Boost Your HAPPINESS With These Tips

It’s 2021, a New Year! But I know for some, it just feels like an endless and bleak continuation of 2020. The restrictions of the Global Pandemic continue with the latest Lockdown 3 in the UK.

Let’s face it we’ve all binge watched Netflix, had more Zoom calls and quizzes than we can count, put on a few extra pounds by rewarding ourselves with a few naughtier food treats, walked/jogged endlessly around our local areas... and that was just Lockdown 1!

So what now….?!

Well, I’ve compiled a few helpful hints/tips below to help you through the continued trying times we’re all currently facing.

Looking Good!

With the continuation of working from home, it’s easier to stay in jogging bottoms with no make-up on and your hair up in a messy bun or fresh from the shower without so much as a comb through! But, looking good is an important part of feeling good. Try to make a bit of an effort and reinstate your old morning routine.

Support ethical businesses by purchasing some new comfy but smart clothes to wear around the house from companies such as Komodo  or if you’re on a bit more of a budget Kotn  

Throw on a bit of lippy or pop on that designer watch you save for special occasions – because why not. You’re still working at home after all!

Healthy treats

Whilst it’s tempting to stock up on pizza and choccy biccys given it’s FREEZING outside, we lose light at 4pm, there’s a national lockdown which means there are no pubs or restaurants open, and on top of that BREXIT!!!! However, eating these foods that are packed full of chemicals that destroy your immune system and will end up making you increase in weight is only going to end up making you feel ultimately worse about everything.

Instead, if you can muster the willpower to create your own snacks in 10 mins there are some great ideas here and if that doesn’t cut it – there are some more awesome recipes here

Move your body

I won’t bore you too much with this one, let’s face it, we all know exercise is good for us. HOWEVER, if you’re currently suffering with mental health, fatigue, depression or SAD; motivation to exercise may be difficult. Whilst exercise is proven to benefit all of these issues, start with moving your body – just move – in whatever form that comes in:

- stand up and sit down several times on the sofa

- walk around your home every hour on the hour

- Do one squat a day or two or three

- Dance around the house to some of your favourite music – get those endorphins released!

- Try 10 star jumps when you get out of bed

- Try stretches every day or every hour

Ultimately, the more you move your body – the better you will feel. AND it’s totally free! Once you get into the habit of moving more, you’ll probably want to start a fitness routine which will improve your mental health tenfold. More here on the benefits of exercise – thank you NHS!

Creative Writing

We’ve all connected far more than ever via online sources during the last year. But now we all have a bit more time on our hands – what about going back to basics. Remember how great it used to be to receive a hand written letter that wasn’t a bill (sorry millennials – it’s what we did before social media!!) Maybe take some time to write letters to your nearest and dearest – to do nothing more than to brighten their day.

A lot of elderly and vulnerable people are sheltering at the moment so I’m sure a hand written letter would brighten their day. A lot of inspiration for letter writing can be found here thank you @CATSAUNDERS

Self-Reflect

Lockdown is a great time to reflect inwardly. What are you good at? What do you love? What is your passion? Have you achieved what you’ve wanted to in life? What would you like to do more of? What would your 80 year old self look back and say about you? If you had a magic wand…what would you do differently? What do you hope to achieve once restrictions are lifted?

All in all, my final tip is don’t be too hard on yourself. These are really trying times for every single one of us in different ways and we are all just trying to get through it. So if you feel like you’re not doing enough, don’t be too hard on yourself. Let’s keep going – doing whatever that is to keep going and at some point, life may just get a bit less difficult.

The 3 Most Important Lessons The Pandemic Has Taught Me

As we start to slowly ease out of lockdown I’m taking these moments to reflect on what these past few months have taught me. There has been so much to learn from. I’m going to share my experience of the last three months in all its vulnerable authenticity so that you can see what I learned and why I wanted to share.

My story

As some of you may know already, I was overseas in Singapore for a while last year (which was incredible) and I returned to the UK in December – I feel so grateful to have had that experience prior to such a severe global travel restriction.

I was very lucky to gain a new contract job based in London with a January start date. For those of you who don’t know, I am getting married this year (I say woop, my bank balance says blergh!), so consistency in contracts and finances is more important than ever!

I worked in this role successfully for just 3 months when the beast we know as Coronavirus swooped in and turned everyone’s world upside down and inside out. It was a shock for me because as a result of this, I was made redundant with immediate effect. This effected my world more than it usually would because I had planned my finances down to the last penny due to the wedding being this year. There also seemed to be a massive recruitment freeze and on top of all of this my partner’s wage was also unexpectedly reduced by 20% as well.

Like so many others, suddenly, and almost overnight we had gone from being able to live comfortably and afford our wedding later this year to pondering over how we were going to pay for groceries and afford the rest of our wedding that was already half paid for and of which we were of course tied in to.

A few emotions kicked in during these moments. Fear, desperation and anger followed very quickly by resilience and a burning drive to survive this and put up the middle finger to this pandemic.

I spent a good few days in the aftermath of the shock of all of this thinking innovatively and creatively. In fact, within an hour of my losing my job I was already applying for more opportunities online and reaching out to connections. I felt an overwhelming sense of panic – for anyone who has got married or is getting married, you know the cost of venues; these are in the thousands not hundreds. I had to find a solution to this problem.

