Category: Life Coaching

  • What are you waiting for?

    What are you waiting for?

    When we find ourselves waiting for just the right moment, or that right feeling, or the perfect setting, or the ideal opportunity to present itself before we do something, we’re afraid of failure.

    If we know, with understanding and rational thought, why we are not ready for something, that’s different.

    When we have no real reason to put something off but we hesitate and make excuses, that’s when we’re not yet convinced about the value in what we want to do, or our ability to be successful at it.

    Looking for reason without deliberate effort or purpose is how we pacify ourselves in our efforts to avoid failure.

    When we focus on the value that we wish to create, and we accept that we are always learning something new even in spaces where we are very confident about our abilities, we will find the conviction to take action rather than to avoid failure.

    The only reason failure weighs down on us so much is because we are defined by how others may judge us.

    If you find yourself in such a head space, you need to reflect on why the opinions of others are more important than your opinion of yourself.

    Improve your opinion of yourself, and it will be easier to take advice, learn from your mistakes, and grow from failure.

    Own your life, or else someone else will.

  • Rise

    Rise

    People that respect your victim-hood do so because it makes them feel better about themselves.

    It doesn’t mean that they are malicious or have bad intentions. But they most likely don’t even realise it themselves.

    In fact, you may be supporting others in ways that comfort you more than it helps them.

    When we find familiarity in our struggles that others share, we risk polarising towards those who make us feel better about where we are, rather than seeking out those who may be able to guide us towards uplifting ourselves out of that space.

    That’s one of the difficulties of being in a victim head space without realising it. We become really good at making others feel OK about their weakness while believing that we’re supporting them to overcome it.

    Before you take offence to what I’m saying, you need to realise that you’re only a victim when you allow the oppression of others to define your self worth, and to dictate your effort towards establishing a life worth living.

    The moment you own your life and rise above the impact of that oppression, you’re no longer a victim, you’re a fighter!

    Not a survivor! A fighter!

    You lose the sweetness of life when you focus on coping as best as you can.

    That’s why you must always strive to rise above, to overcome, to prevail, and never to surrender or cope with what life throws at you.

    You only get one shot at life.

    Make it count.

  • What are you really waiting for?

    What are you really waiting for?

    In order to know what’s not right, you need to know what right would look like.

    Or feel like.

    Or taste like.

    Just because you don’t know how to make it right, doesn’t mean you have to accept and live with what’s wrong.

    But sitting back and growing frustrated at your condition without trusting yourself to know that it can or must be better is a self-imposed constraint over your happiness.

    Think of your life as your favourite meal.

    Eventually, as life happens, the free who prepared that meal for you leaves your life, or you leave theirs.

    But, your new partner doesn’t know how, for example, your mom or dad, used to prepare that meal for you, so they try their best to make it the way that you like it.

    Despite their best efforts, they just don’t get it right.

    At that point, you have some choices to make:
    1. Blame them for not doing enough
    2. Understand that they can’t recreate something if they don’t have the knowledge or abilities to do so
    3. Accept that your favourite meal cannot be recreated, so you need to discover a new favourite
    4. Work with them in trying to figure out how to create it, so that together, you can once more create what you once loved

    If you choose 4, you will also be creating space for you and your partner to discover something beautiful together.

    You’ll have less reason to blame them for being inadequate, and more reason to play an active part in creating your joy with them, rather than holding them responsible for creating it for you.

    The most important point being that we must avoid the assumption that if someone isn’t doing what we told them we want or need from them, that they’re withholding it out of spite or selfishness, when the truth is more likely to be that they honestly don’t know how because they didn’t have in their life what we had in ours.

    This is how we begin to create space for new joy in our life, instead of wasting life away while lamenting the loss of what we once had.

  • Do you know why?

    Do you know why?

    What we choose to respond to is a reflection of what is important to us.

    The more important it is, the more intense or passionate our response.

    Hence anger that bubbles over, or heartfelt pleas and messages to connect with someone about something.

    The tone and demeanour of how we respond is a reflection of our self-worth.

    The more aggressive or abrasive we are, the lower our self-worth in that moment and about that setting. And vice versa.

    If we’re not mindful about our emotional needs from a given interaction, we’re likely to be distracted by the technical or practical aspects of what we’re dealing with, rather than understanding why it provokes such a strong response from us, or our partner.

    Situational mindfulness is the easy part. That’s being aware of WHAT is going on around you so that you can respond appropriately.

    Emotional mindfulness is more elusive, because it means that we need to be consciously aware of our emotional bias in that moment, or else we’ll lose sight of our bias when interpreting the actions or words of others. In other words, the WHY of our response.

    Understanding your Egosystem that drives you is therefore critical towards improving the quality of your relationships, and your life.

