Lessons for Leaders

Today I’m talking about self care. Now before you roll your eyes (I do too) there’s such a bit misconception about self care and what it is. Self care is a necessary function that we all need in our lives. In this fast paced world we seem to forget to put ourselves first. “You cannot pour from an empty cup” You need to fill up yourself first. Self care is about actions and things you do in your life that help to protect, maintain, develop or improve your health, wellbeing, your emotional and physical states. In other words, we need to look after ourselves. Often we think we’re looking after ourselves, but we’re not making time to nourish ourselves, to nurture, to rest, to replenish, to enjoy. It’s about being fit, healthy, kind .. you could go back through all the podcasts I’ve done! It’s so easy to just carry on doing all the things that need doing in our lives, or telling ourselves that we don’t deserve it, that it’s pointless or selfish. Self care is absolutely essential. Remember a car needs regular maintenance, so do we. Remember too the essential things we need to know when we’re on an aeroplane and putting the oxygen mask on ourselves. We’re no good to anyone else if we cannot breathe! Often self care is about doing small things so that you can be the best that you can be. 4.38 Listen to Emma talk about how she had total recognition about when she needed to ensure her own self care was essential, to be available to support her children. “Self care is more than just a scented candle!” "I wouldn’t be here today, supporting the family, running the business, helping others, working 1:1 and in companies without self-care." How much and how frequently you put in self care depends on your circumstances. What works for me will not work for you. It needs time to assess and find the individual thing that works for you. 8.35. Why Do We Need Self Care Now? In the olden days, life was much simpler then. People did one thing at a time. Reading the newspaper, darning socks, watching the flames in a coal fire or had conversations with each other! In this fast paced world we can watch tv and have phone in hand and talk to kids or partner and have work stuff in your head. That’s why we need the self care. 11.25 How to Find Self Care That Works For You? It’s about finding things that help you feel balance, in control, that life energies or relax you down. Find times that you just stop or rest for a bit. - Read a book - Listen to music - Watching tv (but stop multi-tasking) - Sit with kids, connect, have a snack and a cuppa (whilst it’s hot) You don’t always need to spend a lot of money or take time away - Have a bath, but lock the door - Take a walk - Get into nature and notice the surroundings - Learn a breathing technique Nourish Yourself - Drink water (not the tonic in your gin) - Healthy food - Have a snooze / meditate / self hypnosis - Cuddle someone, increase your love hormone called oxytocin - Ask for help or share with friend or partner Be Kind to yourself - Forgive yourself for mistakes or judgements - Be accepting or circumstances instead of fighting or raging - Get boundaries in order with clear priorities - Pick your battles, we can’t make others do things - Decide where to put your energy for the best impact for success (it might be you) Sometimes you need to put energy into you first and then decide where you need to be to support others. Give Yourself Permission - Spend a bit of money on yourself (doesn’t have to be lots) - Buy some flowers - Get the Ahh factor from little treats - Schedule time out Raise your feel good chemicals - Laughter, especially a good belly laugh - Smile at people - Talk to someone in the street - Exercise, although it might need scheduling. Finding the things that help you. And recognise that these interests can change over time. Let me know what works for you. Contact me at www.emmalangton.com Get the Self Doubt Guide bit.ly/SelfDoubtPodGuide

