Tag: lifecoaching

  • Does your therapist stroke your ego?

    Does your therapist stroke your ego?

    You know that old adage about ‘practice what you preach’?

    At some point someone replaced it with ‘those who can’t do, coach’.

    And the world has been worse off since then.

    Yes, I know I identify as a coach, but it would be opportunistic of me to ignore the large number of charlatans using the profession to project their world view on others.

    Too many people are ready to tell the world how to be better, but only so many who try to be better than they were the day before.

    Authenticity is not about the spoken word, it’s about action.

    Everyone has a nugget of wisdom to throw around, but only so many have the conviction to give it life.

    Most often, people already know what they need to change about their lives to be in a better space, but their lack of understanding in how they may be counter productive in their efforts is what holds them back.

    So when you tell them what to change, you’re effectively making them dependent on you for solutions rather than improving their understanding of how life works.

    Good intentions are never enough.

    Understanding the effectiveness of the methods that we adopt is what determines how successful we are at creating the life that we want.

    And because you don’t know what you don’t know, it becomes that much more important to choose your advisors carefully or else you risk getting advice that makes you feel better about your contribution towards the struggles of your life while blaming others for it.

    Are you sure you’re choosing advisors to help you grow, or do your advisors make you feel better about your faults?

    Don’t just preach your philosophy about life, live it.

  • Dreamer or doer?

    Dreamer or doer?

    The absence of balance is stress. Emotional duress. Lack of joy. And so much more.

    The fear of not having, not coping, not achieving, or not thriving is what drives most people to exert themselves in what they think is a good effort towards a fulfilling life.

    Unfortunately, fear never inspires sustainable outcomes.

    The craziness about fear as a motivator is that it simply pushes us to do what we we’re already capable of doing.

    Think about it.

    Fear never creates ability or competence. It only gives us reason to act on the ability and competence we already possess.

    But it’s not what you think ability and competence looks like.

    The only true ability that matters is our ability to figure things out, followed by our courage to act on what we’ve figured out.

    Fear is what gets in the way of acting on what we know or believe to be true or what is needed.

    Understand your fears and you’ll find balance.

    React to your fears and you’ll either be a dreamer or a doer, but you will struggle to find peace or harmony, or even fulfilment in anything that you achieve.


  • Are you owning it?

    Are you owning it?

    This is a painful truth for many.

    One of the most prominent trends in people’s lives when things go wrong, is that they surround themselves with those who make them feel better about where they’re at, rather than those who push them to step up and own their life.

    You won’t ever grow beyond your current challenges if you constantly have people telling you how brave you are for living with it.

    Cherish those who hold you to a higher standard, not those who pacify you when you’re wrong.

    Of the rarest of creation, I believe, must be the sincere advisor.

    Too many offer advice because they think it’s good advice and not because they genuinely understand or are invested in supporting or uplifting the one who is experiencing difficulties.

    Such advisors regurgitate advice that worked for them, meaning well, but not realising that they’re making it about them rather than focusing on what you’re grappling with.

    If you find a sincere and credible advisor (emphasis on credible), cherish them, because their commitment is to your upliftment, and not to their own ego.

  • The path to peace is gratitude

    The path to peace is gratitude

    The path to peace, internal peace, is to see yourself clearly through the muck and the mire of the world around you.

    Peace is found in being true to who you are in the midst of a maddening crowd.

    It’s found in knowing that we can only ever choose how we respond to life, and learn from the effectiveness of those choices each time that we are required to make them.

    Peace is found in being content with what we understand to be the reasons for our poorly informed decisions so that we can learn from it, rather than shackle ourselves to our past because of it.

    Peace is found in not creating fragments of ourselves in different carefully hidden spaces of our shame or our sadness, but seeing it as intricate parts of who we are in our entirety.

    Peace is found in resisting the labels and the judgements as defining attributes of our being, but rather using those as input into informing the paths that we choose to follow in our journey of figuring out how life works.

    Peace is found in building on what holds goodness rather than berating ourselves or others in what resulted from poorly informed decisions.

    When we live life towards honouring the life that we have rather than lamenting the life that we don’t have, we find gratitude.

    And gratitude is the antidote for every illness of the heart, and every ache of the soul.

