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All too often when we set ourselves a goal we’ll of course set out with the best of intention, but we’ll often neglect crucial parts of the process along the way.

For example, when we want to lose weight, we’ll focus on the diet, possibly some sort of workout plan as well. Yes, those will fix the issues, but for how long?

You see when we address only the physical and external and neglect the internal we are setting ourselves up for failure.

You lose the weight, then you start putting it back on. So you diet again… You’re not addressing how you feel about yourself, what you believe about yourself, and this is the part that’s keeping you stuck.

The same is true the other way round…

We want to improve our focus, our mindset, decrease our anxiety. So we meditate or take up mindfulness. And for a while it feels good.

What happen when your mind feels great but your body is sluggish? When you don’t love what you see in the mirror?

We are connected holistic beings. To be at our best, to grow, we need to work on the internal AND external.

You cannot out-perform your self-identity.

If you feel great in your mind but don’t feel great about how you feel in your body, you’re stuck.

If you feel great about your body but you’ve neglected your emotional needs. Your stuck.

You’re stuck in the hamster wheel of wanting.

I know. I’ve been stuck running around that wheel and going nowhere myself.

it’s horrible. You so much want things to change, yet no matter what you do, you stay stuck in the same spot, only feeling like your expending more and more effort just to do that.

Want to jump out the wheel and move forward?

What Claire and I worked on and applied (and still apply) to ourselves works to break the cycle and propel you forward.

It’s worked for us, it’s worked for our clients.

It’s about aligning the internal and external. Taking action on those together to forge the self-identity and confidence to succeed at your goal, and stay there, day after day, month after month, year after year.

It doesn’t take anywhere near as long as you think it might to make these changes and have them stick.

It doesn’t take hours out of our day, even out of your week.

It’s a lot easier than you think…

We’ll be sharing our approach and breaking down the steps to achieve lasting change and finally be successful in hitting your goals in a live workshop 10am UK time this Saturday morning.

Simply click here to grab your free place and we’ll see you there.

We can’t wait to share this with you.

Did you know that we each make our own cocktail of feel good chemicals internally?

These neurotransmitters play roles in our mood, anxiety and stress levels, and while we can’t simply turn them on and off at will, there are certain things we can do to activate each on and boost our mood.

Dopamine is our reward chemical. We get a burst of it when we feel achievement, complete satisfying tasks and do self-care activities. So, do something for you today, and allow yourself to feel good about it.

Serotonin is another feel good chemical and mood stabiliser. Increased levels will lower feelings of stress and anxiety. We can boost serotonin levels through exercise, meditation, immersing ourselves in nature and getting sun exposure. So how about making some time for a walk or jog outside today? Or a spot of reflective meditation?

Oxytocin is the love hormone. It makes us feel connected to others. Love works, so does stroking a dog, hugging (those you can), and feeling grateful. Spend some time writing a gratitude list and allow yourself to really feel the emotion of what you’re grateful for.

Endorphins give us a natural high and are a pain killer. Laughter and intense exercise will release endorphins (which is why we feel so great after a workout session). So get moving – maybe even do one of our HIIT sessions over on our youtube channel and get the benefits of laughter too…

I’d love to hear your mood boosting tips….

Ever had that feeling you’re meant for something more? Yet when you think about stretching for your dreams, you talk yourself out of it?

You’re not alone.

All too often we’ll end up playing small because if feels safer. Why? When achieving that big magnificent dream would make us feel so much more fulfilled?

It’s partly down to our evolutionary psychology. Our culture, society and capabilities have evolved at a far faster rate than the oldest part of our brain, the amygdala.

The amygdala is ruled by emotion and our threat centre. When we’re in fear it takes over in an attempt to protect us.

Thousands of years ago taking risks likely got you killed. So did being outcast from your social group, on your own it was almost certain death, which is why a fear of rejection is such a strong motivator.

From an evolutionary perspective your mind believes that if you’re rejected, you could literally die.

Only of course that’s rarely the case in modern life, but the fear persists as a limiting belief.

If I proclaim my big dream, people may mock me.

If I go for my goal and fail, people will see me as a failure.

So what? It’s not life and death, and reassuring our sub-conscious of this fact can help soothe it and make taking the leap easier.

Failure is only failure when it’s final. Embrace is as a chance to learn.

If we keep our dreams small, we keep ourselves small. You can still fail at small dreams…

So why not go for a big one?

If you fail at a big goal, it’s likely you’ve won a smaller goal along the way anyway.

If you succeed…

The only thing stopping you, is you.

What can you go bigger on?