Although I was applying for different contracts, there wasn’t much in the way of new opportunities around me to apply for much more. The world was going into shutdown and I felt like I was getting sucked down with it. I knew I had all these large and committed upcoming outgoings but no way to pay them.

To make matters worse (yep, now’s the time to get your violins out!) I was not eligible for any government financial support as my partner was still earning a wage and we live together. My previous employer took the decision to not Furlough me so despite giving my best efforts to that role I was given no support from the company even though this was at minimal risk and cost to themselves. Their reasoning was it was too high a risk to them when they were losing nearly all their revenue for the foreseeable future. For me it was the minimum they could do so I wasn’t on the bread line – there was a reason the government created this scheme to help protect people’s jobs – it felt beyond selfish that they were not honouring it in any way.

I remember I applied for jobs at supermarkets just to get by and got generic rejection letters from most of them as they were full! I felt like no one was giving me a branch.

It was a really weird time for me as I am usually pretty organised with money. I just felt like we were spiralling down a black hole. Panic buying became the new normal for people and the supermarket shelves were empty, no one knew what the virus was, how it was transmitted or what we should or shouldn’t be doing. It was mass hysteria and confusion multiplying by the day and breeding across social media platforms, fed by people’s curiosity and fear.

Reasons to stay positive

It was in this moment of knee jerk reactions all around me that some networking from the previous year paid off. A contract landed in my inbox and I was hired to work on a series about Frontline Workers during the pandemic. It was a 6 week miracle shining the light on some amazing people doing some really amazing things. I couldn’t have wished for a more productive and inspiring contract to be working from home on during these strange times!

Shortly after this I landed another contract starting in June which was again down to some hard work paying off.

Luckily, due to a lot of my coaching sessions and workshops being held online, it hasn’t affected my capacity to carry out sessions too much either. You can find out more information about the sort of coaching packages I offer here. Do get in touch for more information about what the different coaching packages will entail.

Learning something new

Upon reflection of all these strange turns of events, I can say the three most important takeaways for me have been:

1.       Never put off for tomorrow, what you can achieve today

The sentiment of this is something that I normally carry with me as I do get a sense of satisfaction in being proactive and getting things ticked off my To Do list. But it was so deeply heightened by the pandemic. I’m so glad I got to travel and get wedding paperwork sorted before there was a global shut down for a couple of months.

2.       This too shall pass

Another saying that I always keep close to my heart but that was cemented during the coronavirus outbreak. Every state is temporary. The desperation I felt as I lost work and all of the doors seemed to close around me was soon over in just a matter of weeks. If I had known this was going to be the outcome, how differently would I have spent those weeks? Instead of feeling fear and anger what would I felt instead? How much more productive and enjoyable would those two weeks of my life have been? As Dalia Lama said:

“Inner peace is the key: if you have inner peace, the external problems do not affect your deep sense of peace and tranquillity… without this inner peace, no matter how comfortable your life is materially, you may still be worried, disturbed, or unhappy because of circumstances.”

3.       Resilience

Resilience has been one of the most powerful and useful emotional responses I ever learned. It’s so important to remain grounded in this very temporary world. I think it’s all too easy for all of us to become complacent and think that our lives will continue on the trajectory we’ve paved for ourselves. But I think it’s all too easy to forget that sometimes it won’t, sometimes, overnight, something may happen and our world will turn upside down and we have to learn to cope with that. To adapt to that and to not let that consume our entire being.

Self-care is extremely important in maintaining resilience and a level head during hard times. You can read more about tips for managing self-care in my early blog this year here

Afterword

One of the most inspiring things that I noticed during this pandemic was how adaptable and truly versatile we all are as a species. Whilst I was catching my breath, and scrambling to keep my head above water, all around me on social media people were popping up with innovative ideas on virtual everything from PTs (shout out to Seven Movement) to House Parties to Quizzes to those who could working from home. It happened within literally the space of one week and it was truly inspiring and overwhelming to see.  I really enjoyed reading tips from Olivia in her blog What Olivia Did here it is reassuring to know that whilst we are all going through different things, we truly are all in this together.

I think it’s safe to say we will return to some sense of normality, but I know there’s a lot of the old normal I’d like to leave behind. Here’s to a new era of innovative thinkers! Let’s have a drink to this new chapter (when the pubs open of course!)

5 Tips To Manage The Winter Blues On A Budget

It’s that time of year when we all go about our daily lives pretending to be okay – but I think the truth of the matter is, a lot of us are suffering with our own internal battles.

In the UK, it’s that time of year after the festive season when it’s still cold outside, the weather is somewhat undesirable, the nights are drawing in from sometimes as early as 3pm and our purse strings are feeling the pinch after the festivities of Xmas and New Year. It’s no wonder January is deemed to be the most depressing month of the year. Typically the third Monday of the month has even been renamed as Blue Monday! So what can we do about it?! Find below five practical tips on how to keep holding on to a positive mind set without breaking the bank.

Volunteer

Volunteering is a great way of becoming part of your local community that is focusing on social issues outside of yourself and contributing to fantastic causes. If you can spare even a couple of hours a week, then there are some fantastic charities that you can work with. As well as benefiting other causes, it really helps to give you a sense of perspective for your own struggles as well. Whilst volunteering generally doesn’t pay you, it is something that you can do for free that will help you feel a sense of positive accomplishment and who knows what those opportunities may lead to in the future.

Click here for some excellent opportunities in the UK and here for some amazing volunteering opportunities internationally.

