Life Coaching

Keep Your Love Bubble When The Lockdown Bubble Pops

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[Illustration by the amazing Sue Kerr.]

I’ve been thinking about this post for a while, and it feels poignant to be writing it on our country’s last day of the 4 week and 4 day lockdown at the highest alert level. From midnight tonight, we move into a 2-week lockdown at an alert level below. For many of us life will be exactly the same for the next two weeks: homeschooling the kids, working from home, only going out for fresh air and groceries. We will be able to get takeaways however, and those working in the construction industry start operating again. Kids of essential workers get to go to school, although they will still need to socially distance. As we’ve known about this upcoming transition for a week or so, I’ve been reflecting a lot on the past four weeks and four days spent in lockdown, in our family ‘bubble’.

Am I the only one that’s going to miss it? Am I the only one that feels a slight sense of dread at the possibility of life returning to the old ‘normal’?  It’s a funny old dynamic, because there are things we’ve missed about our old life, and there are also things we haven’t missed and prefer about our new one. We are not the only ones, surely?

I’m aware that I’m writing this in a very privileged position. We have a warm, decent and lovely home and a good marriage. For some people, being stuck inside their bubble would be nothing short of torturous or even dangerous. Some families are now struggling to meet basic financial commitments. I feel for people affected in this way, I think about those less privileged than us every single day. 

What have we really missed during this pandemic lockdown? It only really came down to two things: mountain biking (husband) and socialising (me). 

What have we not missed as much as we thought we would? Going out to cafes and restaurants; buying stuff, constant consumerism; beauty treatments; too many choices about how to spend our time; travelling a lot to catch up with our wider social network; constant busy-ness; always future planning and arranging of our lives. 

My to-do list has never – and I do mean never – had so little on it. Perhaps bar that intense newborn baby period where the only things I had to do were to feed and look after the baby. I’ve honestly never had so few commitments in my adult life! It helps that I’m currently not working and still on maternity leave as it would be different if this was not the case. But either way, it’s a notable difference. I don’t have to be anywhere on time, there’s no rushing around. I don’t even have to wear proper clothes if I don’t want to! 

What have we really enjoyed, that we would like to keep as a constant when life transitions into its new ‘normal’? We’ve looked after each other as a couple so much more and better than previously. We are acutely aware that if one of us starts burning out then the whole bubble will pop. Instead of keeping a record of who has had more time off than who, we’ve become really generous with one another, purposefully making sure the other one is getting time out and rest so everyone can do well. We’ve enjoyed being home just much more, and the simplicity of life. I’ve liked that I have so few choices, it’s made me slow down and focus on what’s right in front of me, rather than always planning and preparing. This is present moment (mindfulness) practice, which is necessary, and also very hard, but the circumstances have helped me be more present. I personally have spent much more time in our garden – previously my husband’s domain – and I’ve enjoyed getting to know it. I’ve caught up with my friends on video call more often than I ever would have before, and more of them too. It’s not the same as seeing them, but conversations have been more frequent and I’ve loved that. We’ve enjoyed buying more foods in bulk and having reserves in the freezer. I was not looking forward to my eldest starting school. I was struggling emotionally with her turning five and it being the end of an era. I was thinking about how much I’d miss her. And now we’ve got to spend all this time together, and her with her baby sister too. We all sleep in, and the day has a casual pace. I find that mentally I do better when I can achieve one adult thing for myself per day, and that we can have something tangible to show for our home learning too.

Of course I’ve missed every day freedoms, and I really miss going to choir (online choir is just not the same, although still fun). Having had this contrast however, I can see why these ‘freedoms’ can complicate life. You actually spend so much time going from here to there and coordinating stuff. Without those options you invest more in what’s accessible right in front of you – each other. We’ve had so much more intimacy, and more deliberate family time. It’s been so precious.

Whatever situation you’re in, there’s no doubt that over the last month or so, you’ve had the experience of a stark contrast to your previous every day life. What has this experience of contrast taught you? What parts of it were special, where you experienced positive things like togetherness, and love? How has it helped you shape what is truly important to you, having most of your freedoms taken away? If it’s been a crap experience, what can you learn from it? What things do you need to bring in, so that if you were in this situation again, it would be a better experience for you?

