isn’t thriving in the way we know it could we are likely spending too much time on Facebook looking at other businesses banging on about how marvellously they are doing and thinking how our marketing doesn’t live up to theirs. Not Our Stuff.

Career not really flying like it should? Highly likely we have been too shy in stepping up or speaking up for fear of what others might think about us. Again: Not Our Stuff.

What is our stuff is what we can influence today?

Our stuff is figuring out the teeny-tiny actions and choices we can make that bring a bit more ease, flow and joy into each moment.

Our stuff is speaking up for ourselves.

Our stuff is prioritising our time and choices.

Our stuff is knowing we are not responsible for other people’s reactions.

Our stuff is taking a chance on our dreams.

Getting more focused on Your Own Stuff turns stuff around super quickly.

Good questions to get refocused on your own stuff are:

  1. This thing that’s winding me up / stressing me out – is this in fact my stuff. Or not? If it’s not your stuff – put it down!
  2. This thing that’s important to me that’s not going as well as I’d like – how can I focus on this more or differently in order to move it towards where I want it to go?
  3. If I weren’t worried about what anyone else thought of me/this what would I do? (N.B. What others think about you is THEIR stuff, not yours).
  4. Is there a “should” involved here? If there is it’s usually a big fat clue the issue in question is coming from someone else’s agenda not yours. ​​​​​​​Not. Your. Stuff.

Basic maths means that there are only 24 hours in the day, 525 600 minutes in a year. You get to say what quality of energy you bring to each of them. The reality is when we have our focus split across too many things, and too much stuff that isn’t ours we don’t get the success we seek in the areas that are truly important to us.

Number one tip to be successful at anything?

Focus. On. Your. Own. Stuff.

Categories
2023 Energy Boosters Happiness Self Care Sunday

This. Is. Real. Self. Care

My whole damn week went TOTALLY sideways this week, and I suspect I am not the only one. If you are in the same boat this Sunday I want you to know: YOU ARE DOING BETTER THAN YOU THINK YOU ARE!

​​​​​​​

Your brain defaults to seeing “The Gap” of where you want to be…the chores undone, the emails not replied to, the yoga class not made, the story not read, the kitchen bench not decluttered…you know, The Gap between YOU and Superwoman who is “on top of everything”.

 

This default perspective is unhelpful. Makes us feel bad. We need to consciously direct our brain to “The Gain” instead. The sore knee kissed better. The midday meeting that got an outcome. The lunch boxes were packed. The kindly Good Morning to the elderly neighbour. The bins put out. The swift lunchtime walk. The dentist appointment booked. The twenty six emails that DID get replied to.

 

Look. Life is LIFE. It will NEVER be complete til we are.

 

There will ALWAYS be stuff that’s UNDONE.

 

You can’t use DONE-NESS as your measure of how good your day was.

 

Train your brain to see not The Gap, but The Gain.

 

I promise you: you are doing better than you are judging yourself for.

 

Remove the unattainable yardstick of “done”, you will never reach it anyway.

 

Redirect your attention, and your COMPASSION to give your sweet self a break: I promise you, you are doing better than you think you are.

 

This. Is. Real. Self. Care. #thisisrealselfcare

Categories
2023 International Women's Day

15 things a woman standing quietly in her own power does

Happy International Women’s Day to all my women readers and savvy male readers (I see you at the back, and I also value your allyship very much).

 

Collective action and shared ownership for driving gender parity is what makes International Women’s Day impactful.

 

Equity isn’t just a nice-to-have, it’s a must-have.

 

Imagine a gender equal world. A world free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination. A world that’s diverse, equitable, and inclusive. A world where difference is valued and celebrated. Together we can forge women’s equality. All small actions play a part in creating progress and momentum.

 

For me I like to play my tiny part coaching women to find their voice, and stop being afraid to use it to ask for what they need. To understand what boundaries are, how to define them, how to communicate them effectively. To learn how to prioritise their own mental health and put their own oxygen mask on first. These may all seem small things but they have so many beautiful ripple effects not just in the women themselves in countless small but personally significant victories but also in the knock-on effects to their daughters, friends, colleagues, mothers…as well as their sons, husbands and communities.  It’s about a woman claiming her own voice and power in her own life.