Self-care

When we feel down, it’s very easy to neglect our own needs. Sometimes all we might feel like doing is hiding under the duvet. Whilst one day of pure self-indulgent rest is not a bad thing, more than that can be quiet damaging to self-esteem and motivation.

So whether it is cooking a nutritious meal, having a hot bath (if you’re lucky enough to have one!) going for a walk or run in the daylight every day, taking your vitamins or doing something that you enjoy such as drawing, painting or knitting, make sure you are doing one thing every day to take care of yourself. This will really help boost your mental state as well.

Exercise

This was touched upon briefly in the Self-Care section. But to re-iterate; you cannot underestimate the importance of exercise in boosting your mood and releasing those endorphins. If you can’t afford a gym membership, there are plenty of other alternatives to daily exercise to suit all levels.

From going for a stroll in a local park, to going for a jog or run, to You Tube videos in your own home (space permitting!). I highly recommend clicking here for @thebodycoach Joe Wick’s workouts on You Tube for high intensity workouts leaving you feeling vitalised and ready to face the world – they can also be done pretty much anywhere, result!

Stay connected

In today’s fast paced world with so many different online social media options, it’s easy to forget you maybe haven’t physically seen or actually spoken to anyone at all week. Make sure that at least once a week you are connecting with friends/family or even strangers. Pick up the phone and maybe have a chat to someone who doesn’t live near you or alternatively arrange meet ups locally with friends or family. In addition, have a chat to the staff in local shops, or on public transport or at the library. It’s funny, but sometimes a cheery hello from someone you don’t know can really lift your mood. It’s so easy to forget the simplicity of human connection in today’s culture, but it is really important and one of the key 7 human needs. You can read more about the other 6 here where Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is explained in a bit more detail.

Set positive focus

Whilst goal setting and setting New Year’s resolutions doesn’t work for everyone, defining positive focus is a definite winner!

Pick one area of your life that you want to make an improvement on. List all the things you would like to experience in this area of your life. Really think about how this will make you feel. Hold on to that feeling. Then set a date where you will be able to commit to doing just one thing to move you closer to those positive changes within this area in your life. Don’t forget the way you want that to make you feel. Make sure to continue making small steps regularly that over a longer period of time will help you make the larger desired changes within that area of your life.

DO CONSULT YOUR DOCTOR IF YOU ARE EXPERIENCING PROLONGED PERIODS OF SADNESS OR DEPRESSION.

Boost Your MOTIVATION With These Tips

I think one of the hardest things to master is continued impenetrable motivation. So what is the answer?

In order to keep motivated you need to stay focused on your end goal. Knowing what you are doing and why you are doing it. It sounds basic but sometimes the “why” may get blurred into that’s what you’ve always done, or because what else would you do? But that’s what you need to pay attention to. If you’re not sure why you are doing something, maybe it’s time you were doing something differently? Or at least taking some time to figure out that all important “Why am I doing this?” Another important question to answer is “For how long am I doing this?” because maybe some things are worth sacrificing? Short term endurance for longer term gain.

Motivation is interesting though because it’s so easy to lose and so easy to fall back into bad habits that create obstacles for you getting to your end goal. Another tip that may help keep you on track is to consider why it is you have set yourself a certain goal. That will also keep you focused as to why you need to keep doing something that maybe you are getting demotivated by. For example, if you don’t like going to the gym but your end goal is to lose weight quickly for an event, you know the reason that you need to keep going and that will help maintain your focus.

There are two types of motivation Extrinsic and Intrinsic. Extrinsic motivation which is where an individual becomes motivated by others or events and Intrinsic motivation which comes from within the individual.

It’s important to know which you are most responsive to so that you are not solely being motivated by external factors, and it is coming from within as well.

Motivation has been considered as one of the most important reasons that inspire a person to move forward in life. So if moving forwards is something that is important to you, it is key to master motivation.

At Bethink Coaching, we offer coaching on topics such as Motivation – either as a one of coaching session or more session…you can find out more here about the types of coaching packages we offer.

Winning Tactics For SUCCESS

What is success?

Success can mean different things to different people. For some it’s money, for others it’s family, for other people it may be status or assets. So in order to be successful you first need to establish exactly what that means for you.

I recommend writing it down because then it becomes more real, you can stick it up on your wall somewhere where you will see it every day so you are constantly reminded what success means for you.

For me personally, success is 360° contentment. What do I mean by that? I mean that I believe true success comes from a healthy mind, body, spirit and outlook. When one of these factors are out of sync I believe it leads to unhappiness and unfulfillment. Unhappiness and unfulfillment may get in the way of you reaching your true potential and in turn prevent you from becoming successful.

A healthy mind

For me, mindset is everything. Looking after your mind is laying the foundation for your success. It’s making sure that you have balance within your mind. So you are practicing mindfulness through meditation, breath work, and being present.

It’s about living in the moment so instead of multitasking in everything you do; you’re actively trying to think about just one task at a time in the moment you are doing it. Cleaning your teeth you are thinking about your teeth rather than tomorrow night’s dinner and so on.

A healthy mind also requires positivity. The mind loves to focus on the negative; it’s drawn to it in fact. In order to maintain a healthy mind, we need to actively seek out the positivity and repeat those positive mantras so that we are attracting positivity into our lives rather than negativity.

Positive people attract positive people. Positive thoughts attract positive thoughts. It’s the law of attraction.

