When Nothing Is Working Out How It Is Supposed To

When it rains, it pours but how do you survive being drenched?

Hey loves,

I hope you all are having a wonderful week. I am not. I’m going to be real with you, this is usually when I hide away from social media and being online. I feel my feelings, I hermit away and cry. This is when I go into my backlog of content and will post old things where I’m happy and smiling until I am ready to resurface again. Being in this career long enough, I know there are always ebbs and flows. Whether it’s your mood, your creativity or simply how much time you have, it is hard to stay consistent without being prepared and so today, I was so tempted to hit release on a generic post about improving your life but I stopped. I promised you real this year so here’s the honesty. Life sucks right now. Nothing is working out how I wanted and I am beyond gutted. Oh and I have broken my toe and am on crutches!

When you are a life coach and you post somewhat aspirational content, there is an automatic assumption that you are always a positive person and whilst I try to be optimistic, I can promise you I am not. I can be VERY miserable and whilst I would not go as far as to say it’s my demeanour, being miserable is definitely within my range. I remind you all that I’m human all the time but no one seems to believe me so here I am reporting live from the low in the hopes that you will stop beating yourself up when you are in the dumps too. The reason why it’s easier to be a life coach who is down in the dumps is because I have more tools than the average person and one thing I do have on my side is that I get sick of being miserable pretty quickly so my bounce back is pretty good, but only once I have fully leaned into it. My first message to you is to please be gentle with yourself and let yourself be down once in a while. I think we worry that if we sink into the sadness and feeling disappointed then that’s where we will stay forever and that’s just not true. All humans are capable of experiencing all emotions but if we shame ourselves when the negative ones arise, they stick around longer. Emotions are designed to be temporary but if yours aren’t, it’s because they aren’t being given the time and attention to be healed and processed.

We talk a lot about believing in yourself but believing in yourself is not enough, you need other people to make things happen. Specifically, the people with the power, the money, and the opportunities to also think you are amazing and that part of the job is exhausting. You can be the best in the world and unless other people believe in you, no doors will open. It really reminds me of when Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga was doing a press tour for ‘A Star Is Born’ and she kept repeating this quote. I never even watched the movie and yet we all heard Lady Gaga over and over again say ‘There can be 100 people in the room and 99 don't believe in you and you just need one to believe in you - and that was him'“. Please, where is my Bradley Cooper? Can they please stand up? Romantically, yes I have found my person but in my career, could my Bradley Cooper please show up? Lady Gaga was right, there were many times in my career when it took one person to believe in me and my world changed. One example of this was when Katie Piper was going on her book tour, they were looking for a host and she suggested me. Everyone in the room insisted I wasn’t the right fit, one even said ‘she has Queen of Boundaries’ in her bio, and boundaries have nothing to do with what we are doing’ and Katie persisted and said ‘No, she’s amazing, she’s perfect for the job, just trust me’. They trusted her, I got the job and I only found this story out because I did indeed prove them all wrong and one of the team came up to me and told me this story to tell me what an advocate Katie had been for me. I wasn’t surprised Katie is that champion for so many people and as her star has risen, she has always been sure to raise other people up too but what’s interesting is that I had never hosted before and Katie’s team didn’t know that, but nor did she. This is why it’s not just about self-belief, I knew I could do it, I had that confidence, and I had the self-esteem to take the risk but without someone else believing I was up to the task AND convincing a whole room on my behalf, that job would have gone to someone else. Self-belief is overrated because if you get yourself the right team around you, even when you don’t believe in yourself, your team will lift you enough to believe you can do it!