“There are never enough hours in the day – and I never have enough energy to do it all.”
Sound familiar? This is pretty much every client who has ever come for resilience coaching. The problem here isn’t just about a lack of physical time and energy. It is how we view situations (mindset). And it’s habits we have that waste time and drain energy. And it’s the tools we could so easily use to protect time and energy, but haven’t learned, like nervous system or emotional regulation and boundaries.
Think of all the time you spend anxious, catastrophising, procrastinating, having arguments with people in your head, feeling overwhelmed or negative. That’s the time you can get back through changing your mindset with resilience coaching.
Now think of all the energy you spend feeling anxious, catastrophising, procrastinating, having arguments with people in your head, feeling overwhelmed or negative. That’s energy that isn’t going to get drained when you stop doing these things. It will, instead, be available for you to put to much better use.
Some of the facts around this that we don’t talk enough about
- Anxiety causes tiredness, as much as physical exertion does. It creates a hormonal rush that leaves you feeling depleted and low on energy and it can lead to adrenal fatigue which is exhausting. It is literally draining your energy the more you do it.
- Fatigue is both a symptom of and a cause of procrastination. If you stopped procrastinating your energy would rise.
- Catastrophising is a significant predictor, and accounts for 14% of the variability in, fatigue severity. Stopping these negative mental gymnastics will free up time in your day and reduce the mental drain.
- Rumination and negative thinking use up precious cognitive energy, leading to mental fatigue. Things that stop when you stop with rumination and negativity include: insomnia, low motivation and stress eating.
- Overwhelm shuts us down completely which means we become totally inefficient and, so, even more overwhelmed. When you’re able to bring yourself out of an overwhelmed state, tasks and decisions take half the time.
All of these feel very hard to experience and when they’re happening we just want them to stop. So, we’ll take what we see as the fastest route out, whether that’s numbing anxiety with wine or 10hrs of Netflix, or ignoring situations that are making us procrastinate or catatrophise, rather than dealing with them. Which works temporarily – but then we are back to square one when something similar happens again.
What will actually change things for you (coaching)
What will actually change things for you – for good – is learning how to do this differently. Which becomes possible when you focus on changing your mindset, habits and coping tools.
Mindset – seeing the situation differently so that you identify opportunities even in chaos, keep taking action, stay consistent with self-belief and don’t waste mental energy on negative thoughts.
Habits – from putting a stop to saying yes when you mean no, to wasting hours on social media, swapping habits that drain energy and waste time for those that refill you energetically and free up time is game changing.
Tools – there are many of these available to you, including being able to set boundaries to protect your time and energy, using more efficient ways to rest and refuel and learning how to bring yourself out of fight/flight/freeze panic mode (the biggest time wasting, energy burning trap most of us fall into without even realising).
Most people who come for resilience coaching feel like they don’t have the time or energy for coaching
They are often exhausted, burned out, low and unenthusiastic. They like the idea of more mental flexibility and emotional calm – or having a clear purpose, being more active, dealing better with stress or improving relationships – but have no idea where the space in their lives is going to come to make that happen. Simply because they’re looking for the answers in the wrong place. Because every time it comes from here:
Removing the anxiety, procrastination, overwhelm, negative self-talk, rumination, catastrophising and anything that is triggering their nervous system, from shame to fear to anger. Of course we don’t just surgically remove these things but we do embed the mindset and habits that make them redundant and the tools that keep them at bay.
Resilience coaching creates permanent shifts in thoughts and behaviour. It’s not a short-term fix but a true lifestyle change. Because you’re altering the way you see yourself and the world forever by changing your mindset and shoring this up with habits and tools. So that, almost like magic (or rather, due to small bits of targeted action), there’s this free time and extra energy that can be channelled into all the things you feel like you just couldn’t do before, whether that’s your own projects or more time with the people you love.
None of this is rocket science. It’s just finding out what works – and doing it. I’ve been helping people make this shift for years and really, that’s it. If you’d like to find out more book an intro call with me today.