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“Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come.” – Dwayne Johnson

When it comes to success, consistency is key. Whether you’re looking to make progress in your career, relationships, or any other aspect of life, staying consistent in your actions is essential.

Consistency allows you to build momentum and start to make real progress. But achieving and maintaining consistency can be difficult. 

Before I share some tips about how to make being consistent easier, I want to talk about the 3 most common barriers to consistency that I encounter with clients in my practice. Without addressing the barriers to consistency, it is hard to implement strategies that help you to become more consistent. So, I’ll first discuss the barriers to consistency, particularly the roles of self-trust, planning and attaching meaning to your goal. 

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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...

"The green reed which bends in the wind is stronger than the mighty oak which breaks in a storm." – Confucius

Researchers and scholars often point to this quote by Confucius as the basis for why it's necessary to be flexible to overcome challenges. The flexible reed bends and flows with the wind of adversity, allowing it to survive the challenge.  The strong, mighty oak isn't flexible, so the wind of adversity breaks it apart.  The new shoots that sprout from the old oak will be flexible enough to withstand the next storm.

We are all human and therefore failure is inevitable. For some it happens early in life and for others not until mid-life. Over the past 6 months I have worked with a number of people who were experiencing their own version of failure e.g., not being able to conceive, a relationship falling apart, and being unable to provide for a family member in the way they wanted to. 

With each of these experiences, my client felt like...

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...

No matter how you divide up the 2023 calendar year, there are still 365 days in it. If you work full-time with 21 days of annual leave, you’ll have 245 working days to achieve whatever it is you want to achieve professionally, and a little bit more time for what you want to achieve personally. For some that idea can be daunting however it doesn’t have to be. In order to achieve your goals, you need consistent habits to support them. To maintain consistency, you need to take care of your physical and mental health. 

Taking care of your mind is just as important as taking care of your body. Unfortunately, it’s easy to forget that in the busyness of the day-to-day. After all, it’s obvious if you exercised instead of watching TV or ate salmon for dinner rather than fried chicken. How you treat your mind is usually less visible and more difficult to track.

To stay on top of things, it helps to develop easy habits that fit into your usual...

Why is it that motivating others is easy, but you struggle to motivate yourself? There’s always another distraction to divert you from what you need to be doing; another task that needs to be done; another deadline that needs to be met. Somewhere else to divert your energy. 

You need to learn how to do what needs to be done, no matter how you feel about it or how much you would prefer not to be doing it at all. One of the secrets of self-motivation is to get your internal gears turning the right way so that you recognize your own strength, self-worth and value. Let alone hard work. Exercising your self-motivation muscles builds inner strength. 

No doubt you have goals you are working towards. Would you believe that the degree of self-motivation you allow yourself determines how hard you’re willing to work to achieve your desired results. True!

So, in a nutshell, with self-motivation, anything is possible for you. But, on the other hand, if...

Are you the master of making excuses? Do you have a reason ready for every conversation when you’re asked why you haven’t taken any action towards your Big Goals yet? If so, it’s time to take action. Those Big Goals have waited in the wings long enough. Today is the day your life changes for the better! How? you might ask. Keep reading to learn some easy techniques designed to get you in to action and your life back on track, in no time.

7 Strategies to stop making excuses

1. Be you

If you think you can’t get anywhere because someone else already done it better, think again. Regardless of who you’re comparing yourself to, no one will tackle a problem in quite the same way you will. Instead, relax and jump into action - your way. See where being you can take you.

2. Step into the unknown

Holding back because you don’t know what’s going to happen next? Sometimes you just have to find your hidden adventurer and go for it. Indulge...

Are you a people pleaser?

We all want to be liked right? Yes, and some of us want to be liked more than others. It’s only natural. However, if you find yourself turning yourself inside out to get in the good books of others, to be included or well-regarded and to avoid negative feedback, then it is a strategy that has become overused. And it’s not doing you any favours. 

While the goal of being a people pleaser may be noble, the way it is executed can leave you feeling anxious and regularly disappointed as not everything is going to turn out how you’d hoped or planned. You cannot control how others respond to you, only how you respond to your environment and others. 

What’s the impact of people pleasing? 

All of this people-pleasing comes at a cost to you which you may not have yet recognised. Here are some of the main impacts: 

1. Suppressing emotions leading to stress, anxiety, fatigue and illness. Often...

Beware the gap between achieving and re-focusing your energies on new goals. For every person who sets goals, there inevitably comes a time when they need to review them, tick them off and set some more goals. And I am no different. 

The past 3 months have been incredibly productive for me, and I have been able to tick off some big-ticket items on my goals list. However, it has also led to some inertia that has been frustrating and downright confusing. I now realise I have been basking in the glow of achievement to the extent that I have been unable to get focused again until now. Thankfully my diary has kept me going. For those who follow me, you will have noticed that I haven’t posted for 3-4 weeks and that’s because I have had what many might call ‘writer’s block’. But in truth I think it’s because I am yet to find the balance between celebrating my achievements and progressing forward. I have made the effort to knowledge my...

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...