What if you believed you were PERFECT, JUST AS YOU ARE. 

Not when you have lost the last 5 kilos. 

Or finally cleared out the garage like you have been saying for 18 months. 

Or finished that qualification you have been slogging away at. 

Or made up with your sister who you haven’t spoken to for years. 

Or baked all the cupcakes FROM SCRATCH for the school fete and run the tombolo. 

BUT RIGHT NOW? 

The weight of “who we should be” is a heavy thing to carry around each day. 

Truth is, there is no “should be”.

We are all a permanent “Work In Progress”.

We will never be done, finished, complete

We are perfect imperfect works of progress at all times.

And we wish away so much of our “now” happiness carrying the weight of who we feel we “should be” or how our life “should be”.

Should is one of the heaviest words in the English language and I would like to ban it. It makes us feel unnecessarily bad about ourselves!

Who you are right now is just perfect, you can take that from me.

Put the weight down.

And have a very happy day.

PS. Celebrate yourself here and now with some real self-care action, my book “101 Self-Care Ideas”. Grab it for just $17 NZD / £7.50 GBP!

The post The heavy weight of “who we should be” appeared first on Louise Thompson, Life Coach, Wellbeing Writer and Speaker.

You will be spending too much of your EMOTIONAL AND MENTAL ENERGY ON THINGS THAT ARE OUTSIDE YOUR CONTROL.

We all do this. I do this. I find I am in a right old frazzle and then stop to see what it is I am feeling so overwhelmed about and sure enough…it will be something outside my DIRECT control. Der Louise! That’s basic, but SO easy to slip up on!

Checking in on this cuts through the overwhelm instantly as it allows us to self-direct our mental and emotional energy to the place where it has the most impact. Overwhelm dissipates pretty much immediately.

Here’s a handy graphic and a list below for you

So, if you are feeling overwhelmed check in and see if your attention is one (or more) of these…

Out Of My Control…

• What other people believe, think, say, or post online
• What other people choose to do, including their behaviour, decisions, priorities, and boundaries
• Other people’s feelings, including how they feel about me (yup, sorry!)
• Other people’s opinions or worries
• Other people’s time
• Outcomes (as opposed to my effort)
• Timing of external events
• Random events or luck
• The past
• Global news
• Market conditions or economic shifts
• Cultural norms or societal expectations
• How quickly others change or grow
• External opportunities appearing or not appearing
• Illness or unexpected health events
• Aging
• Time
• Tax
• Traffic
• The weather

Hmmm…quite the list huh? There is A LOT that we do not control, my friend. Like A LOT. When we focus on it, and how it coulda/woulda/shoulda be different it is a fast track to feeling overwhelmed. We want things to be different, but we have no control in them being different, equals overwhelm. It’s a real waste of our mental and emotional energy.

So, here is where should we redirect ourselves to:

In My Control…

• What I say, including my words and tone
• What I think – full control over my own brain!
• What I do, including my actions and responses, priorities and focus
• My opinions about myself and others
• How I interpret situations and the meaning I give events
• My effort and consistency
• The standards I set for myself
• Whether I follow through on commitments
• How I spend my time and attention
• What I look at online and choose to put into my mind
• My self-care choices and how I choose to take care of my body
• What I consume (food, media, information, influences)
• My habits and routines
• Who I hang out with
• The boundaries I voice
• The questions I ask myself
• Whether I ask for help or support
• When I choose to persist or pivot

Notice how you feel, when you read the first list, as compared to when you read the second list…quite different, yes?

Whenever you feel overwhelmed (and this is life in 2026, that is inevitable) the key is to see WHY you are overwhelmed, track it back to the first list. Accept that it is out of your control and then take your attention – and therefore your MOOD – where it matters, back to your own sphere of control. Your power and your positivity lie right there, and are available anytime.

I hope this helps

P.S, If you’d like to know more about my Academy, click here

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I have an acquaintance here in the small town I live in, and I bump into her every now and again, say once or twice a year maybe. Almost every time I see her she is either hating hating HATING her job because she has a “toxic” boss/colleagues/culture, or, she is just about to start a new job which is going to be everything the last one wasn’t. Sure enough, when I saw her yesterday in the queue at the pharmacy, she was on the verge of leaving the latest “totally toxic workplace” and looking for pastures new. Again.

What is going ON? You may have someone similar in your life. Where, for years and years they are complaining about the exact same thing, or the same thing just a different context. Essentially nothing ever really changes.

