I am taking inspiration from a few different places this week and trying something new to boot.
April brings in stress awareness month and I shall be covering burnout in a future post, it’s an area I am really interested in. However, for this week and after a lovely long weekend off, I have decided to ease myself back in, show myself some of the self-compassion I bang on about to others and not fret about a perfect post.
We are also going audio for this week readers – and this may be a build up to me actually recording my dulcet Midlander tones for the odd future post!
So, we start with the bitesize version of the Dr Chatterjee podcast, deliberately chosen to be a doable 10 minutes. Anyone who loves it can explore his fuller episodes of one hour up.
I find myself often in conversations about confidence, and anxiety is usually lurking alongside somewhere. It’s something that some of us find really hard. I have learnt that I can present confidence in most situations, but of course this isn’t always how I feel, and that’s true for many of us. I have also, more recently, accepted that stretching myself into areas where previously I have been too afraid to go, has not only opened up wonderful opportunities and new experiences for me, but also helped me lower my anxiety around these things and boost my confidence (yes it’s the boring practice thing again). For example, leaving my former career and company and hurling myself into the abyss was truly terrifying and I am forever changed because of it. On a smaller scale, I recently made a video about what I do (I’ll share the link at the bottom), to some that’s no big deal, for me it took many, many attempts, psyching myself up and then actually hitting “share” – the final part had much nail gnashing. We fear what others will think, what they will say either to you, or worse , to others. A lovely concept from this podcast then – courage rather than confidence. You don’t always need to be confident, having the courage to try is more than enough. And in my experience people are too busy worrying about what is going on for them, to have an opinion on you. If they do, then "What other people think of you is none of your business." (seems everyone wants to be credited for this one).
You will also hear Chloe talk about perfectionism – do refer back to my previous post “Good Enough” if this resonates for you.
And finally….. Chloe is a therapist.. I’m flagging it because coaching and therapy are different and although there are sometimes shared themes, the experience of being coached and the experience of receiving therapy are very different. I’ve had both, therapy helped me resolve and heal, coaching lit my fires and made me want to, if not run towards the aforementioned abyss, at least make a perky trot towards it..
Enjoy…..
https://drchatterjee.com/bitesize-how-to-reduce-anxiety-and-build-self-confidence-chloe-brotheridge/
A request for you to take away from here.. what can you be courageous about in the next week?
And then to bring us all to a peaceful place, I considered (selfishly, I’m sorry, because I’m in charge of content!) what do I need today? I landed on relaxation – well that’s not quite right actually – I wanted something to bring me a bit of inner quiet and I saw a post on LinkedIn from the National Trust:
"Recent studies also show birdsong and other woodland sounds have a direct impact on our wellbeing, making us more relaxed, less stressed and less anxious."
So, I had a Google and here you are, one hour of birds. You're welcome.
Stay conscious, stay aware, stay kind.
Me on YouTube (who could have possibly imagined!?) https://youtu.be/B9EiOo-N7ql
If you are interested to find out more about working with me, you can book a free (promise I won’t chase you) call here
And I am now on Instagram (learning the ropes!) @start2thrive