Wherever you are, take the time to reflect. It’s an opportunity for a new clarity on our life. Most of the world have had this opportunity.

Many people feel powerless to change their situation – yet I offer you these reflections now: What has this time highlighted for you? What IS in your control? How do you want life to be?

I would love to hear your reflections – we’re all in this together! Feel free to FB comment or email me. 

From one love bubble to another, Charlotte x

Turning 42 In a Global Pandemic

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[Illustration by the amazing Sue Kerr]

This was supposed to be an entirely different post about staying positive about your kids during lockdown and homeschooling. But, having two kids at home myself and going in and out of positivity means that I missed the boat on that one!  Perhaps I will give it another go soon. Today I want to write something more personal, as it is the day I turn 42 years of age, three and a half weeks into our country’s official four week lockdown.

What does it mean to me to be turning 42 during this time? I reflect upon my life. Perhaps I am half way through it? Or more? Or less?

We are living through a global pandemic and trying to save lives with our behaviour, so in the cold hard face of things any of us could die at any moment (which of course is always the case! However this fact is certainly highlighted during this COVID-19 pandemic where so many have lost their lives globally.)  I’m sure I’m not the only one who transitions between feeling very grounded and grateful, to feeling clingy and fearful.  There is a certain freedom however, that opens up when you consider that life can be taken from you at any time: what is truly important to you is unapologetically highlighted to you. You are forced to sort the wheat from the chaff.  How you choose to spend your time – without the  hustle and bustle of  ‘normal’ face-to-face commitments – changes.  As I write this on a day that is raining, where my baby is sleeping peacefully in her cot, where my husband and eldest daughter are drawing pictures together in the dining room, where I reflect upon all the seasons of my life, I can’t help but feel I’m exactly where I need to be right here right now.

From the ages of 16-27, I partook in the taking of class-A party drugs much in the same way people embark on an exciting career: I got better and better at it and revelled in its rewards. An apt variation of our Prime Minister’s current mantra of ‘go early, go hard’. I was often the last woman standing. I honestly look back on those days – and the beautiful friends that shared it with me – and wonder how we all survived. There were certainly times when I didn’t think I would, and would eventually fall sleep after a multiple-day bender totally prepared for the fact that I may not wake up again. A small portion of it was certainly unhealthy escapism stemming from family and childhood troubles. And, a large portion of it was simply the down-and-dirty hedonism of the 90s-00s. I’ve got so many amazing memories of that time – many presenting themselves afresh to me today – and although I would never be able to do anything remotely like it again, I have no regrets!

Then I found myself in New Zealand. I arrived at age 26 and turned 27 a few weeks later. I did a sky-dive on my 27th birthday, and threw up behind a tree upon the landing, the effects of the previous night’s celebrations catching up with me. The months that followed my arrival in NZ were to mark the beginning of the self-development journey that I will be on for the rest of my life (and maybe beyond). I completely stopped all drinking, drug taking, partying and went to a buddhist meditation school where I learned a loving kindness method that I’ve not forgotten. Ironically, I got a part-time job in a bar to earn money to pay for my NLP training. I was the oldest and soberest person there, including the managing staff. In short, I got still. And things started to open up and fundamental healing shifts began to occur. I did what I had never been able to do before, choose a career, start a business, and get good at it.

I met my husband to be at age 33. This marked another new phase in life. Burned out from running the business, we packed up our city lives and headed for a semi-rural arrangement. Shortly afterwards we married. Shortly after this we started renovating our home. Somehow amongst this we managed to conceive our first daughter, who I gave birth to five days shy of my 37th birthday. Coming into motherhood – and doing so somewhat ‘late’ – signalled another fundamental shift: my first experience of mental illness in the form of post-natal distress (PND). An awful, life-threatening thing to go through. But I’ve come to call PND ‘the healer in disguise’.  I came out of it fundamentally and positively changed, in a way I can never put words to.  