There’s a wealth of research from the field of psychology and neuroscience on the positive mental health benefits of practicing gratitude, but do you know it can help in a work setting too?

With many employees remote working, possibly feeling disconnected and anxious, it’s a great time to start encouraging team members towards consistent gratitude rituals that need only take a few minutes each day.

Research has shown that grateful workers are more efficient, more productive and more responsible. Team members who practice gratitude are more likely to go the extra mile to complete tasks, support others, and feel more aligned with colleagues.

Another big benefit is that gratitude is an important component to emotional resilience.

Resilience can be boosted by working on acknowledging and accepting the current situation, no matter how harsh, displacing negative emotions with solution focused thinking, seeing the positives in life and sustaining supportive relationships.

Something as simple as encouraging your team to keep a daily gratitude journal, or sharing wins (personal and team) can start to help shift the needle.

Start with yourself, what are you grateful for today?

#coaching #leadership

We’re likely all familiar with the concept of stress

Familiar with the feeling of it and the effects

But it’s not just about mental and emotional – it’s useful to understand the physiological and hormonal effects

Stress is a survival response – when there is a threat real or perceived body goes into stress mode

Some stress is useful for performance and we individually have different optimum levels for performance.

An experienced actor about to take the stage to a full house will experience nerves. This stress. translates into peak performance on stage.

If you were pushed onto stage in front of an audience right now and told to perform, chances are the stress would lead to a less than optimum performance.

So individually we have differing levels of stress tolerance and will experience different situations in which stress can be useful, or a hinderance.

However, for all of us, over the long terms consistently raised stress has major negative effects on our wellbeing

The problem is that in evolutionary terms we are not capable of responding differently to real or perceived – so that idiot you argue with on facebook is giving the same stress response as if you’d just seen a tiger running free….

Think about road rage – how angry and shaky you get – yet most of the time the incident is mere seconds and then gone – yet the stress persists – often for hours.

We’re designed this way in case the threat was not dealt with effectively the first time.

Our threat centre is in the oldest part of the brain the amygdala which is ruled by emotion. When stressed this threat centre takes over and overrules the newer reasoning area.

This is why in stressful incidents like a crime or an accident, witnesses will often have differing views of what happened – one effect of stress is to narrow focus and confuse critical thinking.

Just to add to the mix, hormones are chemical messengers from the limbic system and neurotransmitters are from the nervous system and they’ll interact and affect each other too.

I’m going to focus on sustained low to medium level stress for this article, but if you operate at high stress levels continuously and/or you have a trauma event, your adrenalin and norandrenline can keep firing, resulting in adrenal fatigue, which is the next step up if daily stressors aren’t dealt with effectively.

So what are the effects of cortisol the stress hormone if it stays raised?

Well, its useful to understand that hormones don’t act in isolation, they have a cascade effect and when one changes it will affect another.

Let’s take a look…

In the case of cortisol it shares the same mother hormone pregenolone as our sex hormones. What this means is that if our pregenolone is being utilised for cortisol there is less available for production of oestrogen and testosterone.

So, as cortisol stays raised, estrogen and testosterone are lowered. We’re likely to experience weight gain, increased abdominal fat, fatigue, loss of libido, loss of concentration…

As we gain weight you will notice the effects of increased levels of ghrelin (appetite stimulating hormone) and insulin (hormone needed to lower blood glucose levels), as well as decreased leptin (the fullness hormone) levels. Meaning we’re likely to eat more, particularly sugary and starchy carbs- see how the negative cycle starts to gather momentum?

Remember we mentioned neurotransmitters? If you’re stressed this can tip into depression with means you likely have low levels of endorphins, which are feel-good neurohormones.

So you see stress can have quite the impact and many elements are outside of our direct control.

What can you do?

Here’s 5 practical, actionable tips….

Minimise stressors in your life – negative news, negative social media, even negative friends and situations.
Practice stress management techniques – meditation (it doesn’t need to be still, it could be running or another practice) and getting out into nature. Japanese studies show that immersion in a natural environment lowers cortisol levels, blood pressure and heart rate.
Exercise – exercise release endorphins boosting mood and alleviating stress. It’s nature’s anti-depressant.
Practice individual spirituality – cultivate a practice that connect you with your self – like affirmations, gratitude, morning grounding and positivity rituals
Seek support, find feel good groups to be part of on line community to feel supported. Our evolutionary need to feel part of something is strong, as is our need to feel understood and heard.

These are just some of the things we work on with our clients (both individual and corporate) to help them reduce stress, feel more positive, be healthier, be happier and connect with a purpose and each other.

If you’d like to talk to us about individual coaching or our corporate wellness programmes please get in touch.