Confidence coaching is all about helping you believe in yourself so you can move past fear and fulfil your true potential. Here we'll look at confidence in more detail and how a confidence coach can help.
Many people can portray an image of complete confidence whilst shaking with fear on the inside. This idea of 'fake it until you make it' can be a helpful tool (we need to take action to feel confident, even if we're scared while doing it), but if you feel you're constantly faking it and aren't feeling any more confident, you may need to do some deeper work.
Many people can portray an image of complete confidence whilst shaking with fear on the inside. This idea of 'fake it until you make it' can be a helpful tool (we need to take action to feel confident, even if we're scared while doing it), but if you feel you're constantly faking it and aren't feeling any more confident, you may need to do some deeper work.
The term self-esteem is used to describe our overall sense of self-worth and how much we value ourselves. Our self-esteem is made up of various beliefs we have about who we are and what we’re capable of. As you can imagine, this can have a huge impact on the way we experience life.
Confidence tends to be based more so on external factors. For example, we can generally build confidence when we succeed at a task. Self-esteem is more internally-based and, when we struggle with our self-esteem, succeeding doesn’t always help us feel better about ourselves.
Signs of low self-esteem:
a lack of confidence
a desire to please people
having an overall negative outlook
feelings of shame
unable to ask for what you need
If you recognise these signs of low self-esteem and are keen to make a change, you may benefit from working with a self-esteem coach.
Personal development, or self-improvement/development, is a way of assessing your goals and making a conscious effort to better yourself. This is a lifelong process that is entirely personal and unique to you. You may consider your abilities, skills, qualities, values, and aims in life and try to act on these to reach your full potential. You might ask yourself "what do I want to achieve in life?" This could be anything from focusing on your employability to increasing self-confidence or simply being content.
Remember, it's not about perfection and having everything catered for - take a holistic approach to personal development and see how even the smallest changes to your day-to-day life can have a big impact. We might also face individual challenges along the way, such as a bereavement, which may throw us off our path - and that's OK. Our motivation to achieve our goals can also fluctuate, and that's where having a personal development plan can be useful.
Work is just one part of life. It may be an important part, but it is still just one part. Maintaining our health and happiness is vital - we should feed our passions, build relationships and enjoy our lives. We’re only human and we crave comfort and adventure. Maintaining a good work/life balance can ensure we’re chasing our personal dreams, but flourishing at work, too
Nowadays, pressure to perform at work is paramount and we can spend much of our lives in the workplace. Whether you’re in an office five days a week or working from home, the day may not always end when you clock off. With technology at our disposal, we’re always contactable; we can check emails on the go and send a text to a colleague at the tap of a button.
Without a good work/life balance, exhaustion, stress and burnout can show up, so it’s essential we take time to relax, unwind and enjoy other aspects of our lives.
If you’re unhappy in your role but are unable to take a break or make a career move, your work and personal life may suffer. Poor work/life balance can leave you unmotivated, short-tempered and emotional. When stress is not addressed, your emotional well-being suffers and, over time, your physical health can deteriorate.
Sometimes it’s easy for us to know when we’re stressed, but other times we may not even recognise that we’re stressed. This is because stress can manifest in different ways, often affecting us both physically and emotionally.
When we feel stressed, our bodies release cortisol and adrenaline (types of hormones). This is how the body reacts to a threat and prepares us to be able to fight, run away or freeze (called the ‘fight, flight or freeze’ response). In the past, humans relied on this response to deal with threats such as sabre-toothed tigers and other life or death situations. These days, we tend to experience less life-threatening moments day-to-day but are instead faced with less tangible threats such as a bulging inbox. While our threats have changed and evolved, our brain’s response has not. This means the stress hormones still get released, and we feel the effects, even if we’re not in a deadly situation.
If anything, our brains have become more sensitive to perceived threats and can go into overdrive. This can lead to chronic stress and conditions like anxiety. Why not come along and see how coaching can help reduce these worries for you by building your resilience and self-confidence in both your domestic life and worklife?
Many people seek coaching when they have a vision of where they want to be but aren’t sure how to get there. In the context of wellness, this means getting the support, motivation and guidance to achieve any wellness goals you may have.
Through wellness coaching, you can assess where you are now and identify areas you’d like to focus on, changes you’d like to make and perhaps mindset shifts you’d like to work on. Together with your coach, you can then outline a plan of action to help you achieve your goals.
This individualised way of working means your plan will be tailored to you and your needs - something you can’t always get through self-help resources. The plan should also be sustainable, meaning you’ll be able to keep it up over time. Wellness isn’t a box that can be ticked and ignored, it’s something we need to constantly nurture and pay attention to.
Working with a wellness coach can give you clarity, motivation and the accountability you need to get started. It can feel intimidating to work on something as broad as ‘wellness’ and it can be easy to put it off. Having regular sessions with a coach can give you the boost you need to do the work and make the changes you need.
Leadership is different from management. Leadership is not easily defined and can mean different things to different people. With this in mind, here we will look at leadership in its broadest sense, delving deeper into what it is, including different leadership styles. We’ll also look at the difference between a leader and a manager, how you can develop your leadership skills and how leadership coaching can help.
Of course, working towards a future vision generally means getting others on board. Whether that’s members of the company/team, or getting other people on board with an idea or solo business venture.
Leaders need to be able to motivate others to share their vision. Something that helps here is the power of expertise. If the leader is considered an expert in what they do, they have more credibility and. therefore, people are more likely to follow and support.
Leaders are great at supporting other members of the team and even coaching them to develop their skills. In the workplace, this helps with staff retention as team members feel truly valued. It is much more than money.
In order to develop a team, the leader needs to understand team dynamics, how people best work and what their strengths and weaknesses are.
A belief that underpins life coaching is that we have the resources we need to overcome the problem we’re facing. This means the role of a life coach is not to tell you what to do, but instead work with you to identify your own solutions and guide you towards your goals.
When you first start coaching, it’s important to tell your coach about any diagnoses you have and if you are undertaking any other treatment for your anxiety (for example, counselling). This will help inform your coach’s approach when working with you and can ensure you’re getting the best support.
Coaching can take place face-to-face, online, or via Zoom / Face-Time. For those with anxiety, this choice can be really helpful.
If meeting people in person or travelling makes you anxious for example, you might prefer online coaching. In your first session, you may define some goals together. These could be around managing your anxiety or perhaps they’ll be things you want to do, but anxiety is currently stopping you from doing them.
Anxiety coaching sessions will often involve the coach asking you questions to help you understand your anxiety better and identify more helpful responses when your fight, flight or freeze response is triggered.
Being happy is something many of us aim for, but sometimes truly knowing what makes us happy is difficult. This is where happiness coaching can support, helping you understand what happiness means to you and what changes you can make to feel more content, day to day.
Some describe happiness as the absence of stress and anxiety. Now, of course, all of us will experience low points in our lives where we have to navigate difficult emotions, this is part of the human experience.
Being ‘happy’ doesn’t necessarily mean everything is great, 100% of the time. Instead, we can view happiness as something we feel, underneath everything else. We may be dealing with a particularly stressful period but, if we are happy at our core, we may feel better able to cope as we know this negative feeling is temporary.
Right now, many of us are feeling a pull to ask ourselves this question, ‘Are we happy?’. World events have encouraged us to step back, gain some perspective and prioritise our own happiness. This is all brilliant, and lots of us are taking steps towards our own versions of happiness, but what happens if you struggle with this or don’t know how to be happy? Using techniques such as PERMA and C5 let's explore how we can be content.