And so the phase of parenthood continued, with all its challenges and rewards.

And then I turned 40. 

I had my 40th birthday at the same time I was rehearsing for a local theatre production which was due to open in a few days. My first foray into the performing arts since leaving the city. I had recently found out that I was pregnant, too. I remember on my birthday feeling like I had everything: I was pregnant, I was performing, I was happy working again. The sad realities of fate intervened: I caught the flu (or something close enough to it) and I had to go on stage totally sick. I lost the baby. No one can know for sure why one miscarries, only that they are so common (a fact you only discover once you’ve had your own). It was an awful time for our family and an extended period of stress. 

You know how this story ends, because I have two healthy girls, and I worked hard to get both of them into the world. This time a blissful and natural water birth. Another bout of PND, however; another recovery. Quicker this time.  Another experience of the ‘healer in disguise’ and a fundamental shift in who I am. Again, impossible to put words to it. Only to say that I’m so grateful for the healing that offered itself to me, and the people who helped me receive it. 

And now here I find myself. So grateful for this previous and wild life and the souls that share it with me in my bubble. Your are the universe to me. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And happy birthday to me. 

With all my love, Charlotte. 

This Is It – Don’t Wait To Be Happy

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Picture from the wonderful Sue Kerr www.suekerr.ca

I now have a 4-nearly-5 year-old and a nearly-7-month-old. This is my first attempt at writing since I went on maternity leave in July 2019. I was ready for a break from my desk then, and now I’m ready to write.

Two things happen to me when I give life: I put on 20kg at least during pregnancy which sticks around, and I get a mental illness called Post-natal Distress (more commonly known as post-natal or postpartum depression, PPD or PND). With my firstborn it was worse and I was in denial for a long time, which meant it didn’t get accurately treated and I was in a very bad space for 7 months. I eventually got on the right trajectory and started healing, but it took a year to gain the beginnings of a sense of normality. Obviously my husband and I were reticent to have another child after barely surviving that period.

And we did. I was in a great space, I had done a lot of healing and was vital again, it was a good 3 years down the track. I’d had a miscarriage not long before and I felt very resilient through that experience, sad, but resilient. I worked with the health professionals in my life to put a lot of preventative measures in place, so I could avoid it happening. I strategised, I planned, I thought of every little detail. I prepared our friends and family thoroughly, and was clear about what kind of support we would need for those who wanted to give it. I put a lot in place to cope with it, if it happened.  Yet, that optimistic part of me thought I was just playing lip-service to the whole thing, not truly believing it could possibly happen again. Not this time.

It happened. It hit us at 4 weeks postpartum, just like last time. I was highly anxious and permanently in fight-flight, just like last time. However, last time I had a long stretch of anxiety and then a long stretch of depression. This time I would yo-yo back and forth between the two, as if my nervous system couldn’t decide where it wanted to be: one day intense anxiety and the next intense depression. Unlike last time, I had another child to consider and care for through it all. It has not been easy. We all have our own challenges and ‘crosses to bear’ so to speak. This is my struggle, and I own it as it is. It may or not be better or worse than others have it – who knows? It is however, my own personal struggle and journey.

I was unwell, it was yucky. I’ll spare the details.

My strategising and pre-planning wasn’t enough to stop biology (unfortunately – perhaps nothing is?), but it did mean we were supported and I passed through the worse of it a lot quicker. I’ve been my ‘normal’ self (whatever that means) 98% of the time for a good few months now. I threw every and any treatment I had available to me at it – which I will be talking about in subsequent posts – the conventional and the non-conventional. Who knows what worked, when, and what combination of things? I remember a number of significant and specific times where I  turned a corner. And I kept on turning those corners, and still am.

I woke up one morning recently and I felt that this truth had settled upon me in my sleep somehow: This Is It.

My life is happening right now. And I’m choosing to participate in it RIGHT NOW. Every messy, non-perfect part of it. My mind can trick me into a an imaginary time line that says ‘things will be better when…..’ or ‘I can be happy when…..’

when the baby can sit

when the baby is older

when life is more organised

when I can socialise more

when I can sleep more

when Pup goes to school

when we can walk everywhere

when we can go on holiday

when I’m skinny

when I can go back to work

when we get a pay rise

when…when…when……..