A healthy body

In order to take care of other people and tasks such as work and dependants, first we need to look after ourselves. We need to take care of our bodies which function like machines. Food is the fuel. We need to be making sure we are eating a healthy balanced nutritional diet and taking regular daily exercise. This is interlinked with maintaining a healthy mind because a good workout at the gym is proven to reduce stress and what does reduced or eliminated stress give us? A healthy mind. The health and safety announcement on an airplane advises you to put on your own oxygen mask before helping others. We need to apply this to life, first we take care of ourselves so that we can be strong and dependable for other people.

A healthy spirit

I know some of you may be thinking well what’s a healthy spirit? Sounds like airy, fairy nonsense? Well sure, but I think we can all relate to a time when we’ve walked into a room and the energy in there is so low that if we’ve been in a great mood, it’s instantly changed our state from positive to heavy and down or we may even start to feel negative. Or, there’s that one person in the office who no matter what you talk to them about they find the negative to moan about and it instantly brings your mood down.

This is your spirit. You want to attract positivity, wealth and health into your life and you do this by living positively. Having a healthy, happy spirit. It’s about having good energy and passing on positive vibes. So if you have a bad experience happen to you, reflect upon the learning from that negative experience and take away the positive from it. There is a positive to all bad situations if you fight to look hard enough. And it is a fight, life is HARD, there’s no denying it, but the positivity is truly there if you want to see it. One of my favourite quotes of all time is by Roald Dahl:

“Watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.”

I’ve lived my life by this little mantra. It’s so true – there is magic and positivity everywhere – it’s just sometimes harder to find or see it. Sometimes negativity clouds our vision. Sometimes it’s just easier to be cynical and choose to let our negative beliefs limit us.

A healthy outlook

For me a healthy outlook is one that recognises what is happening but chooses to find the positivity, learning and development from every situation. This isn’t always easy either, but it is always possible. It is important to acknowledge feelings of hurt, anger, upset, despair – sometimes things do feel unfair. But once we’ve taken as much time as we need to feel that pain/frustration or anger we need to then learn and apply to our lives the lesson from it. Life repeats patterns to teach us lessons, only when we apply our learning do these negative patterns or cycles stop occurring.

Stats and Facts

For those of you who believe the proof is in the science – please click here and let me refer you to this article showing various studies that support the majority of what I mention above. Furthermore, click here for an article exploring the science behind the law of attraction – there’s also much more available on the internet about this – so don’t listen to me! Explore your own research!

Wishing you positivity in abundance and I hope you too can live a successful life by applying the 360° approach.

Improve Your HAPPINESS in 3 days

Spring is here, the winter blues have subsided and our moods are lifted…or are they? One thing for sure is that 45,000,000 people search for how to be happy on Google alone, EVERY SINGLE month.

Isn’t that number staggering! 45,000,000 people. That’s not including people who don’t have access to laptops/computers and not including people who use alternative search engines either.

If millions of people are still searching for this every month, it means that fundamentally we have something missing in our society.

Throughout my coaching journey I have learned how to apply coaching and mindfulness techniques to my days so that I am aware of my state. This in turn means that my state is more positive than negative the majority of the time. So I find it easier to feel happy essentially.

I wanted to share these techniques so that you can apply them to your days and ultimately improve your happiness within just 3 days.

The first step in improving your happiness

Firstly, anxiety/depression/low mood can be caused primarily from living too much in the future or past rather than the present. What this means is we worry about what will happen next year if we’re still in this situation or how what we did last year brought us to this situation. The key here is to look at the present moment only and consider how you can make this a success. What can you do to make today the best it can be? How can changing your perspective on things and not being too judgemental change how you feel and your current state? So for example, instead of thinking about all the negatives of your current job, consider the positives. Firstly, write a list of all the positives that go with your current role, whether it’s money, location, job satisfaction or stability. Instead of moaning about the negatives voice the positives daily – it will really help to lift your mood and remind you why you are doing what you are doing. The human mind naturally focuses on the negative rather than the positive so whenever that negative inner chatter rears its head, have a think about the positives again. Re-train your mind.

Of course, if you can’t think of any positives to do with your current situation, then it might be time to consider how you can make small steps to make a positive change to improve your situation. Then set a date by when you will achieve each step. This will move you closer to where you want to be.

Physiological happiness

Secondly, happiness is not only emotional it’s physiological as well. How can you improve your physical state? I enjoy going to the gym and I incorporate this into my daily routine. For you it may be swimming, yoga, pilates or dance classes. Whatever exercise you think you will enjoy and commit to for at least 3 times a week, I recommend you do that. It’s very hard to feel low after a great workout. I can recommend Pure Gym for cheap 24 hour access to gyms and classes if finding the time to get to a gym is problematic for you. For a higher end gym experience I can recommend Nuffield Health who offer amazing facilities with plenty of space for you to work out.

Psychological happiness

Finally, happiness is about training your mind. Mindfulness can really help with getting the most pleasure out of your days. There are many mediation apps such as Insight Timer and Headspace which are free and provide guided meditation and other exercises for all levels whether you’re a beginner or not. It’s also important to consider your sleep patterns. Making sure you’re getting enough quality sleep is imperative in having a healthy/happy mind. Make sure you turn off your screens at least half an hour before going to bed. Consider meditating, having a relaxing bath, or reading a book half an hour before bed to help your mind wind down ready for a relaxing sleep. Sleep is important because it is the time the body uses to repair any damaged cells, boost your immune system, recover from the day’s activities and recharge your heart and cardiovascular system for the next day.

