‘How’s your business going?’ was the question I hated the most.
My whole body would tense up and whatever I said in reply, it always sounded defensive.
🎂 Today is my business birthday. 🎂
I’m celebrating the day I officially changed trading names from that of my previous business to my own name, as a Coach.
I’m reflecting on all the lessons learned from the previous two businesses I founded that got me to where I am today.
There were A LOT.
👉 The importance of knowing your figures from the get-go and having a real, sustainable plan to fund your business (not just focusing on the ‘fun’ creative stuff, like getting beautiful branding and product designs 🤦♀️)
👉 The importance of making sure you truly understand the day-to-day requirements of your dream business and that they match what you want for the day to day reality of your life (rather than finding this out some way down the line 😬)
👉 The importance of having a network of like-minded people around you (and ideally a co-founder with complementary skills if possible)
👉 The importance of launching early and iterating with customer feedback (not keeping your business a secret whilst making it ‘perfect’)
👉 The importance of making sure your self-belief and confidence match the size of your business dreams (rather than having big ideas, but unconsciously only taking small moves 😞)
👉 The importance of marketing and growing your business (rather than just working in it)
👉 The importance of creating profit as well as purpose.
👉 The importance of mentorship and coaching to get you where you want to go faster … rather than getting lost in your own head.
At the time all these lessons felt hard.
For a child of the 80s and 90s, before ‘growth mindset’ was a thing, ‘failure’ used to be my biggest fear.
Not now though.
Failure continues to be my instructive friend, giving me feedback and pointing me in more fruitful directions. 🙌
I know who I am, what I want & I’m enjoying the journey.
The seat is comfortable, the views inspiring and the company is great.
✨What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned so far in your entrepreneurial journey?✨
#startupstory #femaleentrepreneurs
It’s mental health week this week.
When you think of ‘mental health’ – is it a positive, negative or neutral concept that comes to mind?
Many people hear mental health and automatically associate it with mental *ill* health.
But here’s the thing, just like physical health, mental health is a spectrum and it’s one that we all move up and down all the time.
Our mental health affects how we think, feel and act. How we react to stress and how we cope and function in our everyday life. It’s enormously important for all of our life and work as it is about our ability to fulfil our potential and contribute to our community.
✨Everyone has mental health; it’s part of the human condition and we need to take care of it. ✨
Just like physical health, there are things we can do to look after ourselves and prevent ill health.
Sometimes we can manage the ebbs and flows of our health by ourselves and sometimes we might need the help of a professional.
Where we start on the mental health spectrum has an impact (our starting point is usually due to combination of genetics and life circumstances) and we all have tendencies, but we can all move up and down the spectrum based on how we take care of ourselves and the kind of practices that we engage in.
** We can embrace tools that elevate our mental health and wellbeing and thereby increase our capacity for flourishing and resilience. **
The John W Brick Mental Health Foundation have come up with a neat ecosystem of 9 interacting components that you can build into your life to support your mental health and wellbeing, one small step at a time.
* Which ones do you do already?
* Which ones might you like to start or increase in your life?
* Can you commit to doing one or two (or more) things this week, to support your mental health and wellbeing?
I’d love to know which of these you do already, or which you’d like to work on adding into your life ❤️
#mentalhealthawareness #wellbeing #wellbeingbeforebusiness #femaleentrepreneurs
✨`Striding not wading.`✨
These are words my client used in a recent email update between sessions.
She is an ambitious and successful entrepreneur, who`d felt utterly lost and drowning in her business.
– Saying yes to everything
– Working all the hours, weekends too
– Struggling to switch off
– Struggling to be the mother she wanted to be
– Feeling under pressure all the time
– Neglecting her wellbeing
Work hard ➡️ do well ➡️ keep going until ➡️ not sure what`s she doing anymore or why.
But my client came to me and discovered another way.
"Authentic self-leadership"
– Get crystal clear on your values, needs, and wants
– Understand your unique strengths & what energises you
– Get clarity and confidence on what you want in your life and work
– Gain courage to say no to what you don`t want
When you know yourself better, you:
* Increase self-knowledge and self-awareness
* Get familiar with what holds you back – and how to prevent that happening
* Learn new ways of thinking, feeling and behaving to step into your full potential
➡️ Hello purpose, focused priority and powerful productivity. ✅
➡️ Goodbye confusion, overwhelm and overwork. ❌
✨Striding, not wading.✨
If you`d like to get greater clarity, confidence and create maximum impact, alongside maximum wellbeing, DM me and I`ll tell you all about my six-step 1:1 coaching programme for authentic self-leadership 💪✨
#femalefounders #femaleentrepreneurs #purposedrivenbusiness
#wellbeingbeforebusiness #authenticleadership
➡️ Do you have exceptionally high standards?
