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.

The post One sentence guaranteed to raise a smile daily appeared first on Louise Thompson, Life Coach, Wellbeing Writer and Speaker.

We hang emotionally onto that job that treated us badly… that we left 2 years ago

We hang onto that conversation that was disrespectful and play it repeatedly even though it happened last March.

We hang onto that breakup and talk about how bad it was years later, years and years later.

We hang onto the unfairness in sibling relationships growing up for (I am not kidding) 50 years or more (I have seen this more times in my coaching room than I can count) literally HALF A CENTURY of “it’s not fair” playing in our heads.

In short, we can be talented at hanging onto situations with emotional hangovers that let go of us years, decades even, ago.

The space in our brain and heart is limited. Our emotional energy that we can bring to each day is limited. For us to be at our best and project our best we do so much better when we Let Go Of What Let Go Of Us.

Sometimes there is no closure to be had.

No apology that’s going to materialise.

No recompense that is going to be made.

Nothing is going to get equalised or put right.

Noone who is going to suddenly say just how right we were all along.

Or how unfair it all was.

Or how we should have been treated better.

It is not going to happen.

It’s over, that relationship, job, living situation, interaction, is over.

It let go of us a long time ago

Time for us to let go of it, my friend

How do we do that?

We accept there is nothing further external to come from it

And that we need to therefore let it go internally.

To decide, right now, to stop holding on.

What does that mean?

Stop holding on to the belief that it coulda woulda shoulda been different to what it was.

Stop holding on to the version where it played out a different way.

Stop holding on to injustice, or betrayal or disappointment.

To let that go.

For it let go of us a long, long time ago.

Sending you much love, do feel free to forward this blog to anyone who needs it

P.S, Want to see everything you get inside my Wellbeing Warriors Academy? No problem – the full breakdown of all the goodness is right here:

 Click for full Academy details

Want to hear what real women say about it? Of course! Hundreds of testimonials from our members are right here:

 Read member stories + feedback

The post Time to Let Go? 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.

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 .

The post If you could fast-forward 10 years… appeared first on Louise Thompson, Life Coach, Wellbeing Writer and Speaker.

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.

ITS OKAY TO NOT HAVE “A BIG DREAM” or be “FOLLOWING YOUR PASSION” or, indeed, to even know what “your passion” actually even is.

I know that weight of opinion is to the contrary, but I will tell you this from coaching smart women every day for over a decade and a half…

When the world is in what feels like such peril and such chaos

Where there is so much that is important to us that we cannot change or effect

Having a “Big Dream” (and therefore a Big Journey ahead) can feel totally overwhelming or pointless or a million other emotions

And then we can judge ourselves in a whole heap of not enough-ness ways for not having enough direction of “dreaming big enough”

I know many of you will know what I am talking about in a “Louise I am just about keeping the balls of my life in the air each day, I simple CANNOT handle a “Big Dream” on top of that right now, if I could even knew what it was”. 

I hear you. And I am hearing it A LOT in my coaching room these days.

I want you to know it’s a totally NORMAL response to the world we are living in right now. When the noise in the world has got so BIG, it can make us want to deliberately, strategically, unapologetically Go Small.

It’s totally normal to say “Y’know, I just want feeling peace in my soul, enough money not to be stressed, to connect with the people and animals who are important to me, and  look after my body and my family, spent time on the hobbies I love in a few places I love and honestly that’s perfect – I have no grander plan than that”…that that, in fact, IS a grand plan. A peaceful plan. Own it with pride.

Plans do not have to be big and splendid. They do not have to be what in corporate buzz speak in years gone by was called a “BHAG” – “A Big Hairy Audacious Goal” (pass the sick bucket! I can’t believe we all fell for all that crap! Way to drive your staff to burnout by dressing it up as a personal growth plan ).

You absolutely do NOT need a “BHAG” to be happy. You can have a Small, Peaceful, Achievable Goal and be more than happy. A SPAG rather than a BHAG.

Sometimes it’s not the time to Go Big Or Go Home, it’s the time to Go Small, and Stay Home!  Life moves in chapters my friend, we are not meant to be thrashing it all the time.

The post In defence of SMALL dreams… appeared first on Louise Thompson, Life Coach, Wellbeing Writer and Speaker.

It’s been a busy week at Thompson Towers. We kicked off Align 3 – which is my Law Of Attraction Coaching Mastermind Programme. We had our welcome seminar this week, and I have to say the reaction to the new content was off the hook. We are going to have an incredible 6 months together. If upleveling your SKILL (and it IS a learnable SKILL as opposed to actual magic) on The Law Of Attraction is on your radar.

In the Wellbeing Warriors Coaching Academy, it’s been a big week as well as we have kicked off a brand new 30-Day module called Perfection Reflection where we are implementing tools to reduce this very common area of anxiety and less than optimal mental health. I know MANY of you Self-Care Sunday readers will be long-time perfectionists and could do with some assistance in that area yourself, so here is a helpful principle to consider on perfectionism today:

Do you tend to think and act in extremes. E.g. “I had two biscuits…I might as well have the whole damn packet now!” That’s sneaky ole perfectionism at work. 

Here are a few more signs of perfectionism:

Being hard on yourself?

Fear of disapproval?

Fixating on things that have gone wrong?

Running what you coulda shoulda said over in your mind for days

Avoiding situations when you are not sure of success?

A few boxes ticked I am sure. All such common patterns.

Perfectionism is pervasive and sneaks into so many aspects of our mental health… BUT… did you know, comes in THREE common “flavours”: we all have a blend, or a dominance for one or another. See which of the 3 is your most dominant:

The three types of perfectionism are:

1. “Self-oriented” where we demand perfection from ourselves
2. “Other-oriented” where we demand perfection from others around us like spouses, family, co-workers or friends
3. “Socially prescribed” perfectionism, where we feel external pressure from the larger world and society to be perfect

Fascinating, yes? All three flavours have different downsides of course, with different tools to tackle them.

Which one is your most dominant flavour of perfectionism? I will say I have thought patterns that reflect all three, but the most dominant for me would be 1. I have this habitual irrational fear of letting people down, which means I drive myself too hard and consistently over-deliver! Working through the tools in this month’s module Perfection Reflection is as valuable for me as it is for all the Wellbeing Warriors – we are all a work in progress! There is always another level of personal growth to be had.

Have a great day, whatever it may hold!

The post Three types of perfectionist, which are you? appeared first on Louise Thompson, Life Coach, Wellbeing Writer and Speaker.

You know that “overnight success”?
That thing it doesn’t look like they worked for?
Well, sure, sometimes there is a large dollop of jammy luck…but most often…
The big, important things that we really want to achieve in life…
A rough fertility journey
Running our own business
Training in a cool profession
Significant and sustained weight loss
Crossing the finish line at an event
Creating a new home
And so on…

…What looks like instant success is often just patience in disguise.

If you’re not getting what you want fast enough…

1. Reflect (do you still want it) 
2. Revise (tweak the plan if you need to) 
3. Resource (can you get extra support?) 
4. Recommit (keep the hell going!)   

Have an easy day.

Be good to you.

The post The 4 R’s of “overnight success” appeared first on Louise Thompson, Life Coach, Wellbeing Writer and Speaker.