In conclusion

My top tips for improved happiness within just 3 days…

1.       Focus all your energy on the present moment and make sure it’s positive energy

2.       Exercise for at least an hour a day 3 times a week

3.       Download a meditation app and meditate morning and night before bed

4.       Make sure you’re getting enough quality sleep

5.       For more clarity on your direction and for discovering action steps to help you get to where you want to be, please book in your free consultation coaching session with me via my website https://www.bethinkcoaching.com/get-in-touch

COACHING Is Crucial To Your Business. Learn Why!

Coaching is an essential tool for achieving business goals

A coach will come into a business with a fresh set of eyes and an objective point of view. They will be able to spot key trends and problems that maybe hadn’t previously been identified and come up with solutions and strategies to help you rectify these areas.

They provide focus whilst remaining confidential. They actively listen and have sound judgment without judging. Asking open ended, clarifying or inviting questions to draw out the answers that may otherwise lie buried.

They identify and work with a businesses KPIs so that employees are meeting them and if not, they are providing strategies and goals for leaders to implement within a team so that KPIs will be met.

Coaching is important for employee professional development

Business coaching typically includes exercises around personality and leadership style, and empowers the individual to better understand themselves.

In the world of work, you’ll be introduced to many different personality types and leadership characteristics, so business coaching is a great way to better hone how to work with diverse types of people, too. This will benefit the retention of quality employees and cut down costs on recruitment and training.

Investing in people helps them perform better

A coach will help leaders to combat the unconscious incompetence that may be a blind spot in a business. A business coach asks poignant questions that challenge a leader to think critically about the business and objectives for the business. They can then apply this knowledge to their team to maximise their overall team output.

Investing in an employee’s professional development is proven to retain staff.

@Forbes mention in their brilliant article about making strategic investments in employee development that when you strategically invest in employees, you attract and keep all the best candidates, and you also build a strong work culture unafraid of innovation, change, failure and success.

In summary

• Coaching improves employee Wellbeing

• Increases staff engagement

• Accelerates productivity

• Boosts Morale

• Organizations with high employee engagement outperform those with low employee engagement by 202% (Business2Community)

• Employees who feel their voice is heard at work are 4.6 times more likely to feel empowered to perform their best work (Salesforce)

The truth about designing your life

I recently set up the Facebook Group Design Your Life Global to start to build a community of like-minded people. I wanted to set up a positive environment for people to share ideas, tips and knowledge for designing a life that you want to live. A life where you are living each day to the full and not merely existing to pay the bills. I want to spread the happiness I have found in doing what I love to other people.

So, if you’re reading this, and you fancy joining in, please click “join” to be a part of the journey.

What does “Design Your Life” mean?

I realised that being part of a coaching community, I have quite an in depth knowledge and awareness for a lot of buzzwords that are trendy on the scene at the moment such as wellness, mindfulness, owning your life, peak performance and so on.

But I want to explore the meaning for anyone who doesn’t understand – it is a bit of an odd concept because it’s assuming you don’t already have some kind of ownership over your life, when of course, you do right?

Well, let’s put it this way. Do you want to be doing the job you are currently doing? Do you enjoy your daily commute? Do you socialise with people who bring you joy and give you energy? Are you in the best health that you can be at the moment? Are you working towards small, medium and large life focuses or goals to help improve your overall health and wellbeing? If you answered NO to any one of these questions. You have not designed your own life. This nicely brings me on to my next point…

How do I “design my life”?

Designing your life requires honesty, bravery, commitment and dedication from you. It’s hard, but the amazing reward is, it’s possible to live a fulfilling life that makes you truly happy. It isn’t always changing what you’re doing, it’s sometimes about changing your own mind-set towards what you’re doing and the way you’re doing it.

If you’re not in the best shape at the moment, it’s about thinking, what small steps can I, but also WILL I take to change that. If you hate going to the gym, but say to yourself, I need to go 5 times a week to get fitter. You’re not going to keep to those goals. So don’t set them, if you hate the gym and feel rubbish after going, don’t set that as a fitness goal. Focus on what you do enjoy, it may be going for a run in a local park, or doing a dance class, or maybe yoga or pilates. It may be meeting up and going dancing with friends, think about actions you WILL take.

If you’re not enjoying the career or job you’ve chosen to be in – why is that? When you’re in control of your own life, you make choices to do things don’t you? If you’re not happy, it’s simply because that’s the way you’ve designed your life.

Trust me, every single person in this world has commitments, has bills to pay, dependants, we all have the same amount of hours in a day as each other. So if you’re not happy in your job it’s because you’ve designed your life that way, let’s be accountable here. Life is HARD!!! But it’s hard for everyone, you’re no different!

You have to ignore the excuses, and take responsibility. Only then, will you start to make the necessary changes to impact your life and propel you from a life of existence to a life of living and abundance! Once you choose to be accountable for your own life and mood you become unstoppable.

What do I mean by a life of existence? I mean choosing to stay in a job that makes you unhappy to pay for an apartment that you don’t like in a city that you’re not enjoying. To drown your sorrows every weekend with a bunch of people you don’t care about to distract you from the fact you’re living a life that doesn’t make you happy.

What do I mean by a life of living? I mean enjoying your daily commute because you’ve been given an amazing opportunity that you’re happy to go and fulfil, I mean doing a job that inspires you to grow and energises you to be the best version of you that can exist. I mean you’re socialising with people who inspire and motivate you so that you grow and develop as a person.