 

With these International celebration days, important though they are, there can be a tendency to celebrate the achievements of The Big Hitters. The incredible women who are captains of industry, innovation, technology, medicine and so on(as well as all the inevitable fluff on Instagram of The Highly Visible). For me however, I’d like to turn the focus to the ordinary woman, the you and the me. The regular women living regular lives…who in our own quiet way keep the world turning each day. And so for  International Women’s Day you would enjoy a list of just observations, qualities, characteristics of the amazing, ordinary, extraordinary, regular, fabulous, normal, everyday every woman I have the pleasure of working with every day.

 

15 things a woman standing quietly in her own power does: 

  1. She takes time for herself without beating herself up for it. Taking the time but feeling guilty negates the freedom of the commitment. Guilt-free me time is the way to go: they choose it AND enjoy it.
  2. She set’s boundaries that honour who she is. The job, the relationship, the way the house runs, how they spend their leisure time. They are not trying to be someone else for someone else. They are themselves regardless of context.
  3. She knows the difference between a problem and a fact. If it’s a problem they find a solution. If it’s a fact they acknowledge that and then stop fighting it. Let go. Move on.
  4. They know worry is a waste of energy. It’s using the imagination for bad rather than good. They take their focus to what they can affect and let go of the rest.
  5. They spend much more time emphasizing their strengths than improving their weaknesses. Life is too short to address weaknesses: she hire’s or barter’s to address them and spends her time in the happy zone rocking what she is more naturally good at.
  6. They own their emotions. All of them. They don’t drown then in alcohol, or smother them in cupcakes, or try and run away from them with excessive exercise or workaholism. They feel them. They know there is no such thing as a “good” or “bad” emotion any more than there is good or bad weather. We need sunshine as much as rain to make this world a beautiful place
  7. They know rest is as important as action. That play is as important as work.
  8. They don’t take life or themselves too seriously. They laugh. A lot.
  9. They are brave when they need to be. They also understand the difference between quitting and graceful surrender to something not meant for us.
  10.  They do not worry too much about what “everybody” thinks.
  11.  They know how to ask for what they need, and are not afraid to ask. Knowing that rather than offending people nine times out of ten voiced clarity is welcomed and embraced
  12. They know what their real priorities in life are and consciously decide in favour of them.
  13. They know that everything in life is a choice. All we have to do is breathe. After that everything else is a choice. They choose wisely and without regret.
  14. They don’t settle for second best in matters of the heart. Forever is a reeeeeeeeeeally long time.
  15. They love without fear, and know they are strong enough to handle whatever happens.

I am willing to bet you already embody many of these qualities, and there may be a few you might like to work on and acquire. Happy International Women’s Day to you…may more and more progress continue to be made. Even those of us who live with considerable privilege (I acknowledge I am white, grew up in a middle-class family, had great quality state education in a country with free healthcare) know we have the freedoms and opportunities we enjoy were built on the shoulders of the brave women who went before us. There is so much more to be done.

 

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY

 

P.S. Grab your copy of my book:  The Busy Woman’s Guide To High Energy Happiness, published by Penguin Random House. NZ ONLY: Order your copy here $38.00 with free NZ shipping

Categories
2023 Happiness Self belief Self Care Sunday

When “its complicated”

This week, an important perspective to consider in order to keep your mental health high, in these times when people will flake out on you at the drop of a text:

 

No-one is really EVER “too busy” for you.

 

If it’s truly important to them – THEY WILL FIND A WAY.

 

The truth of the matter is:

 

Something or someone else is more important. So, it’s being prioritised. Over you.

 

We say “it’s complicated” but… it’s not.

 

We excuse it under “he/she has got a lot on”

 

But the truth is that they care about something else MORE.

 

It’s literally that simple.

 

Please stop torturing yourself and making excuses for why that date / old friend / colleague keeps flaking on you.

 

They are just not that bothered is all.

 

Go pour your beautiful energy where it’s needed, valued and appreciated.

Categories
2023 Love Your Work Positive Thought Strategy Private Life Coaching

What if it DOESN’T happen for a reason?

A little something on the blog today for those of you who are struggling through at the moment. If anyone is saying to you “everything happens for a reason!” and you want to SCREAM as they say that…well, I’ve got something for you today.

