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.

Sounds simple, can be hard when we have conditioned ourselves to a lifetime of finding ourselves wanting and relentless internal criticism. You know how that goes I am sure.

I came across this awesome image (which sorry I cannot find the original source to credit the artist, if you definitively know let me know), which if we could channel even 20% of the energy in this drawing it would improve our self-esteem no end.

Ready?

Isn’t that gorgeous?

Your mission today, is to go tell yourself “OMG, I am too cute!”.

Guaranteed to make you smile.

Instant internal self-esteem ripple effects to be had.

Try this one daily!

And have a great day.

The learning: self-care doesn’t have to be complex to be impactful. We don’t need a 19-step plan we won’t follow. Sometimes we just need to talk a wee bit nicer to ourselves.

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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.

Stop assuming people are mad or pissed off at you in some way. 

Stop attempting to read their minds and adapting your behaviour around that assumption.

Stop trying to manage the thoughts and emotions of others. Those thoughts and emotions live in their heads and their bodies, not yours, so let people be in charge of themselves. 

If they have something to say to you, they will.

If they have something they genuinely need to ask of you, they will.

If they have something to say that truly matters to them that they want you to know, they will.

And if they don’t – it is their responsibility, not yours. 

And just like that, we get to recalibrate. Confronting this one I know, especially if we have been stuck in people pleasing patterns for years, (decades!) but stopping the default assumption of over-responsibility is a sure path to peace, my friend, I promise you.

Have a wonderful weekend, and if you do want to look at doing VIP Coaching with me, I only take 10 clients per year (all sold out!) but you absolutely can join my group coaching programme and get live coaching on your issue and situation each Friday morning. You can check that out here. 

The post Are you being “over-responsible” for how other people feel? 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.

A quick note for you today to consider that what we do in private shows in public in ways we don’t necessarily consider…

• Our reading consumption shows up in our conversations
• Our workouts or walks show up in our physicality
• Our sleep shows up in our mood and our patience
• Our discipline shows in our confidence
• Our diet shows in our energy and skin
• Our personal growth shows up in our relationships
• Our screentime shows in our level of focus
• And so on…

What we invest our time, energy and attention in when no one is watching, shapes who we show up as in public. 

Food for thought, yes?

Have a great day.

The post The amazing effects of showing up for yourself appeared first on Louise Thompson, Life Coach, Wellbeing Writer and Speaker.

Even if it was a difficult and dark time (it was for me as it happens) there were things, looking back, that WERE going great. Like my health was really good when I look back at that time. Maybe for you your money situation was epic. Or your relationship was brilliant. Or you were on fire at work. Or it was the sweetest chapter with your children. Or you’d just bought that great house.

Thing is, as we get caught up in the happy busyness of life, or just getting through a dark chapter, we can forget to appreciate what IS good, and what objectively IS going well. We can assume those things will be like that always.  Not so, as you will know! Life can be twisty and turn-ey!

So, let’s take it as a Heads-Up today, that 10 years from now there is a version of us who will be looking back at us RIGHT NOW in this chapter we are in right now, and wishing we had BEEN HAPPIER about where we ARE RIGHT NOW.

Yes I am sure not all your ducks are in a row as you would like (mine either), but that doesn’t mean we cannot EXTRACT MORE JOY AND APPRECIATION FROM THE RIGHT NOW.

If your health is great – really connect and celebrate that fact.

If you have no money worries – how fantastic. Acknowledge and appreciate!

If your life is filled with love and romance – yahoo! Relish that feeling!

There is, for sure, a version of us – 10 years from now – who would be literally begging us to enjoy where we are, right here, right now, a lot more than we are. 

So, today, your task my friend, is to enjoy this day, whatever it may be bringing you and regardless of how orderly your ducks are, EXACTLY AS IT IS.

Enjoy, right now, all we ever really have is right now .

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Here’s the thing: perfectionism is an EXPECTATION MANAGEMENT EXERCISE in disguise. It’s setting a standard we can never reach consistently. Here are a few examples… see if one (or more) resonates for you:

Life will be PERFECT when you get that promotion…and then you get it… but then… it’s not perfect YET, because you could do it better, or faster, etc. So… the goalposts of perfect move. 

Or things will be PERFECT when you lose those 5kgs. And you lose them! BUT…you still don’t feel perfect YET because your bum is not round enough / nose is too big / etc. The goalposts of perfect move.  

Or Life will be PERFECT when the kids are old enough to go to school…but then… they are and they do… but it won’t be perfect UNTIL they are really settled… and then they settle but it won’t be perfect til they…etc

Or we will feel financially secure when the credit card is paid off… but then it is… but we won’t feel secure til we get that pay rise… and then we do… but then we won’t feel really secure till we have the mortgage paid off… etc.

Do you see… the goalposts of perfect move and move and MOVE…

We never get to feel like we have “arrived” in the “perfect” moment when the goalposts keep moving. And that is what perfectionism does… it keeps us in a state of PERMANENTLY STRIVING.

And you don’t need me to tell you, living in a state of perpetually striving is absolutely exhausting.

If we could see life just as a series of moves that EXPAND US, IMPERFECTLY, in a forwards motion… rather than trying to reach perfect but never getting there either at all (or for more than 25 seconds) it would be a MUCH more realistic and PEACEFUL way to live .

1. Think EXPANSION rather than perfection
2. It’s an EXPECTATION MANAGEMENT GAME – lower the bar and be more reasonable.
3. Stop moving the goalposts on YOURSELF! 

Has that given you a new way to think about Perfectionism Test? I’d love to know right here. And if you want to work on it, I’d love to see you in the Academy here with all the tools and all the support and all the smarts you could ever need.

The post Why perfectionism is so exhausting and 3 ways to deal with it appeared first on Louise Thompson, Life Coach, Wellbeing Writer and Speaker.

1. They celebrate our wins and support our goals (even if they don’t completely agree)
2. They remember the small things about us, the details that matter
3. They respect our boundaries
4. We feel energised after spending time with them
5. They listen without becoming defensive
6. They allow us to be fully ourselves and not have to edit ourselves – we can be our fullest geekiest, goofiest self
7. They make us feel safe
8. We don’t have to watch what we say around them
9. They take responsibility without deflecting or over-explaining
10. They repair things quickly when there’s tension, rather than letting it drag on
11. They can hold space for us to have a difficult conversation together and keep the focus on solving the problem not attacking each other
12. They are genuinely pleased by our growth, even when it changes the dynamic
13. They can handle disagreement without making it personal
14. They don’t keep score or bring up the past to win
15. They are reliable in the small, everyday ways, not just the big gestures
16. They ask thoughtful questions and show real curiosity about our inner world
17. They respect our time as well as our boundaries
18. They speak well of people who aren’t in the room
19. They don’t need us to shrink to feel comfortable
20. They manage their own emotions rather than expecting us to manage them
21. They are nice to the barista and waitstaff

I hope you have people in your life where you experience many of these Green Flags.

Has this made you realise how lucky you are? Or there maybe is someone you want to flick a quick message to say “You know, I was just thinking how much I appreciate you ” and make their day? Has it made you realise how well you show up for others and are a green flag for them?

Lots of ponder and I hope to celebrate?

Oh, and if you want to increase the number of Green Flag interactions in your daily life you should join my Coaching Academy of marvellous women: it is a veritable festival of Green Flags! Deets are here, and we would love to welcome you.

Have a great day

The post 21 Green Flags ⛳️ how many do your key relationships tick? appeared first on Louise Thompson, Life Coach, Wellbeing Writer and Speaker.

​​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.

What Gains will you identify today?

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