The list is endless, right?!

It’s an effort to stay in this place of NOW – of fully participating in life in the present and messy moment, and not waiting for the ‘if/whens’. Can I pull it off all the time? No, it’s hard. Yet it is worth the effort. There’s no fantasy future where all the parts of your life are tied up into neat little bows. The journey and the struggle is real. And, two seemingly opposing things can be true at the same time – more on that in the next post.

Can you be aware of your ‘life will be better when….’ thoughts, and challenge them by waking up into the present moment? Just gently focusing on your senses, what you can feel, hear and see? What can you pay attention to that brings you in to this RIGHT NOW moment in your life?

Charlotte x

Overcoming the Self-Sabotage Constraints of the Critic

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I’m getting such good questions through from people in regards to the Inner Critic to Inner Coach eCourse. I’m so glad people are emailing me with their concerns. There is one very common theme:

What if I invest in it and do every step, but it doesn’t work for ME? What if I’m just a hopeless case after all? 

Let me tell you a personal story. Last year I wanted to hire a business coach. I was looking at a 4-figure investment for a short period of coaching. I’d never done anything like that before. It took me AGES to make my buying decision. And do you know what came up for me?

What if I invest all this money and it doesn’t work for me?

I’m an honest person, I don’t make things up, and I kid you not. The fear and the self-doubt disabled me for a good while. And here’s what I learnt about my Inner Critic during that process:

When you are about to step out of your comfort zone, take a risk or a chance, possibly change life for the better, the Critic GETS LOUDER.

It wants to sabotage you, hold you back, and keep you small.

If you follow me you’ll know what a huge fan of Brene Brown I am. I advocate her work whenever and wherever I can. I’ve absorbed most things she’s ever said or written. When her Netflix special came out, I didn’t dive into it right away. I wanted to save it for when the time was right. I wanted to savour looking forward to it. And that time was over the last few days. Have you seen it? I’m sure the pregnancy hormones are playing a role, but I teared up like every five minutes watching it! It resonates. And it resonates with millions of us around the world.

She defines vulnerability as: risk, uncertainty and emotional exposure. She teaches that no single act of true courage exists without this.

And here’s exactly what we’re facing. When we are about to step out and ‘dare’ – even if in just a small way – your Critic will step up. Because your Critic DOES NOT LIKE VULNERABILITY. Vulnerability to it is danger. And ultimately, its evolutionary design is to keep you safe from danger. I talk about why and how it does this on the course. What’s important to get now is that when it senses vulnerability it will self-sabotage and engineer to hold you back and keep you small. That’s what it is designed to do.

Because, you are on the brink of experiencing the juicy fundamentals of life that we are hard-wired to want and need in the bigger picture of things. Joy. Love. Belonging. And these were not in the evolutionary big picture when our fear-centred hard-wiring was in the making. When your Inner Critics were in design. Survival was the only thing on the hard-wiring agenda. Your Critic is SCARED SHITLESS of these breakthroughs. And when it senses their possibility IT WILL GET LOUDER, SABOTAGE, HOLD YOU BACK, AND KEEP YOU SMALL.

Yet, on the deeper levels of our being, we know we don’t like the experience of being held back, of staying small, of not achieving what’s important to us. Because we are neurobiologically hard-wired to want to be brave; to achieve our goals, to expand, to experience those juicy fundamentals of life. These are the things that make our lives worth living.

If you are experiencing that self-sabotage, self-doubt of: what if I invest in it, do every step, but it doesn’t work for ME? What if I’m just a hopeless case after all? then just know you are not alone. It is just the Critic doing its evolutionary task. And it means you NEED THIS WORK.

How else are we to take ourselves from fear and fear of vulnerability, to trusting ourselves and taking a chance? Yes, you need coaching! And you know the VERY BEST KIND of coaching?  The coaching you can learn to do ON YOURSELF, FOR YOURSELF.  Learning how to overcome the Critic and develop a full-proof Inner Coaching practice that’s inside your head, available to you 24/7, absolutely free of charge, and there supporting you and encouraging you 100%.