    Gratitude and accountability are roommates, and anger is the unscrupulous landlord that evicts both.

  • Feeling triggered?

    Feeling triggered?

    ⚠️ Trigger warning ⚠️ archive post.

    Blaming chemicals for your emotional state is like blaming the overflowing rivers for the rain.

    Smile, and you generate feel good hormones even if you don’t have a good reason to smile.

    That’s science, not conjecture. If you don’t believe me, Google the science of a smile. And while you’re at it, Google neuroplasticity to see how your brain REACTS to new information and experiences, and does not create those perspectives.

    Don’t dehumanise the human experience by labelling it as an illness.

    Take back your agency by understanding why you may feel the way that you do.

    Stop judging yourself or others harshly for being human.

    I wish we’d realise that by defining the human experience as an illness, we effectively dehumanise the human experiencing it.

    Think about that the next time you convince yourself or others that their reasons for experiencing an intensity of emotions is due to chemicals and not because their life experiences and perspectives warrant such a reaction.

    It’s time to start understanding, instead of judging harshly, or abdicating responsibility for who we are.

    Every emotional experience has a legitimate basis within the context of our life.

    Whether we’re correct or incorrect about why we feel that way doesn’t change the fact that we, in our mind, have reason to feel that way.

    Understand that, connect the dots to your experiences, and suddenly an overwhelming emotion becomes a source of information to work with rather than to fear or to suppress it.

    Own your life before it owns you.



  • Stop looking in that mirror

    Stop looking in that mirror

    We rarely look in the mirror to see ourselves.

    Most often, we look to see what we think others see when they look at us.

    This focus on how we appear distracts us from who we want to be.

    Reflection on the events of our lives that have shaped our expectations and aspirations don’t happen while looking in the mirror.

    At best, the mirror offers a frame within which to judge ourselves, both kindly or harshly.

    But that we need the mirror to judge remains true.

    We change the course of life when we focus on the effectiveness and wisdom that informs our actions.

    Those are most clearly seen through our honest observation of the impact we have versus the impact we hoped to have.

    Falling short of our aspirations is a reason to recalibrate our efforts and methods, never a reason to judge ourselves into giving up.

    Look in the mirror only for as long as is needed to remember who you are.

    Any longer, and you’ll lose yourself to who you want others see when they look at you.

    Or worse, you’ll see yourself through the eyes of those who don’t understand you.

    Stop looking in that mirror and embrace your life.

  • Your intentions are never enough

    Your intentions are never enough

    There is often an unintended entitlement that sets in for those who are trying to make up for the impact of their behaviour on others.

    The entitlement comes through in how we expect our efforts to be received.

    If we apologise, we expect it to be accepted.

    If we comfort, we expect them to feel comforted.

    If we hug them, we expect them to hug us back.

    The one who causes the offence does not get to decide how the offended must forgive or understand.

    Until we connect with this reality, we will continue to downplay the impact that we have on others while believing that they just don’t understand or don’t care about how difficult it is for us.

    When we caused harm, it stops being about us and starts being about those we harmed.

    If we are sincere in our convictions to make right what we did wrong, we won’t feel entitled to our efforts being accepted. Instead, we’ll be focused on being more effective in our efforts to make things right.

    That test of our conviction is what many fail, resulting in the offenders parading as victims and the offended being painted as unreasonable or cruel.

    Check yourself when you apologise or try to make up for something you did wrong.

    If you don’t, you will sour important relationships for all the wrong reasons while blaming them for your actions.

  • Good intentions are not enough

    Good intentions are not enough

    Believing in the universe waiting to serve you is no different than believing that the world revolves around your every need.

    Good intentions do not automatically result in beneficial outcomes. In fact, it too often results in harm.

    There’s a reason for the popularity of that old proverb that says that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

    Understand why your methods may not be effective in achieving what you intend to achieve, and you’ll find yourself less reliant on whispering to the universe and more confident in owning your life.

    Good intentions are never enough.

    Never have been enough.

    Never will be enough.

    Until you are willing to own the methods, the behaviours, the actions that you carry out to fulfil your intentions, you’ll always have reason to believe that life is working against you, or that others don’t appreciate you. Etc.

    Own your life before it owns you.