It’s that time of the month again. I’ll be doing an Ask Me Anything on TUESDAY 5th September and will be answering them live from 10 am-11 am. Ask me anything from life coaching, and advice to even silly and weird questions!
Subscribers, post your questions below!
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The most popular ones will get answered and any wild cards that take my fancy!
To ask a question, upgrade to paid to unlock this option
Thank you all so much for the wonderful questions this month! This is honestly one of my favourite features 🥰 If you are reading this as a free subscriber and want to join in and ask your own question next month, then make sure you upgrade to paid before 1st October ☺️
Hey Michelle 👋 so I have a new job where essentially I sit between vulnerable people and the government. As you can imagine, there’s a lot of harrowing stories on one side and frustrations on the other. Do you have any advice on how to stay sane?
Obviously good boundaries around my time and energy is huge and fortunately my boss is super supportive of that so far, but I’m an anticipating some trouble with compartmentalising emotionally. Xx
One of the best boundaries that I have as a life coach and is something you can work on is the belief that you are not responsible for anyone’s emotions so that you don’t carry their feelings or take them home from you. The irony of this is people who are drawn to this kind of job are usually highly empathetic people and therefore your strength can also be your weakness. Empathy is amazing, but empathy with boundaries! Rooting yourself in the fact that you are doing the best you can and that you deserve a break too. I suggest when you get from home, you get a journal to do a brain dump of everything that you are feeling or that still needs to get home and you visualise leaving the emotional energy in that too. You will pick up the journal at 9 am tomorrow when you are at work, and then put it back down again when you are off the clock. Another way to create better separation is to almost create a separate identity. For me, when I was public speaking or on social media, I was Scarred Not Scared and then when I’m home, I get to be just Michelle. If you don’t have a name like that, let your home self be a nickname that you love or a pet name and then when you are at work, you are in Kim mode. And then ultimately, if you were numb to what you were witnessing, you would find it hard to care about your job so every so often when something gets to you, let it get to you. Have a cry, let it out, scream if you need to (not at a person, just by yourself) as keeping it in will make it feel worse.
I’m not! I actually haven’t watched The Ultimatum Queer Love either but both seasons are on my list. Absolutely to a thread! Start it yourself (subscribers can do this now) in the chat ☺️🥰
I have one friend in my inner circle who is bearing herself up over the fact that everyone around knows what they want to do with their lives and she doesn't. She kinda knows what her stregths are but dunno how to make use and profit out of it. How can I help her find her calling?
I’m wary of giving advice in relation to fixing someone’s problems. Where I see your role is empathising and supporting her but you can’t actually do the work of helping her find her calling. That is not your responsibility and she needs to do it for herself. If you do it for her, she will not learn the skills needed to search for something that fulfils her. How you can support her is provide examples of when you felt behind and how that eventually resolved itself, provide books that might help navigate her and just listen and make her feel heard
Hey Michelle! I've noticed something very peculiar about myself. I the past I used to set such life and career goals so they fit and don't clash with goals of a guy I was currently dating. I was so scared of abandonment that I neglected my needs and dreams just bot to end up alone. Now I want to take time to heal this sound and work towards my career goals. How do I heal myself so I don't follow the same old pattern again?
The most common question I want you to be asking yourself in many moments a day is ‘what do I want?’. Checking in with how you are feeling about even small decisions like what you want for dinner is a way to build that skill. Especially if you start dating again, building the connection with your feelings and your body in general will help you steer your decisions about what YOU truly want as opposed to what everyone else wants of you. It also helps build up your intuition and most importantly, it also means you will notice when you are doing something that isn’t aligned with what you want because it will bring up physical feelings of discomfort in your body and you will need to honour that and choose to do something different in order to not replicate old patterns
Dear Michelle, I'm reading The Selfish Romantic and it resonates a lot with me. It made me realize that I do need a dating detox and psychotherapy could be benefitial for me because I still carry trauma from my first ever relationship that was really abusive. Like you, I am a late bloomer, jumped into the first relationship I could get just to be like everyone else and someone dragged me through 9 circles of hell and called it love.
Do you have any tips on self discipline? I am currently writing my master thesis and because my masters and the university have been quite terribly organised, I have barely any motivation, but of course, I want to finish my thesis. Any help is greatly appreciated!
I don’t really believe in self discipline, maybe because in my mind that word is so rooted in self hatred and diet culture (sticking to a diet etc), instead I believe in rooting yourself in why you are doing it. For me, I am extremely motivated by not wanting the stress of completely a deadline last minute. For you, your motivation might be different and really feeling that motivation is more of a carrot method than a stick method. The next thing I do is build a plan. I do 2,000 words a day but with a master thesis that might not work, so it might be finishing a piece of data. Map it backwards from the deadline to make sure you will complete on time and I often leave 2 weeks leeway just in case.That way it is easy to stick to 2,000 words because I know I need to do it to stay on track. The other benefit and in built motivation of 2,000 words is once I hit 2,000 I stop. A lot of people punish themselves for being more efficient at work by forcing yourself to continue sitting there and working so let’s say you have an incredibly good day and you hit your target for the day by 10 am. Let yourself stop! That is your reward! It trains your brain to work more efficiently because if you keep working then your brain goes ‘well what was the point of working so hard if I am just going to do the same thing I did yesterday when I had a slow day’. Some days you will just be on a roll, so on those days, don’t stop yourself but then deduct it from tomorrow’s target. I have had some days when the words just flew out of me and I’ve done 5,000 or even 10,000 words in a day. That means I get 5 days off and if I want to write on those 5 days, then again I will just contribute it to my tally of how much time I have bought myself off and I will let myself enjoy that freedom. This leads me to my final point, when you are not working, stop working. Stop thinking about it and actually let yourself rest. This creates more energy for when you work and is hugely important in terms of creativity.
