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I have asked myself this question sooo many times! What if people don’t like me? Previously my answer was something along the lines of, it will be confirmation that I’m not a likeable person. It will either be for the same reasons that I don’t like me, because I’m boring, I’m not funny or cool enough or because of something else bad about me that I don’t even know yet…

Seriously! I also used to cry myself to sleep at night when I was a teenager because I hated who I was - as a 36 year old woman I can look back and see that I had no idea who I was, I had soaked up the words, and actions of those who bullied me and made it my reality. They didn’t like me and so that was the reality - I wasn’t likeable.

As humans we seek out facts and information to confirm what we already know and that’s what I did. I started to be really aware of anything that would confirm that I...

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What if I can’t vs what if I can?

What if I fail vs What if I succeed?

What if they don’t like me vs what if they love me?

What if I can’t vs what if I can?

You’ve said this to yourself before right? Before you go into an important meeting, what if I can’t remember my points? Have you ever said to yourself - what if I remember exactly what I want to say? - probably not right?

Yet imagine how different that would feel. When you ask yourself what if I can’t, you’re reinforcing the idea that you might not be able to remember, you’re focus is then on worrying, whereas if you were to think what if I can remember exactly what to say, you're focusing on exactly what you are going to say (which is pretty helpful right!).

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What if I fail vs What if I succeed?

Now I'm not suggesting we only flip the question, sometimes the original...

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Have you read the book? If you haven’t, seriously go get yourself a copy right now! Marie Forleo has an amazing way of helping you see that everything is figureoutable!

For this blog, I’m going to share with you, how this philosophy, mantra, way of living, whatever you wanna call it, has helped me and can help you!

I don’t know about you but myself and many of the women I have coached have been faced with many challenges that we just didn’t know how to do! I’m not talking huge things either like fly an aeroplane, I’m talking small things - like, booking your car in for an MOT (I was late to this learning having lived in London for the first 12 years of adulthood without a car!) bake a simple victoria sponge (though honestly I defer to my wife on this one!) or painting skirting boards!

It can be easy for us to come across something that feels challenging, and defer to someone...

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I believe everyone can be happy and fulfilled. Yes even you! In this blog post I’m going to show you the 3 foundations I believe are key to being happy and fulfilled.

Before I do, I’d like to take a moment to explore what living a happy and fulfilled life looks like. A fulfilled and happy life has good times and sad times, hard times and easy times, it isn’t a smooth ride, but a journey with bumps in the road.

The foundations of a fulfilled and happy life are self growth, self compassion and self acceptance. If you have all of those then you can have a fulfilled and happy life.

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Personal Growth

Growth is a part of being human, we continue to grow and develop throughout our lives. When I say growth, I mean personal growth, I mean developing our understanding of ourselves, our thoughts, views, and opinions about our lives. 

It is this deep understanding of...

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Acceptance, in particular, self-acceptance is a core value of my coaching business. I believe that accepting ourselves for who we are is part of the way to living a happy and fulfilled life.

Another element of acceptance is accepting other people in our lives, just as they are. Without judgement. Accepting their beliefs and opinions.

But there is a line isn’t there? There is a line where a person's beliefs or opinions could be harmful to someone else. There is a line where accepting others and the things others do becomes unacceptable.

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One obvious example of course was the terrible murder of George Floyd. Floyd, a black man, was pinned down on the floor with a white police officer's knee in the side of his neck, at which point George Floyd was saying he couldn’t breathe. Accepting an opinion which is agreement with this, is, in my view,...

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When you look back at this period of time, what would you most like to be proud of? This is a time for growth and answering this one question will help you to focus on your growth.

“Jen I’m so happy, I can’t stop smiling”

This is what Sarah said to me this week, she was feeling really proud of herself and rightly so! She had shown up for herself and experienced huge growth!

The last time we'd talked she was really, really struggling. She'd, had some days off sick because she couldn’t face work, she wasn’t looking after herself. She was doing all of the things to make herself feel worse....

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She knew something had to change, she knew the direction she was headed and she didn’t want to go there and so she started to put some of the steps in place that we’d explored together. 

AND she...

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You know, I’ve always thought we should all be kinder to ourselves, though in the past, really it was another one of those rules that applies to you not me!

Do you have that too? Do you find yourself seeing a quote reminding you to be kind to yourself and then still somehow find that your next thought isn’t that kind? So many of us do this! So many of my clients will say something along the lines of “I know, I know I should be kinder to myself!” 

This is one of the “shoulds” I’m going to hold you to because yes you should be kinder to yourself! I am guessing each and every one of you reading this could do with a bout of self compassion right?

So what is self compassion, what does it really look like? It looks like not giving yourself a hard time, it looks like talking to yourself and treating yourself the way you would someone who is really precious to...

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Over the past 5 weeks I have been coaching 55 people specifically around building their emotional resilience and mindset - and the most common theme is around control, many people have found themselves focusing on the things that they can’t control - things such as, will I lose my job (most of the people I am coaching are fortunate to have a job still), when will I see my family again, or, will I be able to go on the holiday I have booked?.

Focusing on what we can’t control is one way of pouring our energy and focus into something that will give us nothing back. And yet most of us do it, we often do it without realising - I know I’m guilty of it!

Below is an image to describe the zones of control, influence and concern, you may have seen a similar diagram before (it is used in many different training programs).

This diagram gives some examples of those things that are within our control such as how you are...

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At this point in history, there’s no shortage of women to look up to. For generations upon generations, ordinary women have been doing extraordinary things.

One of the best examples I can think of is a woman called Betty Williams, a receptionist and mother of two, who during the political turmoil in Northern Ireland in 1976, witnessed three children killed. Within just 2 days of this, she had formed a petition for peace with over 6,000 signatures on it. She then organised and lead a peace march of 10,000 people to the children’s graves, which was unfortunately disrupted by protesters. So, a week later Better organised another march…. This time with 35,000 people!

Betty was probably as ordinary as they come. Who reading this is or has been a receptionist? Who out there has children? I look at women like Betty and just think… how? I admire women like her and long to do something so amazing and...

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I’m going to be honest, this is something that for a while I’ve not been very good at - Maybe because a lot of my working life has been shift work, and so I’ve either been at work, where the routine is strict, or at home - on a day off and therefore I’ve had no routine.

Are you working from home? Have you recently transitioned to working from home? 

Under normal circumstances it would be hard to transition to working from home, never mind doing that now under these circumstances. There are so many parts of your day that used to be automatic, but now take extra time and attention.

“You are not working from home; you are at your home during a crisis trying to work” 

- Neil Webb

This is an important frame, not only are you trying to work, but you are trying to continue to live your life in a way that brings you fulfillment.

Our life on automation.

Take a moment to...