In other words, in my experience, this is the only way I’ve managed to learn how to answer “The Call To Courage” that Brene Brown wants us to answer.

Once I’d worked out that my doubts were just my Critic piping up and wanting to hold me back, I took the plunge and invested in the business coaching. And I got my results, because I made sure I made it work for me.

It’s not the Critic who counts. Inside or outside of your head. It’s not the Critic who counts.

With love and a small amount of daring, Charlotte xx

P.s. Please get in touch with ANY questions. I’m here to answer them and support you for the next 4 weeks until baby comes.

I’m calling BS on the whole ‘peaceful parenting’ ideal!

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The last two mornings have been really tough, and I’ve shouted at my child.

I’m not proud of losing my temper, not at all. And if I’ve gone down in your estimation by admitting it, then so be it. Feel free to unsubscribe now. I gave up the belief that I had to be perfect in order to effectively help others some years ago (probably around the same time I became a parent!)

I share it with you however because it’s been a grave reminder to me how easy it is for parenting-guilt to arise. In my book The Imperfect Parent I call it the Shitty Guilt Fairy. And oh my, does the Shitty Guilt Fairy love it when I lose the plot! She kicks off her sparkly shoes and settles in, good and proper. And guess what comes with her? You’ve got it, the good old Inner Critic. This version is special however and probably hurts the most  – the Inner Parenting Critic.

The biggest pearl of wisdom I’ve ever learned from a parenting-psychologist (one which I drove 6 hours to go and train with for one day, and 6 hours back) was this:

“F#^k our kids. We give them everything we’ve got and they still demand three times as much!”

And isn’t that just the truth? The parenting equation isn’t one that is set up fairly, in my view. We do our best, we care, and we have the best of intentions to be the BEST parent we can be at any given time. We care for them, love them, teach them right from wrong and try hard to not give them labels that are hard to grow up with

And it’s when we’ve given everything and they still need more and push our buttons, that’s a recipe for losing it. For the last two mornings I’ve encountered nothing but obstacles and complaints one after the other, that have driven me to the end of my tether:

I can’t wear those leggings, the kids will laugh at me (dissolves into screaming fit)
I don’t want that toothbrush I want an electric toothbrush! (dissolves into screaming fit)
I don’t want to wear that because it’s been in the washing machine! (dissolves into screaming fit)
I wanted to sleep with my glo-ears on! I didn’t want you to take them off! (dissolves into screaming fit)
My socks are falling down! (dissolves into screaming fit)
My egg tastes like a vanilla tree and it’s making me really sick! (refuses to eat, dissolves into screaming fit)

Let me be really clear on my stance on parenting and why I wrote my book: I DO NOT BELIEVE in courses that claim to achieve “Peaceful Parenting”. If you’ve done them and they’ve worked for you, and you can remain 100% calm 100% of the time, then good for you! I’ve received criticism for this stance on social media and I’m fine with that. It doesn’t change my stance. I find the most effective way of living my life is to be a realist. For me, these so called ‘goals’ are lofty and unattainable and therefore extremity unhelpful to us as parents in the expectations they create. I don’t believe they are achievable, and when we fail to achieve them, as we inevitably will, it simply gives us another reason to beat ourselves up. In my view, even the Dalai Lama would struggle to keep his cool after 24 hours of parenting. And who knows how he’d do with a particular challenging child, or doing it solo, or doing it sleep-deprived, or a combination of all three?

Of course we all want to be calmer and not lose it quite so often. But because of the above – that we give them all we have and they still demand three times as much– losing it is inevitable. And what I DO NOT LIKE  is the cruel guilt-driven beat ups that parents give themselves about being “a bad mum” or “not cut out for this” or whatever. I’m calling BS on the whole thing!! 

Losing it is inevitable. How we treat ourselves in response to that is optional. 