➡️ Does everything have to be perfect, or it’s not good enough?
➡️ Do you get frustrated with other people whose standards are not as high as yours?
✨It sounds like you might be a perfectionist.✨
When you look back at your life, I bet it’s got you some top marks and brilliant results in your life.
I wonder too, if there have been instances when it’s not felt so great?
Times when you’ve got really frustrated at things falling below the appropriate standard?
Times when it stopped you from launching the product, giving the talk or completing the article… for fear it wouldn’t be perfect? That you or your work wouldn’t be good enough?
Times when people haven`t understood your obsession with getting everything just right?
Times when this need to be perfect has really upset your equilibrium?
** When something is perfect, what does that mean to you?
** What does it mean to you to NOT be perfect?
** Is this a familiar theme you recognise from messages you received growing up or the behaviour of anyone else in your family?
** If you`re aware this is a personal challenge for you, is it something you’d like to keep or work to change?
I have always been a perfectionist. 🙋♀️ 🙋♀️ 🙋♀️
It’s got me great academic results and job opportunities in the past… but at a cost.
I now consider myself a ** recovering perfectionist **
When I hear my perfectionist self pipe up, I thank it, but tell it that I’m going to take a different approach.
Here are some of the things I remind myself that help me:
Which is your favourite? The last is mine!
✨Anything else to add that helps you keep your perfectionist tendencies right sized? ✨
#perfectionism #femaleentrepreneurs #femalefounders
I used to live my life passively, thinking that if I just kept my head down and did my best, it would all work out somehow.
Turned out, I was wrong.
One day I realised how much power we have over our lives, if only we are self-aware of what we really truly want and what we need to start (and stop) doing to get there.
This is me yesterday, on my 43rd birthday and on the way back from a restorative break with my husband.
We’d left our children / cats / home / laptops / work behind.
Here’s the thing – when you give yourself physical and mental space from your daily life and work, you gain perspective.
When we step away from the trees, we see and admire the whole wood in its beauty.🌲🌳
*Without distraction, you can connect with what truly matters to you and why. *
(After some quality time napping) our conversations were powered by core values – not driven by emotions.
We talked really big picture about what we wanted to do with the time we have left on this earth, in work, life and adventures.
Then we left smiling, to be reunited with our children (and watch the zen disappear within minutes! HA 🤣)
You may not be able to get physical distance from your daily life for a few days, but working with a coach will support you to gain new perspectives on it.
When you zoom out and embrace new perspectives, you start to see more options and opportunities for yourself.
When you combine this with self-knowledge and self-awareness, you start to see how you can clearly and confidently create the meaningful life and work that you want to have.
If you`re an entrepreneur and you want support to gain new perspectives and come up with a clear and confident plan to create the flourishing life and fulfilling work you truly deserve, DM me and let’s chat.
I use ICF-certified coaching to help you do your best thinking to step into your best possible self and future and Positive Psychology to make sure you do it with maximum wellbeing 🥰
Always so lovely to end the week on a great testimonial. 🎉 💃
Thank you to my inspiring client Lucy Stride, Founder of @themindfulmuscle for her recent recommendation.
In my 1:1 coaching work with female entrepreneurs and founders, I support them to get a greater understanding of who they are and what they want their life and work to look like.
I take them from a place of confusion and overwhelm ➡️ clarity and confidence.
When you know yourself better, you know what you need to be your best self and do your best work. 🌟
When you`re your authentic self, you have greater courage and confidence. 🌟
You bring greater joy, energy and flow to your work, which translates to greater performance and success. 🌟
You will also feel excited about your future steps and lighter – like Lucy!
DM me if you`d like greater clarity, confidence and success on your terms ❤️
#femaleentrepreneurs #femalefounders
* I’m the kind of person who lives out of their comfort zone.
* I’m the kind of person who learns German for fun.
* I’m the kind of person who meditates every day for better self-awareness and self-regulation.
* I’m the kind of person who has a regular, consistent fitness regime.
* I’m the kind of person who is confident and able to speak about their passions and knowledge to anyone with ease.
* I’m the kind of person who knows their priorities and sticks to them for maximum productivity.
➡️ Some of these are true.
