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Focus

I was speaking with a client this week and she reminded me about the 5-second rule. This comes from Mel Robbins, who says that if you have an instinct to act on a goal, you must physically move within five seconds, or your brain will kill it.Why? Because our brains like to be lazy. This comes from our evolution because rest was important if you needed to hunt for your next meal.Today we don’t need to conserve so much energy so you can make a decision to get off the cou...

Regrets

Do you ever take time to reflect on regrets? Its a touch question. We often learn from the mistakes we make and if we are not making these mistakes then are we even learning. I read a book last year by Bronnie Ware, titled 'The Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing'. This book was written about what Bronnie learned from caring for palliative patients.I read a book last year by Bronnie Ware, titled 'The Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by ...

What would happen if you didn't?

I wanted to talk about the term “Modal operators” and I know it might sound weird because this actually refers to your mode of operating.The modal operators of thinking are words like must, should, can’t, have to, mustn’t, can, will, and indicate possibility or necessity. There is a big difference between doing something because you feel you have to and because you want to. So let's explore this a little further.We often feel we have to do particular things and have no cho...

Patience

Qualities such as confidence, focus, motivation and resilience (among others), are necessary to grow personally and become the best versions of ourselves, but I believe patience is the most important attribute to possess. Patience is important to make meaningful changes in your life because change is hard and slow. Without patience, you won’t devote the time and energy necessary to allow those changes to emerge.Unfortunately, patience seems to be in short supply in our fast-paced, impatient cu...

Personal Rights

 I know how hard it is to say no and protect our time when we are often put into situations that we can’t say no. It seems the busier we get with our lives the more pressure that gets put on us.The course I am doing over this year is helping me to understand how important it is to allow my clients the choices to respond in different ways. One of the recommendations from the course is to use the bill of personal rights…or develop something similar to this. In our New Zealand Health syste...

New Year New You

Happy New Year and welcome to 2023!January is a great time to take a moment to reflect on the year that's been and celebrate all that you achieved in the previous year. Doing this exercise enables you to decide what you want to work on in 2023, as well as any goals or resolutions you want to set.To help you do this, today I'm sharing 7 ways that you can set yourself up for success in 2023 🧡  Is it a goal you want - or something you feel you should do?There is no point in setting a g...

Shine brightly

Look after yourself and DO YOUHoliday exhaustion can be a thing so go nice and easy. Give yourself and your plans some flexibility and gentleness. Give yourself some room to do what feels right for you. Bottom line, give yourself some room to do what feels right, from one moment to the next. Prioritize yourself. Be gentle. Do YOU.Manage expectationsLearn to be present so you can enjoy your friends, family, Christmas tree, lights, and moments, as well as the moments of joy and contentment that go...

Self Soothing tips

This time of year can become a little more stressful. Many of us are juggling work, family, end of school year activities, Christmas parties and really the list could just go on and on. Some of you may even be feeling a little out of control? Like you don’t know how to calm yourself down? Most of us do, at one time or another. Here are a few tips for learning how to self-soothe when it feels like your thoughts or body have taken over. That out of control feeling is usually associated with the ...

People pleasing

People-pleasers are known for doing whatever it takes to make other people happy. I know that I have fitted into this group of people all my adult life. While being kind and helpful is generally a good thing, going too far to please others can leave you feeling emotionally depleted, stressed, and anxious.  People-pleasing involves putting someone else's needs ahead of your own. As a parent this often is a by-product of parenting your children. People-pleasers are highly attuned to others an...

Self esteem

What Is Self-Esteem? In psychology, the term self-esteem is used to describe a person's overall subjective sense of personal worth or value. In other words, self-esteem may be defined as how much you appreciate and like yourself regardless of the circumstances. Your self-esteem is defined by many factors including:        Self-confidence       Feeling of security       Identity       Sense of belonging    &...

STOP

One of my personal values is learning, therefore I absolutely love learning new techniques that I can use in my coaching practice One thing that I don’t speak often about is creating space for my clients to heal. I work very closely with people to create space within their minds to find out what matters most to them. In doing this I am creating a healing space often for them to begin new journeys. It is one of my favourite aspects of coaching. Some of you might think that healing is an unusu...

Relationships

April got me thinking about friendships. I had the opportunity to connect with two old friends while I was away in Rotorua which was very special for me. We talked about friendships and how difficult it has been to maintain these over the past couple of years. I know that we have spent much more time away from others due to enforced lockdowns or isolation periods and I really think it’s been harder to connect with friends because of this. Building on last month's topic self-compassion I wante...

Grief and loss

What is self-compassion? Life dishes up pain for all of us. We all get to repeatedly experience disappointment, frustration, failure, rejection, illness, injury, conflict, hostility, grief, fear, anxiety, anger, sadness, guilt, loss, loneliness, health issues, financial issues, relationship issues, work issues, and so on. Unfortunately, when we experience great pain, we often don’t treat ourselves very well. Self-compassion involves acknowledging your own suffering and responding kindly. In ot...