I’m not going to lie. I’ve heard my Inner Parenting Critic the last few days. I’ve felt the guilt, and it’s hurt. I’ve been in floods of tears, completely undone by it all. And you know what? I’m so glad I know how to get myself out of that spiral these days. If I didn’t have an Inner Coach Practice (and let’s face it some really good friends) then I dread to think how far down the spiral I would actually go. Once again, if I go down in your estimations for admiring that, then so be it. But it’s the truth.

Self-compassion, self-empathy, forgiveness and kindness are the only ways to genuinely learn and move on. 

With love for all the parents out there. It’s the hardest job in the world, and because you care and are self-aware, you’re doing amazingly well.

Charlotte x

Video 8: Achieving Goals

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Welcome to Video 8 of my free 8-day Video Series leading up to the launch of my Inner Critic to Inner Coach eCourse. Every day I’ll be talking about an area of significance to your life, and how negative self-talk either causes or perpetuates that problem. And then importantly, a quick-and-dirty instant solution that you can use right away to make a difference to yourself. In this case how to set a goal and actually achieve it.

The secrets of achieving goals? Firstly, you need to have one. Do you have a goal you’re working towards? If not then get one! Goals are really important, your brain loves them. Working towards something in your life makes you feel happier and builds up self-confidence.

Secondly, you need to believe you can achieve it. This part is influenced by two things:

  1. the goal actually being achievable and possible. If you’re just 4 feet tall, you’re probably not going to make it as professional basketball player.
  2. your internal self-talk

The first one is fairly straight forward. Your goal needs to have the right amount of challenge and stretch for you, which is relative to the situation you’re currently in. When I was unwell with Post-natal Distress (PND) my goal was to get through the day having completed some very basic tasks, like feed baby, sleep baby. And, later on when I became slightly better, make dinner. Conversely when I was thriving as an employed Lead Coach in a large government department, my goals were very different!  Ask – is it realistic for me? Is it actually possible/achievable? Asking a third person for their opinion can be a great way to check.

In terms of #2, if you have crappy internal dialogue playing in your head, then you will be very unlikely to achieve your goal. It will erode your belief in yourself by telling you you can’t do it, you’re not good enough to have it, or, the old favourite – who do you think you are?  In other words, WHO ARE YOU TO HAVE THIS?

You will then either be afraid of failure, or success, because with a lack of an Inner Coach practice, you won’t have a plan to support yourself 100% no matter what happens. Yes fear of success is something that can happen!

This will lead to some of those very unhelpful patterns that we have all experienced at some stage – self-sabotage and procrastination to name a few.

The solution? A self-talk revolution will be extremely helpful to you, which is the point of the eCourse. And, in the meantime, try these two things:

  1. write down the very first, tiniest little step you can take towards this goal.  Just the very first one, and make it small.
  2. write down why it is possible for YOU to achieve it. What strength or past achievement or resource do you possess, that will help you?

I talk a lot about learning how to ‘have your own back’ and supporting yourself 100% no matter what, in the Inner Critic to Inner Coach eCourse. They are such essential stills to develop in order to achieve anything. Knowing you can manage potential ‘failure’ is everything.

Any questions, please get in touch!

Love, Charlotte x

Video 7: How To Boost Self-Confidence

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Welcome to Video 7 of my free 8-day Video Series leading up to the launch of my Inner Critic to Inner Coach eCourse. Every day I’ll be talking about an area of significance to your life, and how negative self-talk either causes or perpetuates that problem. And then importantly, a quick-and-dirty instant solution that you can use right away to make a difference to yourself. In this case a distinction and a tool to help you boost your self-confidence.

I just love this topic of self-confidence, because this is a huge part of what the Inner Critic to Inner Coach© Process is about! I make the distinction between self-confidence and the self-esteem in the earlier self-esteem post.