➡️ Some of these are becoming true.
➡️ Some are what I’d like to be more like.
(* Can you guess which? 🙃)
*** What sort of person are you?
*** How close or far away is that from the sort of person you’d like to be?
When you increase your self-awareness you start to understand your beliefs around who you are and what you do, or what you are capable of doing.
You shine a light on your unconscious habits and how they play out in your life.
When you realise you say things like, `Oh no, I`m not the sort of person who does X` you realise you`re dealing with a belief about your identity.
You start to see how they limit you and keep you stuck in a familiar story.
✨Becoming the best version of yourself means unlearning and editing your limiting beliefs, to upgrade and expand your identity.✨
We can all do it, but it`s not an overnight thing. Becoming the best version of yourself is a very intentional process.
It’s one small step after the other, made repeatedly, until you believe a new story about who you are, determined by how you are ‘being’ in the world.
When you repeatedly do something different, you accumulate evidence for a belief, and you start to believe it more strongly.
Here’s an example:
➡️ Want to get more confident about public speaking?
Ask yourself:
What would someone who was confident with public speaking be like?
What would they do?
➡️ They’d do lots of public speaking!
So to ‘be’ more like them – to become like them – start doing public speaking.
Start small.
Take tiny steps that begin to create evidence of your new identity.
What kind of person would you like to be?
#femaleentrepreneurs #femalefounders
Currently enjoying a solo break.
Over the past few years I’ve really got to know myself.
It turns out, I can mother my young children with enthusiasm and love & juggle that role with pursuing work that I love … but I also really need time alone, to recharge.
At home, I’m frequently solo parenting. Recently I did a six week stint, which, if you have children, you’ll know is a lot.
So this weekend, I’m by the seaside, solo, and very happy.
I’m grateful for my family and I am also grateful for time away from them.
As a woman we have so many internal & external barriers to success.
Sometimes the needs of others constitutes an external challenge to success & the lack of headspace this creates, a noisy internal one.
Stepping away for some time alone, to regain perspective, recharge, restore and go again, is just what I need.
This isn’t a working break, it’s a break from the norm. A chance to be just me, to live, rest, read & reflect.
How do you restore & recharge yourself?
* this photo was me last night, exceedingly over excited to be on a dinner date with myself.
✨How do you show up as your best self in life? ✨
The things I care about most in the world are my children having good wellbeing and making a positive impact in the world.
Here`s what I`ve learned:
➡ I need to have good wellbeing to help my kids to have good wellbeing.
How I regulate my emotions is reflected in how my children self-regulate. So when I`m finding parenting life hard, their behaviour often makes it harder! When I`m all good, they`re more likely to be all good too.
➡ I need to have good wellbeing to support my clients to optimise their wellbeing.
My job is to provide a safe, warm, non-conditional space of positive regard to my clients. I need to be in a positive, open state of mind to provide that.
Having good wellbeing is a precursor to doing my two most important jobs in life.
✨So how do I keep good wellbeing and a positive outlook?✨
There’s no silver bullet.
There’s no single 5am life hack that’s going to work for us all.
** We all have to get to know ourselves, to learn what works best for us, at any given time. **
Over the years I’ve worked out what works for me.
I am often solo parenting so I don`t have much time to myself.
Getting up TOO early works against me in the long run, yet getting up with *just* enough time to do stuff for me before I have to look after my kids works well.
I think my routine is pretty good for now, but I’m always open to tweaking and improving it.
Read below what I do every day. I also do various things in the week to support my wellbeing (exercise, connection etc) but these are the things I do every day. They`re not groundbreaking, but they work for me.
✨Do you do any of these? I`d love to know!
✨ What do you do to help you have the positive mindset you need to be your best self in life and work?
#successcoaching #wellbeingbeforework #femaleentrepreneurs
* Knowing your value proposition isn`t enough.
* Having great branding or marketing isn`t enough.
* Building a strong network isn`t enough.
* Nailing your pitch and getting funding isn`t enough.
➡️ You need to understand how your unique mind works and how you can help it, to help you.
➡️ You need to create a way of living that supports you to build and grow your business *sustainably* – by which I mean it is financially sustainable but also physically and emotionally sustainable.
To be a founder you need to build awareness of your wellbeing, so you can be resilient. You can not only survive the waves that crash into your path, but you can ride them to somewhere else, feeling stronger for the experience. 🌊
❌ There`s no point being `successful`, if it means you then burn out. ❌
This applies to all founders but if you`re a female founder, you`re much more likely to also be juggling a million and one caring roles and responsibilities, which brings additional challenges to juggle and pressure.