    If you’re struggling to understand why you can’t let go of something that appears hopeless, or why you feel so intensely about something that isn’t that important in the bigger picture, get your copy of The Egosystem now, and begin your journey of reconnecting with you, after having been distracted by the struggles of life.

  • Prisons of our minds

    Prisons of our minds

    Without realising it, we create most of the boundaries and the dependencies that we have on others, often without them being aware of it.

    One of the reasons we do this is because that is our code of life that we’re honouring.

    It’s our way of respecting or protecting what we see as sacred in that relationship.

    However, it’s based on the assumption that our partner shares the same values, and values the same things.

    Healthy communication will make such misalignment of expectations easier to deal with, and resolve.

    But, the moment we tell someone what we need from them, we create an opportunity for doubt within ourselves about whether they’re doing something out of obligation, or sincerity.

    That doubt is the beginning of the prison walls that we erect around ourselves, which slowly isolates us from our partner because we’re expecting them to notice what we need.

    But expectations are important in a relationship.

    Without it, the relationship loses value and the trust fades.

    To avoid this, we need to develop a healthy emotional maturity in the relationship so that issues of trust, expectations, and duty can be discussed in ways that don’t threaten the self-worth of your partner.

    More than this, we also need to realise that if we focused on what we’re not getting, and also focused only on what we’re giving, chances are good that we are unaware of what they need from us beyond the assumptions that we’ve made.

    Thus, the prisons of our minds become the prisons of our lives.



  • The living martyr

    The living martyr

    One of the biggest hang ups in life, is wearing our hurt as a badge of honour.

    Our need to have our struggle recognised is born from the belief that we will not be appreciated if others don’t know what we went through.

    It is born from the belief that our shortcomings must be tolerated or understood, or even accommodated by others because they don’t know what we’ve been through.

    While some may look at this and think that it’s a reasonable expectation of compassion, the truth is, when we look to be seen in this way, we diminish the capacity we have to move beyond it.

    We end up investing in the oppressed version of ourselves, while blaming the world for oppressing us.

    If you believe that persevering through struggle is all you’re capable of, you’re oppressing yourself long before anyone else undermines your value.

    Do you really believe that you’re capable of nothing more than to survive the struggles of your life, or do you believe that you have something of value to offer this world, despite your struggles?

    Your answer to that question will determine if you live to survive by the rules of others, or if you live with a passion to leave this world in a better state than it was before your arrival because you believe you have something of value to contribute.

  • Own your life

    Own your life

    Owning your life doesn’t mean controlling every aspect of your life.

    Instead, it means that you are mindful about what and who you allow to influence your decisions and outcomes in your life.

    Like most things in life, moderation is important.

    Knowing when to take the reins and when to have it over to someone who knows better is key to growth and happiness.

    The need to control everything about our lives is driven by fear, rather than inspiration or ambition.

    Also, when we choose to control, we also prevent good and sincere advisors from guiding us.

    Control is fear based because we need predictability, which is driven by our belief that we are incapable of dealing with unexpected changes.

    It’s that belief that we need to challenge when we want to own our life. Because our belief that we’re incapable of dealing with change places control in the circumstances around us, and causes us to react to everything, rather than to own our response.

  • Self pity destroys everything

    Self pity destroys everything

    Self pity destroys the very life that we wish we had.

    It is spawned by the belief that the future holds nothing for us, because the injustices of our past remain unavenged, or unappreciated.

    Without realising it, we become defined by our struggle, and lose ourselves in the process.

    Until we are faced with one who sees the beauty and the potential that we’ve lost sight of.

    Sadly, at that point, we feel torn between hope and shame.

    Hope that what we wanted all this time is finally reachable, and fear that our inadequacy may be discovered, leaving us abandoned or rejected once more.

    Because, if we were discarded when we gave off our best, surely we’ll be rejected or judged harshly now that we’re at our worst.

    At least, that is what we have convinced ourselves is true because of our fixation on the brutality of our past.

    That’s the root cause of the self pity that now destroys any good that threatens to expose our vulnerability, our neediness, or our shortcomings that gave someone we once trusted enough reason to reject us.

    Until we realise that it was our choice, albeit an innocent and unintended choice, to be defined by our struggles, we’ll assume that anyone expecting more from us, or believing in us, is an attempt to undermine the struggle that we have endured, and continue to battle.

    That’s how self pity creates the vicious cycles of repeat abandonment, while we convince ourselves that the subsequent abandonment justifies our need to protect ourselves from rejection.

    If you’re struggling to break this cycle, reach out via my website at zaidismail.com or on WhatsApp at +27836599183 and let’s create the life that you’ve always wanted. And deserve.