I want to make another distinction: between inside-confidence and outside-confidence. Let me tell you a brief story. When I was growing up as a teen and a young adult, when I still lived in England, I had a lot of outside-confidence. I was loud and said what I thought. I was brave and did scary things. I was socially competent and funny. To all I seemed a very ‘confident’ person. Once I moved in New Zealand and started my – what was going to be a never-ending, but in a good way! – self-development journey, I did so much healing. Because on the inside I didn’t feel confident, almost at all. I was highly insecure and needy; I doubted myself incessantly; I hated my body and appearance; my self-worth was in the toilet most of the time; I didn’t believe in an ounce of my own intelligence and I had no proper aspirations for myself. Yes, I put myself out there, but because it was the only way I knew how to get approval from others and keep them liking me, something I desperately needed to stay afloat in my life.

Once I’d done about 3 years of intense inner-work, I finally felt like I’d ‘bridged the gap’ between the outside and the inside. I felt so much more whole, and more self-confident in a very genuine way. I went back to London for a visit, and asked my friends if they’d noticed any differences in me. The overall answer was – ‘no’!  I guess that’s the thing with outside-confidence – it’s extremely convincing. However I felt the difference on the inside, which is the point.

Of course all the issues with self-confidence I’ve described can be solved by putting a stop to the constant Inner Critic and learning how to fundamentally talk to ourselves and therefore treat ourselves differently. So here’s a tip. See if you can begin to distinguish between inside and outside confidence. I’ll give you a clue – the more outside-confidence you have, the less inside-confidence there currently is. You can tell if it’s of the outside kind as your motivation will be about others, rather than you.

A quick way to begin boosting your inside-confidence is by finding real TRUTHS about yourself that you believe in 100% – specifically your abilities, competence or capacity to do something. Something you know about yourself. It could be as simple as: I know that I’m really organised, and this benefits me and the people I live with. Do a brainstorm of these small things that you absolutely believe about your competence and keep this list somewhere. When you need to cultivate that inside-confidence, you have a start.

This is such an important concept that’s explored in much more depth in the training.  For now, try it, and tell me how well it works for you!

And get in touch if you have any questions or comments, I’d love to hear from you.

Charlotte x

Video 6: Getting Out Of A Funk

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Welcome to Video 6 of my free 8-day Video Series leading up to the launch of my Inner Critic to Inner Coach eCourse. Every day I’ll be talking about an area of significance to your life, and how negative self-talk either causes or perpetuates that problem. And then importantly, a quick-and-dirty instant solution that you can use right away to make a difference to yourself. In this case, changing the questions you’re asking yourself to get out of a ‘funk’.

So, what do I mean by a funk? My way of thinking about it is a negative ‘state’ – a state of mind and body that is undesirable to you and unpleasant. For example, worried, distressed, anxious, etc., and also an unhelpful situation that you’re in, which feeds into the bad state.

As we’ve been learning, your internal dialogue and the way you feel are infinitely connected. One feeds into the other. And your self-talk makes bad feelings worse by talking to you or asking you questions which are not helpful and simply take you further down a spiral.

Let me give you an example. Let’s say that you are in a lot of debt, and don’t have much money. When you look at your bank accounts online, and see your negative balance, you will feel bad. What you may not realise, is that in the back of your mind there will be a little guiding question, and it will be structured in a way that only looks for negative answers. For example in this case it’s likely to be some variation of:

How did I get into this mess?

How the hell am I going to get out of this?  

Why is this happening to me? 

This is what we call a Key Question.

These key questions pop up very quickly and are of course spoken to you by your own self-talk inside your own head only. They can be very quiet so you hardly notice them. However, they are powerful, and the nature of them are very unhelpful – inherently focusing on the past and on the negative and not moving you forward at all.

The solution to getting out of these types of funks is to pay attention to your key question in the back of your head, and change it. We want to focus on a future step that’s positive. So any of the above examples could be changed to:

What’s my plan to get out of this?

What’s my next useful step?

Who can I talk to that can help me with this?

Key questions need to be open and start with a what, how, who, how much, and not lead to yes or no answers. And remember, you don’t need to KNOW the answer!  It just helps your brain focus and begin to find a useful answer for you.

Try it and let me know how it works for you!
As always, any questions, you know where I am.

Love Charlotte.