We all have times when anxiety is in our life. I want you to begin to consider that everyone feels anxious from time to time. I know that often people feel like it’s just them. The key to helping you overcome anxiety is recognising it’s there. Anxiety is worrying or a feeling of unease, fear or worry.  All of us can have some form or level of anxiety in our lives, although usually in a mild way or for a short period of time or because of a particular event or circumstance in our lives.  There might be anxiety about everyday things. Listen when I explain what might cause anxiety and some anxieties that come up in my house. Anxious symptoms can differ from person to person.  Listen in where I list what some of these might be. Sometimes we can trace things back to a specific time, place or situation when they began to feel frightened, worried or anxious. Those feelings can be repeated and re-played on a regular basis.  There may be life circumstances, like a busy job, work pressure or hectic home life that leave someone feeling anxious. What you might not realise is that your diet may impact the way you feel.  If you really want to overcome anxiety it’s often worth taking a bit of time to consider where it’s coming from or what might be causing it. Although I do recognise that sometimes we have no idea. What helps us overcome anxiety? Breathing - Taking a deep breath down into your stomach releases feel-good chemicals, which in turn help to calm down the brain and body functions.  It’s been scientifically proven to help calm us. Stop the Catastrophe 16.10m Our brain is wired to assess a situation and make quick decisions. This means we can often run away into doom and gloom and everything is a catastrophe. When that happens we need to bring this back. Be Logical 17.35m Once you’ve done the breathing and calmed down, you can be more logical and analyse the situation and look for another outcome than can happen. Is there any other way I can look at this? Is there any other reason I can have for this thinking? How true is my thinking? What other way can I begin to think about this scenario? Instead of focussing on the catastrophe you begin to see possibility. Control the emotions 19.45m So we want to make sure that we are not getting into a situation where our emotions control our reasoning. Those emotions are a pain in backside when they kick off and stop us doing things we want to do. Speak to someone 19.45m So it’s also important to speak to other people. Often those thoughts go round and round in our heads and if we can just manage to speak to someone about what’s going on in our head, or tell someone how we are feeling then the anxiety calms right down.  It’s important to increase our feel good chemicals to balance out the good stuff with the anxious chemicals. Exercise 22.25m Exercise is also great for boosting those feel-good chemicals, rather than having those anxious thoughts and feelings. This doesn’t have to be at the gym. It might just be a walk in your lunch-break or a run round the park with your kids. Music 23.40m Music is a great way to increase the feel-good feelings. I know people who have created particular play-lists which are calming or upbeat. Journalling 24.40m Writing things enables you to connect with the thoughts and feelings. It might also help you recognise patterns of anxiety or just offload thoughts each day. Healthy Diet Diet is so important. If you've been anxious all day then go for take-away or quick food it might be loaded with sugar and that's not good for anxiety. Try to plan ahead for any anxious or difficult days. The more you work on anxiety the easier it is to stop it taking hold. It’s really OK that different things work for different people.  Find out what helps you to stop your anxiety.  Find me at www.emmalangton.com or email from the contact page to get in touch. Get your free overwhelm emmalangton.activehosted.com/f/5

Resilience is all about our ability to bounce back from challenges, difficulties and set backs in life. This week I talk about how you can ramp up your resilience to be able to deal with all that life throws at us. - Assess the situation - Check out the emotions, thoughts and feelings and what to do with them. - Look for different scenarios - Make plans to be able to deal with challenge - Take time out to rest or recover from the impact or clear space if needed - Ask for support or just find a way to offload - Look after your physical and mental health With these ways we can continue to improve our resilience to deal with whatever life throws at us. Contact me at http://www.emmalangton.com/contact/ if you have comments or questions about this or to book a discovery call to work with me. Get your free guide 7 Steps from Overwhelm to In Control https://www.emmalangton.com/overwhelm/

If you struggle with confidence or don’t always feels confident then this episode will be helpful for you. Your self-confidence (or lack of it) isn’t written in stone. You can learn, increase, practice self-confidence such like any other skill. Once you increase your self-confidence your life will seem so much better and easier. We look at What Confidence Is and the steps we need to take to increase our self confidence. Emma talks through steps of - Recognise - Get Started - Practice - Self Talk - Support - Reflect - Success There's a great story about how Emma supported her daughter with her confidence building and recognition that not everything can be scripted in life. We need to get comfortable having a go. You can work with Emma on your confidence at: at www.emmalangton.com/workwithme or get your free self doubt to self belief guide at http://bit.ly/SelfDoubtPodGuide The key to maintaining great self-confidence is to have all these ways that we can use to bounce back.