You can find out more about techniques for helping you to achieve the above in 1:1 coaching sessions with me – you can find more information on the Coaching Page on my website.

What will “designing my life” give me?

Designing your own life will give you FREEDOM. Whether that be financial freedom, freedom from society, freedom from negativity – it will set you free.

It will empower you to see the beauty that life has to offer and to enjoy the five days in between weekend number one and weekend number two.

It will stop you from wasting that precious gift of life that so many people are so ungrateful for. We were all blessed with life, to enjoy it, to develop, to learn and to grow. Most of all we were blessed with the ability to enjoy our lives and be happy – both emotional choices, both can be impacted by the negative environments we put ourselves in if we let them.

Everyone has off days, or uncontrollable shifts in circumstances. But there’s a famous saying by Stephen Covey and that is “feel the feeling, choose the response” and he discusses this in detail with various different diagrams in his book The 7 habits of highly successful people if you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. But the point is, we are in control of how we react to every circumstance we are faced with, we all have a choice.

It’s time to take back control, own the excuses and enjoy the life we are blessed with.

How do I know anything about “designing my life” at all?

I’ve actually designed my life for the better. A very interesting thing happened to me recently.

In January, I had already decided I wanted to go to the gym a minimum of 5 times a week for this entire New Year. I’ve always gone to the gym, but to improve my overall fitness and wellbeing, I had now upped this to a 5 days a week minimum workout (#maximumgains)!

I also wanted to face my fears of creating video content and videos to promote my business on social media. It is so important to not hide behind your logo as an entrepreneur. People want to connect with you – so you need to be visible right!

Finally, I wanted to spend time getting to know and investing in new clients which meant various meetings, groups, phone calls and so forth.

Also in the New Year I was offered a very nice freelance contract for a decent amount of money (a sizeable amount considering it was just after the Christmas period). But, this freelance contract would have meant I couldn’t achieve my business goals for January and it meant I wouldn’t have easily have been able to keep my fitness goals either due to long hours over 5 weekdays and a very long commute.

So what did I do? Despite the fact I really could have used that money, I stuck to living my own life that I designed and I took January for me. Yes I’ve still worked, but I’ve worked on my terms allowing me to meet my business and fitness goals for this month.

So, February, what’s next?!! LET’S DO THIS

New Year, New You!

I’m not sure how I feel about this saying to be honest! It seems so overused and somewhat cliché. So this year I haven’t set a New Year’s Resolution as such. I’ve got various rules and habits that I live by and a recent event really influenced me to make a daily change in my own mindset which I would like to share:

A shift in mindset

There is a saying that to succeed you need a role model. On my coaching journey, I have many role models such as the famous Tony Robbins and another of my favourite inspirational leadership coaches Jean-Pierre De Villiers. JP was in London this week doing a speaking event for the first time in London in 2 years and I was very excited to go to it. I posted a video on my Instagram feed @bethinkcoaching about how excited I was. I wore a nice outfit and did my make-up nicely for it. I allowed enough time to get to the central London location which was the beautiful Bloomsbury Hotel and I was in an energised, happy mood because I’d had a really good work out and productive day earlier that day.

Now what happened was, when I got to the train station, my train was cancelled. Delaying me by half an hour which was in turn going to make me what I thought was about 15 mins late. For anyone that knows me, you’ll know that I HATE being late to anything let alone something I’m really passionate about. For me, lateness just gives the wrong message. I’m a performance coach, big on time management and value. I also see it as a sign of disrespect to turn up late to a presentation or talk or event, it’s distracting for the audience and just isn’t how I like to show up.

Knowing that I was going to be late for someone who was very influential in my coaching journey was unacceptable for me. I felt stressed and annoyed at the train company. I was also stressed because it would reflect badly for my business as well if I turned up late. So when the next train did finally arrive, I was in a terrible mood. All my positive energy had drained out of me. I had an unenjoyable journey into central London and then I ran…literally ran to the tube. I was conscious I was being rude to other people by running past them, but this was so important to me I had to show up! I had to commit!

When I finally got to the hotel, and found the meeting room for the event, a funny thing happened. They told me…don’t worry, you’re 45 minutes early. The event time was printed incorrectly on the ticket and everyone is early! Obviously, I was even more frustrated, but it taught me a valuable lesson which I will carry with me for the next 354 days…

What did I learn from this experience?

I already know this, but I learned that shit happens and that’s ok! It’s how you deal with it that matters. I also learned that NOTHING happens as a coincidence. Do I think it was a coincidence that the one day I was late (considering I’m rarely late!!) the time was wrong – NO…I think it was meant to teach the valuable lesson for me of 2019.

The lesson was NEVER let external factors dim your light! Let the negativity lie with the negativity because it isn’t something I need to let penetrate me and negativity shouldn’t dim your light either!

Wishing you all the best for this year ahead – to 2019 – a year of lessons, dreams and ACTION.

'Tis the season...

It’s the season of goodwill, the season to be jolly, the season of parties and joy? But Christmas can sometimes leave you feeling like you have no time for yourself or your loved ones, not to mention the ever decreasing bank balance.

So what can you do to manage the festive period without losing your mind?!

Where do you start with Christmas presents?

You’ve been invited to your new boyfriend’s Grandma’s house for Christmas and you have to buy her dog a present?!