Thank you all so much for the wonderful questions this month! This is honestly one of my favourite features 🥰 If you are reading this as a free subscriber and want to join in and ask your own question next month, then make sure you upgrade to paid before 1st October ☺️
Hey Michelle 👋 so I have a new job where essentially I sit between vulnerable people and the government. As you can imagine, there’s a lot of harrowing stories on one side and frustrations on the other. Do you have any advice on how to stay sane?
Obviously good boundaries around my time and energy is huge and fortunately my boss is super supportive of that so far, but I’m an anticipating some trouble with compartmentalising emotionally. Xx
One of the best boundaries that I have as a life coach and is something you can work on is the belief that you are not responsible for anyone’s emotions so that you don’t carry their feelings or take them home from you. The irony of this is people who are drawn to this kind of job are usually highly empathetic people and therefore your strength can also be your weakness. Empathy is amazing, but empathy with boundaries! Rooting yourself in the fact that you are doing the best you can and that you deserve a break too. I suggest when you get from home, you get a journal to do a brain dump of everything that you are feeling or that still needs to get home and you visualise leaving the emotional energy in that too. You will pick up the journal at 9 am tomorrow when you are at work, and then put it back down again when you are off the clock. Another way to create better separation is to almost create a separate identity. For me, when I was public speaking or on social media, I was Scarred Not Scared and then when I’m home, I get to be just Michelle. If you don’t have a name like that, let your home self be a nickname that you love or a pet name and then when you are at work, you are in Kim mode. And then ultimately, if you were numb to what you were witnessing, you would find it hard to care about your job so every so often when something gets to you, let it get to you. Have a cry, let it out, scream if you need to (not at a person, just by yourself) as keeping it in will make it feel worse.
Mega helpful thank you. I’m going to discuss with my team today and I’m sure these ideas will help them too 💛
Are you watching the new season of the Ultimatum? Can you please make a thread on this?! I always love hearing your perspective!
I’m not! I actually haven’t watched The Ultimatum Queer Love either but both seasons are on my list. Absolutely to a thread! Start it yourself (subscribers can do this now) in the chat ☺️🥰
I have one friend in my inner circle who is bearing herself up over the fact that everyone around knows what they want to do with their lives and she doesn't. She kinda knows what her stregths are but dunno how to make use and profit out of it. How can I help her find her calling?
I’m wary of giving advice in relation to fixing someone’s problems. Where I see your role is empathising and supporting her but you can’t actually do the work of helping her find her calling. That is not your responsibility and she needs to do it for herself. If you do it for her, she will not learn the skills needed to search for something that fulfils her. How you can support her is provide examples of when you felt behind and how that eventually resolved itself, provide books that might help navigate her and just listen and make her feel heard
Hey Michelle! I've noticed something very peculiar about myself. I the past I used to set such life and career goals so they fit and don't clash with goals of a guy I was currently dating. I was so scared of abandonment that I neglected my needs and dreams just bot to end up alone. Now I want to take time to heal this sound and work towards my career goals. How do I heal myself so I don't follow the same old pattern again?
The most common question I want you to be asking yourself in many moments a day is ‘what do I want?’. Checking in with how you are feeling about even small decisions like what you want for dinner is a way to build that skill. Especially if you start dating again, building the connection with your feelings and your body in general will help you steer your decisions about what YOU truly want as opposed to what everyone else wants of you. It also helps build up your intuition and most importantly, it also means you will notice when you are doing something that isn’t aligned with what you want because it will bring up physical feelings of discomfort in your body and you will need to honour that and choose to do something different in order to not replicate old patterns
Dear Michelle, I'm reading The Selfish Romantic and it resonates a lot with me. It made me realize that I do need a dating detox and psychotherapy could be benefitial for me because I still carry trauma from my first ever relationship that was really abusive. Like you, I am a late bloomer, jumped into the first relationship I could get just to be like everyone else and someone dragged me through 9 circles of hell and called it love.
Thar makes a lot of sense! Thank you ♥️
Do you have any tips on self discipline? I am currently writing my master thesis and because my masters and the university have been quite terribly organised, I have barely any motivation, but of course, I want to finish my thesis. Any help is greatly appreciated!
I don’t really believe in self discipline, maybe because in my mind that word is so rooted in self hatred and diet culture (sticking to a diet etc), instead I believe in rooting yourself in why you are doing it. For me, I am extremely motivated by not wanting the stress of completely a deadline last minute. For you, your motivation might be different and really feeling that motivation is more of a carrot method than a stick method. The next thing I do is build a plan. I do 2,000 words a day but with a master thesis that might not work, so it might be finishing a piece of data. Map it backwards from the deadline to make sure you will complete on time and I often leave 2 weeks leeway just in case.That way it is easy to stick to 2,000 words because I know I need to do it to stay on track. The other benefit and in built motivation of 2,000 words is once I hit 2,000 I stop. A lot of people punish themselves for being more efficient at work by forcing yourself to continue sitting there and working so let’s say you have an incredibly good day and you hit your target for the day by 10 am. Let yourself stop! That is your reward! It trains your brain to work more efficiently because if you keep working then your brain goes ‘well what was the point of working so hard if I am just going to do the same thing I did yesterday when I had a slow day’. Some days you will just be on a roll, so on those days, don’t stop yourself but then deduct it from tomorrow’s target. I have had some days when the words just flew out of me and I’ve done 5,000 or even 10,000 words in a day. That means I get 5 days off and if I want to write on those 5 days, then again I will just contribute it to my tally of how much time I have bought myself off and I will let myself enjoy that freedom. This leads me to my final point, when you are not working, stop working. Stop thinking about it and actually let yourself rest. This creates more energy for when you work and is hugely important in terms of creativity.