Let’s talk about self-talk!
Let’s talk about positive self-talk, and some tips to improve yours!
Have you ever thought about how you talk to yourself? The dialogue you hear in your head (if you’re one of those people who have that!) or the words you use to describe yourself and talk about yourself to others? One of the best things I’ve learned recently is the benefits of positive self-talk. I can’t express enough how much it has changed my life. So if you want to learn more, read on dear reader!
Self-talk, also known as internal dialogue, refers to the ongoing conversation we have with ourselves throughout the day. It can be positive or negative, and it plays a significant role in shaping our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Improving your self-talk can have numerous benefits for your mental and emotional well-being. In this blog post, we will explore some of the benefits of improving your self-talk and how you can start making positive changes today.
Increased self-confidence
When we engage in positive self-talk, we reinforce our strengths and accomplishments, which can boost our self-confidence. On the other hand, negative self-talk can undermine our confidence by focusing on our weaknesses and flaws. By improving our self-talk, we can become more self-assured, resilient, and better equipped to handle life's challenges.
Improved mental health
Negative self-talk can contribute to anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues. It can also perpetuate unhelpful thinking patterns and lead to a cycle of negative thoughts and emotions. By practicing positive self-talk, we can reframe negative thoughts and improve our mental well-being.
Better relationships
Our internal dialogue can affect our relationships with others, as well. Negative self-talk can lead us to be overly critical or defensive, while positive self-talk can help us be more empathetic, understanding, and supportive. By improving our self-talk, we can become better communicators and build stronger, healthier relationships.
Increased motivation
Positive self-talk can be a powerful motivator. By focusing on our strengths and potential, we can become more inspired and motivated to pursue our goals. On the other hand, negative self-talk can sap our energy and make us feel discouraged. By improving our self-talk, we can tap into our inner drive and achieve more than we thought possible.
Greater resilience
Life is full of ups and downs, and we need resilience to navigate the challenges that come our way. Positive self-talk can help us build resilience by helping us reframe setbacks as learning opportunities and reinforcing our ability to overcome obstacles. By improving our self-talk, we can cultivate a growth mindset and bounce back from adversity with greater ease.
So, how can you improve your self-talk? Here are some tips:
Notice your self-talk: Pay attention to the ongoing conversation you have with yourself throughout the day.
Challenge negative thoughts: When you notice negative self-talk, challenge it by asking yourself if it's really true or if there's another, more positive way to view the situation.
Practice gratitude: Focusing on what you're grateful for can help shift your self-talk to a more positive perspective.
Use affirmations: Create positive affirmations that reinforce your strengths, values, and goals.
Surround yourself with positivity: Spend time with people who uplift and support you, read books and articles that inspire you, and engage in activities that bring you joy.
Improving your self-talk takes time and practice, but the benefits are well worth the effort. By cultivating a more positive internal dialogue, you can improve your mental and emotional well-being, build stronger relationships, and achieve your goals with greater confidence and resilience.
So what tf is coaching, exactly?
So you’ve found your way here and you’re wanting to know what is a life coach? Life coaching is a process that helps individuals identify and achieve their personal and professional goals. The main objective of a life coach is to support clients in finding clarity, direction, and purpose in their lives. The coaching relationship is built on trust, mutual respect, and a shared commitment to the client's success.
A life coach works with clients to help them gain a deeper understanding of themselves and their potential. They use various techniques, such as goal setting, active listening, and motivational interviewing, to help clients identify and overcome any obstacles that may be preventing them from reaching their desired outcomes. The coach also provides guidance, support, and accountability to help clients stay on track and reach their goals.
Life coaching can be beneficial for people at all stages of life and can address a wide range of issues, including career development, relationship issues, personal growth, and stress management. Whether you're seeking to make a career change, improve your relationships, or simply find more balance and happiness in your life, a life coach can help.
One of the key benefits of working with a life coach is that they provide a non-judgmental and supportive environment for you to explore your thoughts and feelings. This allows you to gain a deeper understanding of your motivations, values, and aspirations. By gaining a clearer sense of your goals and priorities, you can make more informed decisions about how to pursue the life you want.
Another key benefit of life coaching is that it provides a structured and focused approach to achieving your goals. A life coach will help you establish specific, measurable, and achievable goals, and then work with you to develop a plan to achieve them. Life coaches will also help you stay accountable and motivated along the way, providing encouragement and support whenever you need it.
In life coaching, the coach acts as a sounding board and provides guidance and feedback as you work towards your goals. This helps you identify any limiting beliefs or negative thought patterns that may be holding you back, and develop strategies to overcome them. A life coach also helps you to stay focused and on track, ensuring that you make consistent progress towards your goals.
Life coaching is a highly personalized process, tailored to meet the unique needs and goals of each individual client. A Life coach will work with you to develop a customized plan that takes into account your personal strengths, challenges, and goals. This approach helps ensure that you get the most out of the coaching process and achieve the results you want.
It's important to choose a life coach who is a good fit for you. A good coach should be someone you feel comfortable with and trust, someone who understands your goals and is committed to helping you achieve them.
In conclusion, life coaching is a powerful tool that can help individuals achieve their personal and professional goals. Whether you're seeking to improve your career, relationships, or overall well-being, a life coach can provide the support, guidance, and accountability you need to succeed. If you're ready to make a positive change in your life, get in contact with me to achieve your full potential and live the life you truly want!
Letting go
Are you like me and struggle to say the metaphorical goodbye when someone exits your life?