Well, to prevent seeing your shiny new presents in the charity shop in the New Year as well as having to re-mortgage your house to pay for it all…why not shop ethically this Christmas. There are many ways to do this as below…

1)      Do a family Secret Santa using an online tool such as @drawnames https://www.drawnames.co.uk/  this means you only have to buy one person a present. It also has a great function of a wish list so that you can choose what you’d like with the budget in mind as well.

2)      Instead of spending hours writing out Christmas cards and wasting money and paper – why not send an e-card?  @smilebox have some great online cards  https://www.smilebox.com/maker/card-maker/

3)      Simply ask your friends/family/co-workers what they would like or what they actually need this Christmas. It sounds silly but I’m sure most people would prefer to receive something they really need for Christmas instead of something that will go to waste.

4)      There’s always the option of a charity present – have a look at money saving options below https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/deals/charity-gifts/

How do you manage your time over Christmas?

It may feel like you’re juggling parties, dinners, work and family commitments with very little time to breathe over the festive period. Are you putting the shower gel in the fridge and the milk in the shower?!  

Below are some handy performance coaching tips that will help you to prioritise and keep your cool over this festive period. Performance coaching is all about performing the best you can and to the best of your ability.

Coaching Top Tips

1.       Write down everything you need to achieve for that day or week. Number them in order of priority and work through the list starting with number one.

2.       Decide if there is anything on the list that actually isn’t that important and can actually wait with little or no impact on anything else and maybe pick that up another month.

3.       Think about your ROIs. What are you getting from all the time you are putting in to a certain task? Is it worth it? Is there something that you can spend less time doing? If something is taking more time than something more pressing, how urgent is it and what is your return on investment? Is it worth the amount of time you are committing and investing?

4.       Do some self-analysis. Realise your personality type. For example, in DISC training, we learn that certain personality types respond better to certain styles of getting things done. For example, I came out as an ‘I’ on the DISC test. That means I mainly learn by finding the fun in a task so I can get something done when I find it fun. The D characteristic responds well to bullet points and to the point agendas. It might be worth finding out what personality type you lean most towards, so when it comes to getting things done, you can find the most efficient and effective way that you will achieve what you need to do and not procrastinate or feel overwhelmed. The Coaching Academy offer an Introduction to DISC if you are interested in finding out more.

Hope you find at least one thing on here helps with the Christmas period! Have a fabulous festive time folks!

Continue in the fast lane

How do you maintain the motivation and enthusiasm needed to achieve your dreams?

So you’ve got this great idea! You take all the practical steps, you get it off the ground and then slowly, slowly your interest waivers slightly…other people’s opinions and reservations overwhelm you. Challenges may feel too difficult to find a solution to.

It can be more than difficult to continue to find the motivation that you need to succeed.

One of the key motivations for me is that I want to succeed. There is an unstoppable drive within me to make a success of the business I have created (https://www.bethinkcoaching.com/about/). For me, the WANT to help other people be the best that they can be is so powerful that it counteracts the almost daily negativity that seeps into your inner chatter if you allow it to.

What holds you back?

There will always be reasons for you NOT TO do what you want to do. Your mission is to focus only on the reasons for you TO DO what you want to be doing.

People often have their own negative opinions of your entity, whatever that may be. This is for many different reasons. As humans, we find it far easier to focus on the negative rather than the positive. When someone else is doing worse than us it can make us feel better, more important, more successful. It’s far easier to be the friend that offers a shoulder to cry on than be the friend that shares your successes whether that is through social media or just over a coffee. Often when someone’s friend/associate/colleague is doing better than them, it can make them feel insecure.

It can be hard not to focus on other people’s negativity or lack of support but you need to be your own biggest fan and not let the negativity suppress or overwhelm you. EVERYONE has an opinion…and it’s your job to listen, but to focus on your own goals and not let other people’s fear/negativity/lack of knowledge obscure your direction.

There is a famous saying that is “do what you love and the money will follow” and it’s so true. If you love what you do, others will feed off that positive energy and success will, in turn, follow pursuit.

So how do you keep going?

There are some practical steps that you can take in order to stay on track and I’ve listed these below:

1. Check in with yourself. Remind yourself why you are doing what you are doing and what you are looking to achieve – so your aim and the outcomes.

2. List your objectives for the next month in the form of a step by step process

3. Discover and acknowledge what inspires and motivates you and make sure that becomes a non-negotiable part of every day

4. Network with other people who are doing what you’re doing and have made a success of it

5. Acknowledge that going off track can be a part of the process but bringing yourself gently back on track is imperative.

Finally, I find it useful to find an inspirational leader who is already successful and aspire to them to help keep you motivated. For me, @WillSmith never fails to deliver. Check out his motivational speeches on @YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9q__aQFmhig

Is it too late for a career change?

‘Is it too late?’ The most common question I hear from my clients who want to change their career direction but have the ‘fear’. A lot of my clients fear that they are too old for a career change. They feel like they are too old to change what they have known for 10 -15 or more years.

Some of them have dependants and worry that it will be too difficult to change direction at this point in their lives. Other people are perhaps single parents. Maybe they are worried that they have learned a particular skill set and it will be hard to learn a new one. Maybe it has been 10 years or more since they last trained for a particular direction. Perhaps financial implications are blocking their vision.

