How remarkable and fab do you feel?
This was a question posed by the fab Sarah Veall of www.sarahvcoaching.com at a recent gathering of women in business. I loved what she had to say so today I’m sharing her advice with you on how to be remarkable and feel fab.
“I love the anticipation of moving into a new season of the year and laughed at a recent Facebook post observing the end of Summer/beginning of Autumn period of limbo when you’re not quite sure whether to squeeze in one last Summer BBQ or to get your big chunky Winter cardi out!
One of my favourite things about Autumn is the dew-covered spiders webs you find first thing in the morning. On an early morning dog walk recently, I was marvelling at these little beauties and thinking how similar they are to the web of human life. So delicate yet so strong. So beautiful and intricate yet broken and tangled in places. Various trails of clearly defined silk leading to the centre of the web – the core – and lots of circular trails of silk circumnavigating it. With one core purpose. Are you on a clearly defined trail to your core or are you circumnavigating it?
Fast paced living. Information overload. Financial pressures. Childcare commitments. Office politics or challenges within the workplace. The list goes on. Where do YOU feature on this to-do list?
Helping you to be remarkable and feel fab
Life can feel like you’re caught in a spiders web, going round and round in circles but never getting any closer to the core of YOU and what’s really important to you. It’s very easy to get caught up in the daily grind and feel as though you’re living your life for the benefit of others.
It could be that, with all that background noise, you’ve lost your way or are feeling stuck in a rut. Perhaps you are struggling to find the time to do more of what you love, or want a change of direction but don’t quite know which silk trail to follow. Maybe somewhere between the school run and the supermarket you lost sight of what’s at the centre of that web.
Listen without interruption
When was the last time someone listened to you? And I mean, really listened.
Neuroscience tells us when we are listened to without interruption, it increases connections in the thinking part of our brain. It triggers positive emotions such as joy, excitement and possibility and allows our brain to see the bigger picture and connect ideas. When we are relaxed and having fun we can think more clearly. When we choose positive thoughts our brains produce the hormone serotonin which boosts our mood and makes us more relaxed and sociable. Lack of serotonin causes irritability or even depression.
Evolution and our bodies
In evolution terms we are wired to look for threat so we don’t get picked off by a predator. When we look to what’s not going well we trigger survival emotions such as fear, sadness, anger, disgust and shame and send our body into the fight, flight or freeze response. This takes the bloodflow away from the thinking part of our brain, sending it to our muscles to prepare our body to fight or flee the threat. Stress hormone, cortisol, is released which lowers our immunity and increases our blood pressure. Survival emotions draw our energy inwards – think about how you hold your body when you are sad.
When positive emotions are triggered our energy is projected outwards so we feel more exuberant and our physiology is more upright. Think about how you hold your body when you’re feeling excited and happy.
Understand yourself to be remarkable and feel fab
With a calm, empathic and non-judgemental coaching style, I create a sense of ease and space to help clients trigger positive emotions, allow them to get up and out of their current perspective, see the bigger picture and create a sense of possibility. I have a deep belief in people’s ability to find their own solutions to any challenges they may have and help individuals and teams visualise what remarkable would look and feel like in their personal or professional lives.
Through a combination of questioning, tools, techniques and feedback I enable them to understand themselves better, notice patterns of unhelpful thoughts, feelings and behaviour which could be preventing them getting the “results” they want and facilitate transformational change by encouraging them to set goals and choose more resourceful, habitual ways of behaving.
When we strive towards a goal the pleasure hormone, dopamine is stimulated which helps motivate us to take action to achieve the goal. Setting specific, measureable and achieveable goals gives us a purposeful direction and stimulates dopamine. With a deep belief that all people are remarkable, I love creating a safe, trusting relationship that will help my clients release the hormone oxytocin. Oxytocin provides feelings of love and trust which is why relationships boost our happiness.
It took me 40 years to understand myself well enough to uncover a career and purpose that I’m truly passionate about which gives me continuous learning, meaning, achievement and enjoyment and ultimately triggers my “happy” hormones! I’d love to have a chat with you to find out how I can help you tap into your “happy” hormones and create a more purposeful, fulfilling and healthy direction.”
Here’s what my clients are saying
“Working with Sarah has given me the clarity of thinking I needed to identify and value my personal strengths, and develop my role as Director. I found Sarah’s approach to be supportive, pragmatic and encouraging. Her understanding of the realities, challenges and pressure of business helped me to improve productivity and company performance during an important period of change”.
“I felt really moved by the depth of Sarah’s ‘positive regard’ when she is in the coaching space. When I described my challenge, I could see so much in her face, a “I want to help you think”, “I will rack my brains until I find a way to help you think better”, “I want you to get a good outcome” “I want you to be OK” all came across directly from her, in that moment. And the lack of judgement. I felt I could say anything and she’d still be focussed on progress, not on the ‘what!’”