Whether it’s a lover, friend, or someone who somehow fits in between, I often have intense connections with people, and find myself deeply saddened when for whatever reason we fall out of contact.
That’s not to say that this happens with everyone I meet. Certainly some people I’m glad to never speak to again. And yet others, have left a small hole where they were, and it never seems to go away.
I saw a post online recently that said I should find peace in letting them be free, and enjoy the silence that now takes up that space. And for the most part, I agree. The rational side of my brain knows that I don’t want, or need someone in my life who doesn’t want to be there. Yet there’s the other part of me, the part that likes to think of all the world’s problems when I’m idle, that wonders about the “what ifs”. What if I did something different, or what if I could’ve fixed the problem. Oh and of course my ridiculous saviour syndrome kicks in with “I hope they are ok (without me)” – lol of course they are.
I battle so consistently with the “what ifs”. My mind loves to meander through every conceivable circumstance – no matter how ridiculous it has concocted it! Barely a day goes by where I don’t remind myself that thinking what if is the biggest waste of my time and energy! One day I will get better at stopping my brain from going there to begin with, but I confess today is not that day.
So how do I combat these feelings? Well, there’s no real way, except to remind myself that not everyone is in your life forever, and that’s ok. That I can’t fix everything, and that’s ok too. Maybe a small part of me believes that if I radiate enough good energy out into the universe, maybe in time they will come back?
Ultimately, I accept and respect that there is a whole lot of life that is well beyond my control, and all I can do is take control of my own life. I’m extremely lucky to have my wonderful friends, husband and family, and I’m extremely lucky to have shared parts of my journey with others who have moved on to a different path (well, most of them!). Practicing gratitude isn’t something that always comes easily to me, but it does come when I tell it to.
A little more about me
TW: abuse - sexual/physical, death of a loved one, drug use
Allow me to introduce myself…
My name is Will, and you’ve probably already read my small bio, which does include a brief story about how I ended up as a life coach.
I thought to kick off my blog, I’d expand a little on that, and why I think I’m the best person to help you with issues that you may be struggling with.
I’m the youngest of three siblings, and there is a large age difference between myself and my next sibling. I grew up thinking I was an only child until one day I realised that like a lot of my friends, I too had siblings. While my friends had brothers and sisters that were at school at the same time as us, maybe a few years older or younger, mine were both out of school while I was still in Primary! My closest sibling was a serial drug user and general petty crime doer. Our house was a halfway house for drug addicts and other general blowouts.
My parents both ran their own businesses, and while they were both loving people, neither of them was very good at parenting. My mother passed away form breast cancer when I was nine, leaving my father to raise me. While he is a very lovely man, he was raised in a dysfunctional home himself. His parents had a bad relationship and divorced. Like me, I guess he raised himself a little bit. He’s never been able to handle conflict (withdraws completely) and is not good at expressing emotions or handling others’ feelings.
Having generally absent parents (and then parent) plus a house where no day went by where there wasn’t some kind of drama (police, violence, aggression and sexual abuse) left me to become an adult fast. I learned to understand the signs of different situations escalating and would remove myself, often hiding somewhere or just taking myself on a very long walk. I had a lot of very friendly imaginary friends.
I also learned to mask how I was feeling. I would always say I was fine and attempt a smile. Given that there was rarely any physical signs of abuse, I guess nobody noticed? That or it was the 90’s and we just didn’t talk about these things.
So, fast-forward a few years to my mid-teens, my father decides to move to the country and I decided to stay in the city with my eldest sister. While overall I’m so glad I stayed in the city, it was a lot of formative years to have no parental figure (weeks and months would go by without me speaking to my father, and I would maybe see him once a year) I continued self-learning by watching what my friend’s families did, which wasn’t always successful. In hindsight I should’ve paid more attention to not modelling my behaviour on the people who were also wildly dysfunctional.
In the end, I managed to make it out of my teens and into my early 20’s a pretty friendly, loving, and occasionally well-balanced human being. But life still was very lacking for me. I craved family connections and had none around me. I did the very typical date older men to fulfil the desire to have my father in my life. Unsurprisingly that didn’t end well.
Luckily, in my mid-20’s, I was introduced to a Life Coach. I’d just been dumped by a man I thought I loved, I had a terrible retail job, and was living in a mouldy apartment at the back of Bondi (nice view through the trees, but so SO MUCH mould!) I agreed to have ten sessions of coaching, and in the first session established two changes I wanted to make in my life: I wanted a boyfriend, and a career.
My coach helped me understand more about myself, my subconscious, and manifestation than I ever knew was possible. Like in the coaching sessions that I run, each week we would focus on a couple of particular areas to discuss and work on, and then set small, achievable goals to complete before our next session. Having someone to talk to immensely lightened my emotional load, kept me motivated and accountable for achieving my goals, and without them, I would never have been able to get out of the constant cycle of depression and sadness I was living in.
I fully credit those ten life coaching sessions for helping me meet my now husband (we’ve been together ten years, and married three) and kick started my previous real estate career. And without having a decade of meeting every type of person you could imagine, from CEOs and executives, to single parents raising wonderful children, immigrants coming to Australia to start a new life, and even drug users. It has been these experiences which have forged a path for me to be a coach – to help people who need it, and create the changes in my clients that my coach created in me.
So here I am, that’s kinda my story.
I’d love to hear from you if you’re interested in being coached, and how I can help you make significant and lasting changes!