The thing I have observed over 15 years of doing the Coaching work I am privileged to do with my amazing students and VIPs is that there is a huge difference between FEELING BETTER, and GROWTH. They are not the same:

Most people don’t want to grow, they just want to feel better. Why?

Growth is uncomfortable

It asks you to look in the mirror and face some discomfort

Growth requires work that we choose

Growth asks you to stretch and let go of old ways of thinking

To face what can be hard truths

To take responsibility for the choices you make, as well as the ones you pass up,

Growth needs you to make the hard calls and to know that if it doesn’t challenge you it won’t change you

Feeling better though? That’s pretty easy.

A scroll. A snack. A shiny distraction. A quick switch.

Easy. Feeling better is easy.

Growth asks for something more than ease.  

Reflection not running.

Discipline over discomfort.

Knowing not numbing.

When we chase ease we miss a real opportunity.

We miss expansion. We miss evolution. We miss moving to the next level in this epic game of life we are all signed up for.

If we truly want a better life, or we keep getting the same situation on repeat, it’s time to look for growth instead of ease.

Food for thought?  This distinction between growth and ease makes me so very proud of the work my clients and students do every day, and they deserve every amazing, life enhancing result they enjoy 

P.S. Want to work with me and not just feel better but actually GROW as a person? VIP Coaching is sold out but I’d love to coach you in my Academy. Deets here

The post What is MUCH better for you than feeling better? appeared first on Louise Thompson, Life Coach, Wellbeing Writer and Speaker.

Do you keep deferring relaxing? 

And if so (this is the important bit) what do you defer it about?

We are jolly good as humans at pushing ourselves further, faster, longer in ways I am increasingly convinced humans were never designed to do.

We seem to have become programmed to defer any kind of relaxation until the work is done, which our cavewomen forbears would never have entertained as they told stories around the nightly campfire.

We defer relaxation – WHICH HUMANS ARE PROGRAMMED TO REQUIRE! – for so many things:

We defer leaving work on time so we can finish that report. 

We defer feeling good about our body til we have lost those pesky last 5 kilo’s

We defer feeling relaxed about money until we are debt free

We defer rest until we are on annual leave

We defer laughter and connection until the washing up is done

We defer reading that book til the work is done

We defer going for that walk til the house is tidy

We defer defer defer in all sorts of ways…

We treat rest and relaxation as if they are optional extras

Treats we have to earn like a dog for good behaviour

That relaxation needs to be earned and it comes at the end of a very long To Do list.

Thing is, this is a lie that keeps us trapped in a mode of “perpetual productivity”, which has been a boon for large organisations for sure as it’s become adopted as a cultural norm. However, it sure makes for a lot of perpetually anxious people overdelivering both at work and at home!

“Always On” and endless deferral of rest and relaxation have been good for the bottom line but not been good for our mental or physical health. We are designed, programmed, built as human beings who need and require mental and physical REST and RELAXATION as much as we need food or sleep. The cultural downgrading and deferment of relaxation has been so pervasive, and we have internalised it so much we quite willingly DO IT TO OURSELVES!

My mini-challenge for you today is to have a think about where you might be treating rest and relaxation (either physical or mental) as an optional extra, and where you could make a different choice on that today.

We live in a world of ‘jam tomorrow… jam tomorrow”.

Deferring rest. Deferring relaxation.

I think we should all be having a little more “jam today” 

I’d love for you to find one way to do that for yourself this week.

The post Do you keep deferring relaxing? appeared first on Louise Thompson, Life Coach, Wellbeing Writer and Speaker.

Here are two ways to get out of the tangle (or at least reduce the size of it!) and perceive the problem with perspective on its real size:

Strategy 1: Sort your physiology first. Too much caffeine makes the problem seem bigger and more complicated. Too little sleep makes the problem seem bigger and more unresolvable. Too much sugar – same effect. Ditto alcohol. Ditto too much obsessive scrolling in an attempt to numb the problem.

All these things make the problem seem MASSIVE and make it harder to solve. Step back from the tangle and SORT OUT YOUR PHYSIOLOGY FIRST. Get a proper sleep. Put your phone down. Eat a proper balanced meal. Regulate your caffeine intake. Take a deep breath from a place of a regulated nervous system and view your problem with fresh eyes.

Strategy 2: Zoom OUT. When it feels like a huge tangled mess of a problem, I want you to stop going round in circles, getting more and more tangled, and get a pen and paper and note down the answer to these 2 questions:

1. Define the problem in two sentences or less. (I know you want to write 3 sides of A4, DON’T! Force yourself to boil it right down to its core. Succinctness will help you. Two sentences or less).