That`s why I`m passionate about sharing the brilliance of #positivepsychology with more female entrepreneurs.
It`s the evidence-based science of wellbeing that shows that the more we optimise our wellbeing, the greater our chances of achieving and sustaining success (in all culturally-valued meanings of the word).
✨It`s looking at what makes us who we are and what we need to feel good to have a positive outlook on life and to enjoy general life satisfaction. It`s things like positive connections, meaning and flow for example.
✨It`s about knowing what we value most in this ⭐️ one ⭐️ precious ⭐️ life ⭐️ and making sure our choices and diaries reflect them.
✨It`s about discovering what our unique gifts are and how by using them, we achieve more with more joy, ease and energy. How using our strengths builds authenticity and resilience.
➡️ ✨✨When we feel better, we do better. ✨✨ ⬅️
What do you *need* from today or this coming weekend, to feel better, so you can go forth and do better?
#successcoaching #femaleentrepreneurs
#femalefounders
`No` is a complete sentence.
Saying NO is also a leadership capability we all need.
Luckily, it`s one that you can learn.
* `People are effective because they say no.` Peter Drucker *
There are two steps:
1) You need to know what`s most important to you.
2) You need to master saying no to anything that doesn`t allow you to put 100% of your energy into the things that are most important to you.
So many times we struggle to say no to other people. We worry about social awkwardness. We worry they`ll be upset, angry, judge or dislike us, or there will be a lasting negative implication for our relationship as a result.
These completely normal emotions muddle our clarity.
People pleasing [saying YES when every part of you is thinking NO] is a really common behaviour, but one that stops us from saying yes to what we really want.
When we say YES to one thing, we automatically have to say NO to another. There`s always a trade-off, but when we prioritise other people`s desires (/feelings), we automatically have to overlook our own.
This can lead to feeling disappointed, resentful and unfulfilled.
✨Starting to say no to other people is hard at first, but like anything difficult, with practice, it starts to get easier.✨
Here are 7 great ways to practice saying no gracefully, but firmly.
✨Which one is your favourite, or one you`re going to start practicing? ✨
To read more on this, I always recommend that clients read Essentialism by Greg McKeown
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I`m Nonie, combining my background in social entrepreneurship, ICF-certified coaching and positive psychology, I help purpose-driven female entrepreneurs to create maximum impact alongside maximum wellbeing, through 1:1 coaching.
✨DM me if you`d like help to work out what`s most important to you and how you can use your unique strengths to make it happen, without letting habits like people-pleasing get in the way ✨ #femaleentrepreneurs
💥`I’ve been really buzzing today.`💥
✨‘I feel really positive.`
✨`I genuinely feel great and I have a lot of clarity on things I was not sure about.
✨I wasn’t saying them out loud because I guess I feared I didn’t like the sound of them… but now I’ve said them out loud, actually I DO like the sound of them!’
✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ ✨
These were the words shared with me yesterday by a new client, a day after our first session.
During our first session she realised she’d reached her 40s, without ever having asked herself what she really enjoyed doing.
This is a super high-achieving woman who has had high profile jobs in a creative industry, and founded two businesses around raising her family…
and yet she’d never given herself permission, space or time to:
➡️ Stop and ask herself what she enjoyed going most
➡️ Work out how she could spend her life doing more of that.
When she did – she felt GREAT.
She realised who she was (rather than perhaps who she thought she `ought` to be), what she cares about most and how she actually wants to spend the one precious life she has.
Along the way she realised lots of things she really doesn`t want to do anymore. She also recognised various familiar patterns of behaviour that she really didn`t like, that kept on happening and blocking her from doing what she really wanted to do.
With this new self-awareness, she can go forth and start to make gradual changes to her life, so it starts to go in the direction that she wants. She has new clarity and purpose.
Sounds like common sense, but so few of us ever create space for this super important and enormously empowering work.
✨This is what I help people to do.✨
Using pure coaching (ICF-certified, so the real deal) + my background in Positive Psychology (the science of wellbeing) I help them get really clear on who their authentic self is, what they care about most, what brings them joy, where their energy and strengths lie and how they want to use them.
It`s enormously satisfying for them and for me 🤩
We follow a 6 step plan to move from chaos, overwork and overwhelm to clarity, wellbeing and purpose.
DM me if you`d like some of this ❤️
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