Video 5: Shifting To A Better Feeling Mindset (no more ‘Imposter Syndrome’)

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Welcome to the Video 5 of my free 8-day Video Series in the lead up to the launch of my new eCourse – The Inner Critic to Inner Coach Online Training. Every day I’ll be talking about an area of significance to your life, and how negative self-talk either causes or perpetuates that problem. And then, importantly, a quick-and-dirty instant solution that you can use right away to make a difference to yourself. In this case, the biggest mindset hack for overcoming the so-called ‘syndrome’.

Mindset and Imposter Syndrome – two huge things!  And phrases that are now prolific in the professional / business / entrepreneurial world.

I hear about these MOST OFTEN in the business communities I’m part of. Why?  Because we all know that your mindset basically equals your success – what you believe you can achieve, you will achieve.

However when your belief in yourself starts to falter, for whatever reason, we can get into all kinds of negative spirals: self-sabotage; low-confidence; procrastination; avoidance strategies and so on. All because we don’t want to fail, and we feel like a failure. And once this self-doubting has really kicked in, we start hearing the phrase “I’ve got Imposter Syndrome…..”

You want to hear my BIGGEST mindset hack for this? OK, here it goes:

STOP CALLING IT IMPOSTER SYNDROME!

Because it simply doesn’t exist. The English language has a bad habit of doing this – turning verbs or processes into static things or objects. You don’t have a ‘syndrome’, you don’t have a disease and you don’t have a collection of symptoms. You don’t wake up in the morning and put the ‘imposter’ part of your brain in, do you? As long as you think of it as a ‘thing’ you are powerless to change it. Because what can you do, take a pill?  No.

Understand this – YOU are creating it with YOUR inner dialogue (and other factors will lead up to this creation, but ultimately this is what you’re doing).

I talk about this concept in much more depth in the eCourse because it is a crucial part of you stopping giving away your power, and starting to get your power back.

So, here’s how you get some energy into the situation and activate your personal power again: first step – stop calling it that.

Second step: Take a moment to actually DEFINE what the problem is for you. What are you concerned or worried about? What’s actually going round and round in your head? Write some stuff down until you get something that starts making sense. For example: I’m worried that I’m not qualified for this job and I don’t have the right tools and resources to feel good at it.

Just notice what changes when you do this and how you can start to get yourself a plan for morning forward.

As always – any questions, please give me a shout.

Charlotte x

Video 4: How To Improve Low Self-Esteem

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This is such an important topic!

The distinction between self-esteem and self-confidence (which I’ll be talking about in a few days) is this: self-confidence is how you feel about your abilities, your competencies and your capacity to do something.  Self-esteem is how you feel about YOURSELF – about who you are as a person.

How you feel about yourself as a person depends on what you believe. A belief isn’t objectively ‘correct’ or something ‘absolutely true’ – simply something that your brain holds as ‘absolutely true’. What you believe is fundamentally influenced by what you talk to yourself about inside your head. Your brain doesn’t know the difference between what’s real – what’s really happening out there in the real world – and your internal thoughts, images, words etc. It simply responds as if they were real. Of course, the logical part of you knows the difference, but not the unconscious part. So, what you’re telling yourself about yourself is crucial to what you believe about who you are, and therefore the sum of your self-esteem.

The beginning of a solution to start improving low self-esteem is to find something POSITIVE about yourself and who you are, and make it something you already BELIEVE is absolutely true.  And I advise going with the smallest possible thing – as long as you genuinely believe it about yourself. It’s much better to go small and believable, then go lofty and ideal, as these kinds of things will be rejected by your brain. And make it about YOU – even if it has to be about your appearance. If you have a poor body-image and each time you look in the mirror you’re telling yourself you’re fat and that no-one would want you, then find something about your body/appearance that you absolutely and positively like that’s already rooted in your belief system. It can be as small as “I really like the colour of my eyes”.  And then focus on that when you look in the mirror or think about your body.

There’s a neurological reason why finding an existing positive belief really works to turn this around, which I go into in much more detail in the upcoming eCourse – Inner Critic to Inner Coach.

For now – try this quick self-talk solution, and tell me how it works for you.  Any questions please get in touch!

Charlotte x