2. Given the average female life span of 82 years (UK/NZ/AU) how much will this problem bother me 5 years from now? 15 years from now? 30 years from now? Feel your perspective shift as you Zoom Out. Solutions are much easier to come by from this zoomed out vantage point.

Here’s the thing, when we have a problem, we ALSO always have access to a solution. Why? Because if there were no potential solutions IT LITERALLY WOULDN’T BE A PROBLEM – IT WOULD BE A FACT.  If it’s a FACT, we have no choice but to accept it. That’s the nature of a fact.

So, if we have a problem, even if it is one we have been wildly overthinking and get in a right old tangle over – the way out is to know, by the very definition of a problem, we must ALSO have potential solutions. We might not like them but they are there. They might require great courage or serious inconvenience, but they DO exist.

If we Calm Our Physiology, and Zoom Out, we will be able to see those solutions far more easily, I promise. The solution is there waiting for you to connect with it.

Do feel free to forward to someone who needs a little extra help right now to let them know you are thinking of them.

And, as ever, I wrote this blog for you – based on coaching thousands of smart people, for well over 15 years. It’s come from my emotional intelligence and extensive experience, not AI.

Have a great week, and if in doubt… ZOOM OUT!

The post Two strategies when your brain is in a tangle appeared first on Louise Thompson, Life Coach, Wellbeing Writer and Speaker.

a)you are not alone and

b)anyone who looks like they are ticking all the boxes on everything isn’t really and

c)if you have got three of these areas of life going well you are actually DOING GREAT:

Also, I’d love everyone to know that

d)we all have times in our life where we are not hitting even three. Might not be hitting ANY. It happens to the best of us. Sometimes life kicks our ass and lays us low. If this is you right now, HOLD ON, this too shall pass. It seems like it won’t, but I promise it will. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but it will.

and

e)When life seems A LOT, and you are trying so hard to keep ALL those balls in the air, decide what I like to call your “LEAD DOMINO” is. (The domino at the front that when you push it, it will then start to push all the others down!). Focus HARD on your LEAD DOMINO.

For most people (not all, as ever, you do you) the LEAD DOMINO is SLEEP. Literally EVERYTHING ELSE IN LIFE IS EASIER WITH MORE SLEEP. It’s easier to eat more healthily if you have had a decent sleep. It’s easier to speak kindly to your partner and not fly off the handle. It’s easier to go for that walk. It’s easier to get the job done at work. When you feel like you have too many balls in the air focus on that LEAD DOMINO that makes all the rest easier for you. It pushes down the domino’s behind it.

So, what’s your Lead Domino? Do you feel like you have too many balls in the air at the moment?

The post How many balls do you have in the air right now? appeared first on Louise Thompson, Life Coach, Wellbeing Writer and Speaker.

Here’s the thing to ponder though. When we set those intentions/goals/resolutions they tend to be about reaching a special milestone or experiencing a peak moment. They are the stuff of losing 10kgs (yay!) or crossing the line in a half marathon (yay!); or moving to our dream home or a spendy family holiday to Sri Lanka (yay! yay!).

These peak moments of achievement or experience are great, (of course they are!), however the reality of life as a human is that most of our life will not be extraordinary peak moments. 

Most of our life will actually be simple, ordinary, routine every-day moments. 

So, if we are only going to feel happy or satisfied when we are on holiday, or fitting in a bikini, or getting that promotion finally, or living in that new house, well, the reality is we are going to spend the majority of our life dissatisfied. 

Which is such a waste. Life is not meant to be a game of stepping stones with each moment of happiness we land on few and far between.

How do we do better? How do we add more satisfaction to our year?

The key I’ve found is counterintuitively to not to try and cram in another 14 resolutions in a desperate quest to collect more peak moments. Then we only end up not achieving any of them as our focus/energy/time/capacity is so split. We are far better with a short, tight suite of carefully chosen goals* and a deliberate strategy to mine the every-day for happiness.

The secret to experiencing more happiness in 2026 is to focus on the non-peak moments, the regular every-day moments. Walking the dog. Loading the dishwasher. Answering the email. Calling our Mum. Doing the school run.

There is (if we look carefully) more joy and connection available to us in all of these moments than we are taking, if we look for them. It’s a deliberate choice to seek more happiness in the ordinary now which equals a happier, lighter life. Not when That Big Thing happens, but right now, in this moment we are living in right this moment.

It might be noticing the birds singing as you walk the dog. It might be how great the podcast you are listening to is as you load the dishwasher. It might be reflecting on the good work you have done with this colleague as you answer their email and praising their input.