You are never too old to do ANYTHING

The truth is, you are never too old to re-train and do something different. As human beings we are always learning, evolving and developing. The average employee spends a total of 82,068 hours working over their lifetime. That is a phenomenally large percentage of your life so it is important that you are doing something that you enjoy doing. It’s even better if you can do something that you are truly passionate about, that aligns with your own core values and beliefs.

@VeraWangGang Vera Wang did not design her first dress until age 40.

@SamuelLJackson landed his first big Hollywood part at age 43

@jk_rowling rose from a suicidal single parent at 28 to an internationally acclaimed bestselling author at 46.

There are many ways to achieve a new direction; from part-time courses, to home-study courses as well as bursaries and funding that may also be available. The resources are plentiful.

So where do you even start?

As a personal performance and career coach, this is the most important part for me. The start. It is a person identifying and acknowledging that they aren’t happy doing what they are currently doing in the way that they are doing it in order to make money and seeking help in order to make a positive change in their lives. It is TOO easy to be complacent in life. Do you want to reflect in 10 years’ time on a life where you hated 5 days a week but lived for the weekends and 20 days holiday?

I work with my clients in various ways. This may begin with a vision board of what a client is passionate about, or if they are not sure what they are passionate about it might be brainstorming ideas to help them find their passion that lies within them using a variety of different coaching tools.

We can then work together as coach and client to discover which career those values, passions and beliefs are most suited to so that a client is being fulfilled. For example if your passion is being precise and working with data and spreadsheets, you may not be happiest working in a job that is mainly people orientated or customer facing.

It is NEVER too late to make a change for the better. You are never too old to change your direction in order to improve your life. I’m not going to say that it won’t be challenging, because it will be. I’m not going to say it will be without its struggles and hard work. But there is always a solution to every single problem and block that we face. Problems and solutions are like Yin and Yang. They come as a pair like positive and negative magnetism. As humans, we just always find it easier to identify the problems. But, change your mind set, start looking at the solutions first. What can you do in order to facilitate a career that will not only pay your rent or your mortgage but will fulfil your hopes and dreams in life?

Start with Step 1. It sounds silly, but Step 1 is the start.

The strength to make a cup of tea

I posted a post recently on my Instagram page about strength. It actually really resonated with me. It made me think about all the people who are silently suffering.

It also made me reflect upon the message I was trying to convey. I’m not sure if it was entirely clear from my Instagram post so I thought I would explore it further in my blog.

I don’t want my message to be misunderstood that I was glossing over tragedies and traumatic experiences and dancing the happy dance condoning pretending that everything is okay. Instead, what I was trying to say is that many people are going through horrific experiences, ones that you wouldn’t wish upon anyone and they are finding a way to keep going.

The inner strength and inner fire keeps burning within them and they use it to continue through their days.

I think it is all so very easy to become a victim to circumstance and to make excuses for why you cannot be what you wanted to be. The trauma or tragedy becomes the reason for our failure when instead, look how powerful that energy could be, if you turned that into a positive and made it part of your inner strength. Despite whatever has happened, you have still managed to turn it around, to be the best version of you that there can be. You have still managed to reach your version of success, whatever that may mean to you.

You may wonder why I’ve called this post “the strength to make a cup of tea”. It’s relevant because when a social worker tests an elderly person on independence and capability in their own home, one of the tasks that demonstrate their ability to be capable and independent, is whether they are able to take instructions to make a cup of tea, and successfully carry out the exercise. If they cannot, along with a few other factors, they may be required to leave their own home and go into residential care. So for an elderly person, suddenly making a cup of tea may require all the inner strength they have to prove that they can in fact remain independent.  

There are no limits in this world other than the ones we set ourselves. There are literally NO limits. When you think of it like that the world becomes an incredible place. I know the cynic out there will claim there are limits – what if they can’t afford it? Or they don’t have time, or it isn’t curable, or they’ve tried everything so far, or it’s genetic.

There is NOTHING stopping us, there is a solution to every single obstacle out there if you want to take the time, patience, energy, money to seek out that solution, I promise you it will be there. We are extremely powerful as a human race. If you don’t have the time…MAKE IT…every single being created on this earth has one thing in common 24 hours in EVERY SINGLE DAY. Find time. If you can’t afford it…find the money, generate more money. Think outside of the box. If you don’t have the skills, LEARN THEM, learn the craft. If you don’t have the energy – create it. Have you ever tried being miserable/lethargic whilst you are smiling, jogging on the spot with upbeat music on in the background? You can’t be lethargic, you have the power to change your own mental state. However, silly it may feel, give it a go…when you’re feeling low energy or low mood, go for a run and put some EDM music on at a volume that makes your heart sing and try to continue being in that low energy mood. You won’t be. Because you have physically changed your own mental state.

I think you may have got the message now that what I am saying is the only limiting factors are in our own minds. I’m not saying obstacles don’t exist, and I’m not saying we need to ignore our problems, I’m saying limitations we set ourselves get in the way of our solutions. Try turning the negatives into positives. Acknowledge the problem, feel the pain, find the solution. Yes, sometimes life sucks, but its sucks for everyone, you’re not special, it’s not always you, people have dealt with much worse and undoubtedly much better but it’s about using every single situation to help yourself grow. To help yourself evolve. To always be the best version of yourself that you can be NO MATTER WHAT.

To one person strength will be surviving cancer and to another person it will be being able to make a cup of tea. The subject matter is not as important as them being able to turn their personal traumas into undeniable, invincible and unbeatable inner strength.

NEVER. GIVE. UP.