What do we do when a Fear of Rejection stops us from moving forward and achieving? When we have a fear of rejection it can prevent us applying for jobs, asking for a pay-rise, sharing information about our work, promoting ourselves, giving an opinion …. the list is endless. Book a call with Emma to discuss how this can help you at at bit.ly/30minsappt Listen as Emma explains why we fear rejection and covers ways of overcoming it with - Check out the root cause - Learn tools to keep emotions under control - It’s not personal - Keep perspective. - Improve your Resilience She shares how she overcame the fear she had too. Nowadays it’s very different way of surviving. So those no’s and rejections don’t have the power that our primitive brain think they have! Don’t let yourself get caught up in that fear of rejection. You can take action so that you no longer have to cope with the frustration of not getting where you want to be or not taking steps to get the outcomes you want.

This week I’m joined by Vicki Nicolson, Branding Designer to talk about getting the balance in business. You can find more about Vicki's work at www.vickinicolson.com In middle of August Vicki had sent an email saying she was finally finding the balance in her business and the school holidays. Emma invited her onto the podcast to talk about how Vicki got that balance today in her Branding Business. Vicki talks about starting the business 3 years ago and despite thinking it’s going to be great running a business we have to do all things in the business, with accounts, marketing, key word google searches and a whole lot more. She found herself overwhelmed even though she was doing something she loved. We chat through the realisations, the self development, the support, outsourcing and what is the deal-breaker for Vicki. Vicki shares why she does this and how it's important to remember this. Finally, we talk about what managing time and boundaries look like for Vicki too

How do we maintain positive thinking in our lives? Does it sounds easier said than done? This isn’t just about telling ourselves things are “fine” or repeating phrases and affirmations like “today is a great day”. When we start to think positively we are re-wiring our brain. We create new neural pathways so that eventually, thinking positive becomes automatic. Listen as Emma dives into some tips on how to think positively and explains that negative thinking is a survival instinct. - Notice positives every day. Take 5 minutes each morning, evening, on your journey home to think about your day. - Keep a Perspective. It’s so easy to have the last hour of the day to difficult and then be telling yourself it was a rubbish day! - Turn negatives around by changing the way you speak about difficulties. - Surround yourself with positive people who support you. Book a call to discuss working with Emma at http://bit.ly/30minsappt or go to www.emmalangton.com

How do we maintain positive thinking in our lives? Does it sounds easier said than done? This isn’t just about telling ourselves things are “fine” or repeating phrases and affirmations like “today is a great day”. When we start to think positively we are re-wiring our brain. We create new neural pathways so that eventually, thinking positive becomes automatic. Listen as Emma dives into some tips on how to think positively and explains that negative thinking is a survival instinct. - Notice positives every day. Take 5 minutes each morning, evening, on your journey home to think about your day. - Keep a Perspective. It’s so easy to have the last hour of the day to difficult and then be telling yourself it was a rubbish day! - Turn negatives around by changing the way you speak about difficulties. - Surround yourself with positive people who support you. Book a call to discuss working with Emma at http://bit.ly/30minsappt or go to www.emmalangton.com

We’ve all had times when we’ve put something off. We can create reasons or justification for not doing these things. Really they’re excuses and procrastination. This week Emma talks through ways you can push past your procrastination. Listen in as she talks through different options that can help you. - work out the fear or emotion behind the procrastination - dealing with overwhelm of getting started - how to reframe waiting for perfect - look at big picture thinking and remember why - break things down into achievable chunks - set better deadlines - switch off from distractions finally get support or accountability to get you through all this. And Emma is still taking calls to discuss working with her this Autumn. You can book here bit.ly/30minsappt or see her website at www.emmalangton.com

Emma shares details of a client's journey after burnout in his job. Listen to the difference in how he felt before and after coaching. You can book a call to discuss working with Emma at http://bit.ly/30minsappt Key factors for her client were: - always expected a negative reaction, - worried what people thought, - really pessimistic, - awake at night, - struggling to deal with people. He took a 5 month break from work and then got a new job. He knew he needed help and support to make the changes required so the same situation didn't happen again. Emma talks through her coaching process and how it is planned out. The outcomes for her client were: - knowing what lights him up and restores his energy - having selections of tools & techniques - be able to communicate better - changing habits - no longer taking the easy options - positive feelings and interactions with others He said " I’m comfortable in my own skin. I now see my own value and I feel like I achieve every day"