 

I am the Queen of Finding The Silver Lining. The Duchess of Making Lemons Outta Lemonade. The High Priestess of Making The Best Of Things. I believe we have so much more room for optimism in our daily lives than we tend to create. I believe life is our life coaching laboratory and we can learn and improve so much just by approaching the day to day with consciousness: observing the patterns and meaning in what is going on around and inside of us. However. Recently a good friend lost her husband and so there is also that. Another friend has breast cancer and undergoing chemo. Many of you have recently lost your houses or livelihoods in extreme weather events. I’ve just heard that a friend’s sister-in-law has sepsis and has lost both her lower legs.  Both!

 

Sometimes you simply cannot put a positive spin on things. Sometimes things really are just bloody appalling. And it’s okay to let them be horrendous and not pretend otherwise.

 

Sometimes there is no hidden meaning for us to wrestle with.

 

Sometimes people trill “It will make you stronger!” and “it’s all happened for a reason!” in a well-meaning fashion that totally subverts the scale of your personal tragedy…. it’s okay to want to high five them, in the face, with a chair.

 

Sometimes you need to know it’s okay not to have your game face on. It’s okay to find a quiet corner and try to absorb the blow.

 

In order to rally (and you will) you need to acknowledge and feel the sides of your loss – the breadth and the depth of it. But what you don’t always need to do is find a hidden meaning.

 

Sometimes crappy things don’t have a purpose. They are just crappy. And that’s how it is.

 

Sometimes things don’t make sense in the moment, and they may never do. There is no hidden meaning or purpose. They just are.

 

You can drive yourself bonkers trying to work out why it happened to you, or how it will ultimately serve you, or what you inadvertently did to make it happen in the first place or what the hell it’s supposed to mean.

 

Here’s the thing. Periods of intense suffering are part of the human experience. I wish it were not so but it is. Transcending those periods are also part of the human experience. Those that do that with the most speed and grace are those who acknowledge the reality and scale of what’s occurred and don’t bury it in burgers or booze or pretend it’s fine when it really is not.

 

It’s okay not to always be strong and to let your game face slip for a time. You don’t have to always be strong. You can drop the mask of hardihood for a time. It’s okay.

 

Sometimes bad things just happen. They come. You endure. You rise. You move on. Maybe not the same as before but onward you will go.

 

There doesn’t need to be a hidden message or for it all to make sense. Maybe it will, ten, twenty years hence. Maybe it was all for a reason. Or maybe, it wasn’t and it won’t.

 

So you will get through. You cry. You get seriously unproductive for a while. You drop a few balls. You reach out. You hunker down. You endure. And then you move on.

 

Sometimes things are just bloody shocking. It happens to us all at some point, in a variety of hideous guises. You don’t need to find a purpose for it; you need to persevere through it. Look for your perseverance. It’s there. Be strong: keep going.

 

P.S. If you want support from me in the form of weekly answers to your questions and personal dilemmas, as well as an incredible community at your back and more coaching tools than you can conceive of then do check out my Life Coaching Academy. It’s the gold standard in strategic personal support and I’d be honoured to assist you through whatever is going on for you. You can also check out my VIP package if you need help. I’m here 🙂

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2023 Emotional Honesty Self Care and Self Love Self Care Sunday

Sorry, really NOT sorry…

What I’d love for you good people to ponder today is this:

 

I’m calling time on saying sorry for sh*t we don’t need to apologise for.

 

Have you noticed how much (especially as women) we tend to over-apologise and say sorry when it’s not actually required?! It’s a weird habit, and one worth revising. Things I am no longer apologising for:

 

  • Not always being available (time, attention and energy are limited, it’s not personal, it’s just freaking MATHS)
  • Prioritising the things that matter (to ME)
  • Not giving an answer right away (it’s ok to think about it)
  • Working at the pace that’s right for me on voluntary projects (it needs to fit in with my life, not the other way round!)
  • When it’s not actually MY FAULT there is an issue! (why the hell am I saying sorry – YOU say sorry!)

 

Forget the bubble bath. This. Is. Real. Self. Care. #thisisrealselfcare

 

What about you, my lovely? What do you want to STOP apologising for? This is a primary  boundary of self-care where we show up for ourselves. I’m all ears. Let me know here.

 

Categories
2023 Happiness

Don’t call it too early

What do these things have in common?

 

The client who is distraught at the collapse of her marriage after finding her husband of 4 years had been cheating for 3, sure she would be a single mother forever and ever, and her life was over. O.V.E.R. A short time later, serendipitously meeting an old school friend, getting together, as an eager co-parent, and happier than ever before. “It was all worth it to be as happy as I am now, I’d never have found out how great things could be if I hadn’t gone through that”.

