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In our society, it’s easy to feel like you need to constantly be proving yourself and your abilities. We’re told from an early age that we need to succeed in order to feel worthy of being loved, and that we shouldn’t trust anyone until we’ve proven ourselves.

But what if the opposite was true? And what if the only way you could ever truly feel worthy was by first trusting yourself and then finding ways to love and appreciate who you are?

These types of messages can make it difficult for us to accept our flaws or embrace our inner wholeness. However, this is exactly what we all need in order to start making changes in our lives that will help us become happier versions of ourselves.

Everyone who chooses to see a therapist, counsellor or coach is looking to reinvent a part or all of themselves by making a change to how they perceive a situation, themselves or others or to change the way they are perceived by making some changes to...

Why we develop bad habits 

Have you ever found yourself engaging in a bad habit and wondering why you can't seem to stop? Unfortunately, it's common to fall into bad habits – whether it’s procrastination, unhealthy eating, or neglecting self-care. In your quest for self-improvement, know that discovering and understanding the underlying reasons for these bad habits is the first step toward making positive changes. 

Common reasons for developing bad habits

There are many reasons for taking up bad habits, but the following are among the most common. 

1. Boredom - When bored, turning to unhealthy habits to pass the time or find entertainment is not unusual. To overcome boredom-related bad habits, it’s important to find activities that are engaging and meaningful to you. This might involve taking up a new hobby, volunteering, or pursuing personal growth opportunities.

2. Stress - Stress is a common trigger for bad habits such as...

Do you often find yourself saying ‘It’s not that bad, it could be worse’, or you might even catch yourself saying to a friend, “I don’t like my job but at least I have one!” These are both examples of toxic positivity.

What is the meaning of toxic positivity?

Toxic positivity is defined as the act of rejecting or denying stress, negativity, or other negative experiences that exist (Sokal, Trudel, & Babb, 2020). It comes in two different forms;

1. Toxic positivity you can receive from someone or give to someone, and

2. Toxic positivity you can inflict on yourself.

Essentially, toxic positivity is glossing over the ‘hard stuff’ which can impact your self-esteem and erode your confidence. It has been shown people with high levels of toxic positivity are less successful, perceived to be more selfish and naïve.

Sincere positivity vs toxic positivity

It can sometimes be difficult to distinguish between sincere...

It’s that time of year when aspiring individuals reflect on the past year and re-focus on how to make positive changes this coming year. Recognising what worked and what didn't. Not going to be you? Think carefully about your decision. By deciding not to set goals you’re setting yourself up to another year of the same. Even stay-at-home parents and students reflect on the previous year and make plans for the year. You don't need to have a high-powered job to set goals. Everyone who hopes for a better future has goals and dreams, unfortuantely not everyone focuses their energy to achieve them. Focusing your energy to achieve your hopes and dreams is the first step towards achieving your goals.

Follow these 5 steps to help you get closer to your goals.

1. Setting goals allows you to laser focus on what you want.
Instead of waking every morning with no idea of what tasks to focus on, having your goals written down allows you to make a daily to do list with tasks...

Have you considered your goals for 2022 yet? Goals provide an objective standard to which you can evaluate your success. They also help you stay motivated and provide focus to increase the likelihood of you reaching those goals. Some people think the planning stage is boring and unnecessary but even successful people who prefer the “fly by the seat of your pants” approach to their life and career have specific goals in mind. Not having goals is equivalent to boarding a train and never getting off! That would be mad to do, wouldn’t it?   

Take a few minutes and think about what you want to accomplish in your personal life and professional life and make sure you’re not making any of these mistakes in your goal-setting process. 

5 goal setting mistakes smart people make 

1. Procrastinating

You don’t need to wait until you get back to work to set your goals or wait for a sign before you finalise them. Instead, set quarterly...

If you’re like most people who struggle to make changes and make them a habit, then you’re always on the lookout for a better way to achieve your goals. But it seems like you’re setting yourself up for disappointment each time.

In this article I am going to show you how you can make the changes you want to make before the end of the year by using micro-habits and how to make micro-habits stick. Micro-habits combine the power of habits and minimal resistance, so you have a greater chance of succeeding in making the changes you desire.

Habit vs micro habit?

A habit is ‘a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up’. Often a habit is learned and automatic and it requires intentionality to interrupt the automatic pattern.

When setting a new habit, we often struggle to embed it because it is too big. Ideally to be successful at changing a habit we need to focus on the micro-habits that make up the...

If changing habits were easy, there wouldn’t be so many books written on the topic and I would be out of a job!

As you notice signs of the loosening of lockdown, you can allow yourself to imagine your life post lockdown. While you may have struggled through the physical distancing, reduced socialising and managing to go without, you now have an opportunity to design how you emerge into this new way of being.  

You have shown through your experience that you can adapt, dodge and accept situations for what they are when you need to. And now it’s time to call on those skills again to prepare to emerge strong; to declutter from the no longer helpful skills (4pm wine o’clock and Netflix series binges to name a few) and adopt an approach that will support you as you re-integrate into your socialised world.

What habits do you want to change?

I’m betting that there are a good of number of habits that you have adopted that you don’t...

“Self-knowledge is the first step to maturity” Jane Austen.

You come into the world alone and you spend every minute with yourself until you depart the world, yet you may not know yourself as well as you think you do.

Unfortunately, if you don’t know yourself, it’s hard to make progress. It’s like driving a car that doesn’t run well, but you refuse to look under the hood to optimize the engine. Unfortunately, those issues won’t repair themselves. They may well get worse and stop your car from running.

When I think of self-awareness I’m always reminded of the Johari Window developed by  psychologists Joseph Luft (1916-2014) and Harrington Ingham (1916-1995), which is a tool used to demonstrate four levels of self-awareness:

1. I know what I know about myself and you know it too (Known)
2. I don’t know that about me but you know it about me (Blind Spot)
3. We don’t know what we don’t know about me...