It might be that you feel lucky to have your Mum still around so you take extra care to listen and pick up on a new piece of information she is sharing. It could be the joyous noise that children make as they are released at the end of the school day just makes you smile from the sheer every of it.

There is satisfaction and joy to be found if we are actively looking for it, rather than just trying to tick a thing off a list so we can move to the next.

Peak moments are fantastic, but they are 5% of our life. If we can mine our every day for the moments of satisfaction that are hidden in plain sight I promise you that’s the bigger win in the overall happiness department for 2026.

It’s important because Every Day moments comprise 95% of our actual life, so if we don’t learn to love the every day more as it is, we won’t really love our life at all.

I wrote this blog for yout, not AI.  From my heart to yours, just as coaching should be.

Happy 2026: let’s fill 2026 with a million ordinary happy moments

The post ONE thing that will make 2026 WAY more satisfying appeared first on Louise Thompson, Life Coach, Wellbeing Writer and Speaker.

As adults we somehow expect ourselves to be knocking it outta the park day after day after day after day. Being “On Top Of It” and by “It” I mean All The Things.

Kind of not possible as an expectation, but there we are: most of us have our internal thermostat of expectation set to HIGH every. single. day.

To be clear it is an utterly mad expectation that we will be at 100% on all levels each day.

In fact “Our best” each day can and WILL look radically different. 

That is because, dear reader, we are not freaking ROBOTS.

We will have a natural ebb and flow to our physical energy. Our creative resources. Our patience. Our compassion. Our productivity. And so on.

We are COMPLEX. We cannot be at 100% on all the things all the time. 

Some days just getting through the day at 22% is an ENORMOUS WIN.

Some days we can conquer all and truly dazzle ourselves.

But not every day.

(I am not sure the plethora of permanently smiley seemingly continually productive and “perfect” influencers helps anyone here with our own expectation setting)

Some days just getting through it and not dropping any serious balls is 100% of what we had available in the tank THAT day.

That IS our best.

So I think we should all cut ourselves a little slack.

We are not going to meet every day the same 

And that, my friend, is okay.

What percentage are you functioning at today?

The post Embrace your best: Let’s ditch the perfection appeared first on Louise Thompson, Life Coach, Wellbeing Writer and Speaker.

Well, it comes from THREE specific places:

1.  From the crap that happens to us in life: unwanted CURVEBALLS force us to grow, whether we like it or not, to expand to cope with whatever craptastic life event has come our way.

2.  From positive circumstances that come into our life: new baby / new job / more money / OPPORTUNITIES that are welcome, but stretch us to meet them.

3.  When we CHOOSE to expand and grow as people by CREATING INTENTIONAL personal growth. This might be signing up for a half-marathon, or for a programme of guided personal growth like my coaching Academy*. This is where you consciously choose you are ready to EXPAND who you are, and who you are BECOMING.

Notice the first two are largely PASSIVE: we grow by default because of what life throws AT us.  It’s a kind of uncontrolled personal growth: it just happens TO us, we HAVE to grow to COPE.

The third option is OUR CHOICE. It’s ACTIVE. It’s where we say to ourselves that we are READY for MORE of something in our lives. That we will DELIBERATELY CREATE CHALLENGE for ourselves in order to grow and become the expanded version of ourselves we can be.

The challenge we choose in order to stimulate our personal growth might be:

 PHYSICAL (learning to windsurf, dropping eating sugar)

 MENTAL (getting on top of our finances or learning techniques to reduce overthinking)

 EMOTIONAL (having that difficult conversation we have been avoiding)

Or it might be  SPIRITUAL in terms of personal expansion (developing a meditation practice)

We CANNOT help but GROW through life because life WILL throw things at us – good and bad, wanted and unwanted – all the way through life…till the day we die! That is a fact. What I find the coolest though…is the people with the CAPACITY to SEEK ADDITIONAL personal growth through CHOICE.

Who actively STEP TOWARDS expansion and make it happen for themselves through challenge, as well as the inevitable coping with what life brings stuff.

However you get your GROWTH, passively or actively, know that it’s all about a reaction to CIRCUMSTANCES.

Either your GROWTH RESPONSE to meet circumstances that happen TO you. This is inevitable.

plus,

Your GROWTH RESPONSE to circumstances you CHOOSE to introduce into your life in order to CHALLENGE and change you.

I want to let you know, that although crap in life does indeed make you grow, there are TWO other ways to do it.

This is a big concept, and I’d love to know if this resonated with you today, Test? Have you been growing more passively, or actively choosing and channelling it?

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