Square breathing is a simple, easy, and effective way to calm yourself and clear your mind. This is a great thing to do ahead of any coaching activity and goal setting.
Square breathing can be practiced anytime, anywhere it is just four simple breath segments done to a count of four. this is an effective mindfulness exercise.
Focusing on the breath and the count of four, repeat the same process until you reach a relaxed state. enjoy!
The right environment is so important for us all for our head space.
A chaotic environment doesn’t help the mind at all as it projects chaos.
A great start to your goal setting journey is to identify an environment you want to use as your space! A space for being creative, completing your goal setting/personal development tasks and allowing you to think clearly. Wherever that maybe, no matter how small or large the space, make it calm and clutter free. These sorts of environments will make your mood feel calm and chilled-out.
Top tips for finding your goal setting environment is to think about a space which makes your mood positive, look at things that enhance and support your senses, such as:
1, the scent of things you like such as flowers, baking, essential oils, coffee etc.
2, lighting is important so make it work for you! It can create a cosy feel or soft lighting for mood enhancement or maybe you prefer and environment with stimulating lighting. aybe even candles.
3, fill your space with objects that help project your wanted direction such as photos of inspiring views, cosy throws, cushions a nice chair/sofa table maybe it’s having a positive quote or two by your side to spur you on, or your written goals and priorities lists.
4, sounds can help you to relax, this could be chill out music, classical music or some of us need silence. It’s a personal choice, whatever works for you!
5, taste is important – a nice cup of herbal tea, water with a slice of lemon, coffee, tea, whatever you like to have to support you digging deep into your thoughts and to channel direction; let’s face it a nice cuppa can do wonders!
Whatever is your Zen create it! Enjoy it! Make things happen!
We all have mental health just as we have physical health however, it is not always something we look at regularly supporting and training, or exercising and reviewing. It would be wonderful to think we soon will be in a world where we could openly ask each other ” how you feeling today and how’s your mind”, without it being uncomfortable.
We all have those moments in life where things can cause us to feel lower in our mood. This often affects our mental health. Times of this “low mood “ or any ongoing sadness can happen to any of us at any time, feeling as if it comes upon us without any warning. It is important to recognise your own personal triggers. It’s important to ask yourself
1,what are my triggers?
2,What sends my stress levels over the edge?
3, Is there any changes you can make to help you manage these things?
4, what helps you to keep going when you feel like this?
The triggers could be anything, such as a memorable date, topics you are sensitive to and don’t want to face yet, family, relationships, self-limiting beliefs, traumas, life events, medical reasons, life pressure, public speaking, anything!
It is so important to take the time to look at any trigger patterning you have. By looking at triggers you can possibly unlock a resilience strategy for yourself that just might help you cope better when you are in need.
Emotional stress can be really overwhelming, it can impact both your physical and mental state. Strategies to support your resilience can work wonders in helping you through this time, along with of course any support groups, professional outreach etc available to you.
Examples of resilience you can use when this happens are things such as supportive building blocks to help manage your stress levels. Some of mine are below:
Remember you are often not alone with these feelings and it is so important to tell someone. Don’t suffer in silence, it will only get worse.
Goal reflection is such a healthy thing. A goal is something that you wanted to achieve, you have committed your time to reaching, and then you own the achievement of reaching your goal. See how far you have come, and then of course plan your next goal!
#1 My first goal was to run, run the day away and clear my mind!
# 2 The second goal was to run a distance of 5k
In the beginning when I started my goal-setting, I never realised just how empowering it would feel!
Having never ran before, but always longed to, to finally to say I am doing this and committed to it, achieving it! Well it changed my life. I felt purpose again, felt that drive and self-motivation because my goals were in the priority areas for me to Improve my mental health, improve my physical health and fitness, clear my day pressures of stress and to be outside in nature more.
These goals led me to the next chapter in my life, personal development and life coaching, neuro-linguistic programming used in personal development, and mental health awareness.
Intro Blog: Brain Biscuits Coaching, fuelling your thoughts and coaching your character!
All of us reach a stage in life where we just feel a little bit lost. Lost in our identity and in our direction. Brain Biscuits Coaching is really about that time in life! The time where you need to re-fuel, re-think and look at who you are, what you want from life, and what drives you.
Brain Biscuits Coaching is about finding the real you, helping you to set personal goals with a personal development coach. These goals will help you find your direction and your personal identity again.
My background is I’m a Mum. I have a little boy who is my world! When he started growing up and approaching pre-school age I started to fear and dread the school years coming and the emptiness I would feel when he goes to school full-time. I was feeling somewhat lost in my purpose and direction when the year of him starting school arrived and I needed to start looking at what I could do to occupy my time. What could I do to get through the initial shock of it all as the last 5yrs had been about being full on as a mum which was new to me also.
Since becoming a mum I really put myself second; it’s what you do. I didn’t have time for me and felt guilty if I did take any time for me. I remember one day, I was out for the day and we took pictures to capture the wonderful day at the Zoo with my family. Later that day I looked back at the pictures and was shocked to see what was me! The me in the pictures I didn’t recognise; I didn’t recognise who or what I had become. Identity crisis kicked in. With that, I realised it was time for a change!
That was it I said enough! I need to get back in shape, have some sort of routine in my life, find something that pushed me mentally and physically, something that challenged me. I wanted to feel myself again and find my true new identity.
I started to look at the fitness side of things first. I remember when my son was little and I was on maternity leave and how I always wanted to be that mum out running. But I was always the mum out pushing my son in his pushchair with my caffeine fuelled double shot Americano and packet of crisps (my breakfast/lunch!). I was merely functioning. I wanted to now be a mum that could run! Later that week I met with a group of friends and one of the Mums there started talking about her new running routine and the App she was using. Excitedly, I asked what the App was she was raving about! She kindly shared the “couch to 5k” App. I felt so pleased to find out this info and the timing couldn’t have been more perfect! I remember she was so positive about how much it worked for her that I felt inspired immediately and wanted to join the couch to 5k clan! So that day I downloaded it! Couch to 5K was now in my life! This was a game changer for me. So there I was finally committing to something for me and the bonus was it actually felt good for me too! It worked wonders on my “mum brain”, on my mental health, well-being and physical health.
The whole process showed me it’s very important that I have goals to work towards. It also showed me that doing something daily, or weekly, for myself did wonders for thinking through my thoughts. It gave me head space which I didn’t have before as the running cleared my mind. The process also showed me that actually it’s not me being selfish to go and spend an hour on me running, that this was actually a limiting-belief that I use to have. I learned that if I did spend time on me I was happier, so I was a better person all round! This goal, I felt stretched physically and mentally.
I started to see actual results in my mood, and my mental health was in a much better place. I felt a sense of belonging, I felt a sense of achievement, I felt physically challenged. All the results sat well with me because I wanted to also look visually different as I had put on 2 stone from pregnancy. Going back to the photo I referenced to at the beginning of this blog I could see the difference in me. This goal I set and achieved made me feel I could do more and become something again, I could identify with a new me!
After I completed the 5k running, I then took part in a local run for charity fundraising and was running 2/3 times a week 5k or more! Then to top it off I was ready for new adventures alongside all this and of course new goals!
Seeing the impact of all these results on myself I decided that I wanted to learn more about personal development coaching, life coaching and neuro-linguistic programming. I felt that I had used those self development fundamentals through my own life challenges. The results made me feel amazing!
I want to recreate and deliver this for others. That’s how Brain Biscuits Coaching was founded.
Thank you for taking the time to read my Intro Blog!
Brain Biscuits Coaching 