Perfectionism

✨ Oh I can’t wait to share with you this month about perfectionism. It’s such a juicy topic. I wonder how many of you are sitting reading this and thinking oh I’m not perfectionist? Hands up if that’s you. Well have I got news for you!I never thought of myself as a perfectionist until I was coached by someone at, the beginning of my business journey. It came as a bit of surprise to have this label.I was procrastinating about putting my website up, which was a fabulous website, however ...

Activator

I am feeling thoughtful today as I write this blog. I have been thinking about how I work with clients. When I began coaching, I felt I needed to sell myself as a particular type of coach, now I have figured out that I don’t fit into a particular coaching box and that the way I coach is unique to me. I know I gel well with people who work in healthcare because I know what they are experiencing very well, however that does not limit me to just working with them. In fact, many of my clients come...

Goal setting

I find November a month when I am able to reflect back on my year and see what I have achieved to then allow me to plan for next year. This allows me to set goals for 2022. This is why I am busy working on my strategic plan for 2022. I have experienced huge growth in my coaching business this year and feel I want to spread the word more widely about the effectiveness of coaching in helping people reach heights they didn’t believe they could get to. My latest newsletter focuses on bringing your...

What's coaching all about?

Everyone is familiar with sport coaching: Our favourite athletes wouldn’t be where they are today without exceptional coaching. In our first business we used a business coach to help drive us to meet our business goals. And there’s another type of coaching that sounds more foreign to many people: life coaching.  WHAT IS A LIFE COACH? The life coach definition is someone professionally trained to help you maximize your full potential and reach your desired r...

Mindfulness

I have been practicing mindfulness for two years and love my time each morning that I dedicate to this practice. It is something that I really encourage my clients to engage with too. The scientific evidence has been supporting the benefits of mindfulness since Jon Kabat Zinn made it more popular in the 1970s. He used mindfulness with patients in his chronic pain clinics and saw immense benefits for them.  Even a simple google search brings up studies from Harvard, Forbes and positive psych...

Mind Health

This week is Mental Health Awareness week and so I thought I would write a blog about mental health. We often focus on keeping ourselves physically fit however what about looking after ourselves spiritually and emotionally? I follow the work of Rangan Chatterjee a UK based general practitioner because he has a very simple message. We can feel better in five minutes. He purports that three short health snacks a day will quickly improve your health and make you feel happier calmer and more energet...

Change

Today I am sitting at my desk on a sunny Sunday afternoon because I am feeling so excited about getting the word out about change. I have never been afraid of change and some people may even call me a little reckless at times - but hey that’s me and I am also prepared to fail. I would have started this crazy business from scratch if I wasn't going to face the fear of failing, because my brain has told me many times that this is too hard and perhaps you should go back to a well paid comfy job b...

Selfcare is healthcare

I opened a book on Burnout a couple of weeks ago and on the third page in, I read the line “among medical professionals, burnout can be as high as 52%.” I was a little shocked but not surprised. I hear anecdotally, and frequently how difficult healthcare professionals are finding their work. Our work is tough. We give a lot of ourselves when we work with people who are unwell every day. This book goes on to describe the human giver syndrome in which people are expected to offer their time, a...

Beliefs

I listened to a podcast today that I really wanted to share with you. It resonated with me and because I am a great believer that we are the architect of our lives I wanted to share with you how you can really change your behaviour to get what you want out of your life. Step 1 If I was to take a snap shot of you today, what would I see? What feelings and emotions would hit me in the face? Would you like what that photo reflected? Have you heard about the sports coach analogy? Well I think you ...

Newsletter

Hello there. September is just around the corner so my focus for this months newsletter is on Spring and oh what a spring kinda day it is today. I have just been caught in a hail storm!  How can you use September as your month to spring yourself into action and launch yourself into some deeper work. What's been annoying you over the winter months? Is there a nagging problem that is keeping you stuck? Are you really... enjoying your life, your work or do you feel overwhelmed by eve...

Nursing Heros

Having been a nurse for over 30 years I was surprised to hear one of my colleagues say that she felt the media hype about “Nurses being Heroes” over the COVID 19 pandemic didn’t reflect how it actually was for her. This comment has stayed with me over the past month and I have reflected on it a number of occasions. At the same time it was put into perspective further when I read how many nurses had died in the United Kingdom (UK) during the last few months. Over 100 nurses and support work...

Resilience

Lately I have been thinking more about resilience in Health Care Professionals and especially in Nurses. I was speaking to two younger members of our profession who have been nursing for about five years and they both told me about how close they have come to leaving nursing behind. One thought about going back to University to study accounting, and all I could think about was the great loss to our profession of such a talented young person. The other decided to take a break and go travelling. S...