 

The client who was sure that the eleventy-billionth restructure at the corporate she had devoted the last 12 years of her working life to would end in redundancy. Which it did. Handily just before Christmas. “The market is so tight I’ll never find anything and Big Restructure Corp is all I know…this is a DISASTER”. She is already happy as a clam in a new role, in a medium-sized company with a whole different perspective on people management and culture – she is relaxed, sleeping well, and loving her work in a way she had forgotten she ever could. “Best thing everrrrrrr!” she laughs.

 

The old family friend who got royally blindsided by his business partner embezzling the company funds behind his back. A young family of 4 to support he never saw it coming. Total financial destruction. Overnight. “I had no choice, I just had to go and do this job that I honestly thought was beneath me. I would never have done that work before”. Turned out that the owners loved what he did so much they offered to fund a whole new business partnership that he ended up selling down the line for millions.

 

I could list dozens of these, and let’s be honest – you can too. A slew of personal anecdotes exist of someone “failing” cataclysmically, only to later snatch a much more prized victory from the jaws of defeat. What they “failed at” and left behind later becoming something they wouldn’t even want for themselves anymore. That what awaited on the other side of that failure was something so much shiner, a much bigger success they could ever have imagined for themselves.

 

The lesson in these common tales is that we tend to take score way too early. That if you are in the grip of what seems like an unmitigated failure right now, to see that perhaps…just perhaps…it’s a foundation leading you to something way superior. You just can’t see it yet. Perhaps it’s not a failure at all. Perhaps there was something you needed to learn there. Something you needed to let go of, in an albeit brutal fashion, in order to make way for something that will serve you better in the future.

 

Consider the possibility that it’s not a failure at all. Maybe it’s just incomplete success in disguise. Doesn’t that feel better? Whether it’s in the career area, or the money area, or the relationship space, or the owning your own home space or the health and fitness place – whatever it may be for you – maybe you are not in a place of failure at all. You are just in the transition phase of incomplete success.

 

So hold fast. Don’t call it too soon. The fat lady hasn’t even started warming up yet.

 

P.S. Want to change your life today? Join the Wellbeing Warriors Coaching Academy here…the gold standard in looking after your own mental health and physical wellbeing. You will never look back.

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2023 Resilience Self Care Sunday

ON KIWI RESILIENCE

When I first moved to Auckland, I came across a phrase I had never heard before about solving something with “Number 8 Wire”.  What was that, I wondered?! Once explained and observed, I fell in love with this quirky facet of New Zealand culture. A quality borne out of geographical isolation that deeply embedded into its people the ability to improvise and adapt, to invent and to overcome.

 

No personal or professional problem I ever encountered was beyond the mentality of Kiwi Number 8 Wire. This uniquely powerful aspect of the collective Kiwi psyche is the can-do ability to problem-solve; to create ingenious solutions; to circumvent seemingly insurmountable problems and obstacles someway, somehow. I saw that with this mentality there was, and is, always a solution. Always a way round. Always some sort of cunning solution. Almost everything, it seemed, is figure-out-able with enough Number 8 Wire Mentality.

 

With the atrocious flooding, landslips and earthquakes in recent weeks, I know so many of you are hurting on many levels, caught up in Mother Nature’s powerful web through no fault of your own. We are all also observing the horrendous earthquake on the Syrian-Turkish border and its decimating impact, as well as, of course, the ongoing devastation in the war in Ukraine. The world is an uncertain and brutal place at the moment. Resilience is not just useful, but mandatory.

 

If you have been affected by these awful floods, I know you will be taking heart, as I have, by all the posts of people helping each other, and creating hope and help out of nothing but good old Kiwi Number 8 Wire. I cannot think of a nation who can better look after and get through this awful time – together – than the New Zealander’s. If you have been badly affected, my heart goes out to you. Even if you are a super independent person who is usually the “giver”, please reach out for help. One of the most powerful mantras for life is “give when you can, take when you must”. If this is your time, reach out and I know you will be met with so many helping hands, because there is a line of Number 8 Wire that runs through this nation and its people.

 

For now, here is an article I wrote way-back-when in The New Zealand Herald on 4 strategies to increase your resilience in tough times. It may speak to you (or someone you care about) today.

Kia Kaha

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