Everyone needs to make decisions in life, whether they are big or small have huge consequences or are simple outcomes there’s no getting away from them.

Because of this, decision-making is a crucial skill that we need to learn due to its direct impact on the course of our lives.

Whether considering a career change, a change in relationship, a house move, or daily adjustment to routines, the process of decision-making requires thoughtful analysis, weighing of options, and consideration of potential outcomes.

To get the correct outcome therefore learning to strike a balance between logic in the situation and what your intuition is saying can often be key when navigating the complexities of decision-making.

Are you someone who works on your gut instinct? Do you listen to the feelings inside and make opinions based on how you feel about them? If so you are someone who listens to your higher self.

A higher self is that innate part of you the powerful inner guide inside of you that works for your best interests. When you are aligned in life, that is your higher self, working for your best interests, in a positive, productive way so you live the life you want to be living.

The higher self is associated with multiple belief systems. It is seen as an omnipotent, intelligent, conscious being that is a person's true self.

Do you have a good opinion of yourself? If you were to honestly say “ Yes I really like myself and I feel I have many great attributes” then you would undoubtedly think highly of yourself and be doing well in your world.

What if you have the opinion you are awful, no one likes you and you pretty much suck at everything in life, you would be saddled with highly toxic self-limiting beliefs and would probably not be doing as well as you could be.

These kinds of beliefs could cause you to self-sabotage everything you do in your life. But what exactly are self-sabotaging beliefs?

Do you have a purpose in life or are you just drifting from one day to the next going through the motions?

Do you find you spend day after day doing the same things on a rinse-and-repeat basis…..get up, go to work, come home, watch TV, go to bed?

If this is how your life is looking then you need to find your life purpose and quick!

Although you may think you are happy and content at this moment in time and everything is just fine thank you very much, without a purpose in life you can very soon become lost, and dissatisfied and start to drift until you end with a life you no longer love or even recognise.

Are you at the stage in your life where you are wondering how you can find yourself again in a relationship? Are you wondering how everything has changed so much and what happened to you?

Relationships are tricky to navigate and take work and commitment. In the beginning, everything seems so easy, it’s all romance, laughter, shared enjoyment and excitement but people can lose themselves in relationships very quickly if they aren’t careful and then problems can begin to arise and relationships can start to break down.

Are you feeling lost in your 60s? Have you just turned 60 and are feeling depressed? Do you feel that you have lost your mojo and are wondering how to get it back? Or do you feel that at 60 that’s it, you feel too old and there’s no way that you can start over?

Shame is a very coming emotion for humans but can cause great suffering and pain. We often feel it as an unpleasant, disturbing sensation in the pit of our stomach. It is often related to a sense of failure or the thought that we have done something immoral or embarrassing.

It is a complex emotion that will feel different to each person but is an emotion that everyone will have experienced in their lives. Many people can carry shame around with them for many years. Situations from when they were children can still cause them to feel shame many years later.

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We will all react to shame in our own way, and we can all experience it for different reasons. The one thing that many people will have in common is their desire to know how to change their thinking about shame.

Coping with life can seem overwhelming at times. No matter how old or what our circumstances are, we can all find moments when we feel out of control in our lives.

Although we live in an age where we have many time-saving devices and technology to hand, more money and free time and better living conditions than in any period in history, we can still feel that we have too much to do, are burdened down and are unable to control many situations in our lives.

When situations are out of your control or can lead to a build-up of stress and anxiety, it can affect everything from your relationships with yourself family and friends to your jobs and social lives.

You can also feel overwhelmed by the pressures of the world and find that life can at times be daunting.

What you think about becomes your reality. This is a certain fact that we can’t escape. You need to be thinking about how to make your thoughts become the reality that you want to be living and release thoughts that don’t serve you.

Charles Duhigg in his book “The Power of Habit“ coined the phrase keystone habit. These small habits lead to routines that can impact unintentionally other areas of our lives. They are according to Duhigg, “they are that central stone in an arch which locks the whole structure together.”

Let’s be honest no matter how we sugar coat it, it isn’t easy getting older, and the big milestones, seem even more daunting. Changes that occur in our body can make us start to think about ageing and our own mortality. Those little aches and pains we get, joint stiffness when we move, and our eyesight deteriorating can all be depressing signs that we are getting older.

Life coaches work with you to clarify your goals and ambitions and to set plans for them to be realised. During your sessions, they can identify any obstacles that may set you back and can give you tools to motivate and keep you on track. They will identify strengths and weaknesses, gifts and talents that you can use to change your situation and become the person that you want to be.

One thing that we all need to be aware of in life, is that there are going to be times when it really sucks, times when we seem to just keep getting knocked down and don’t seem to be able to get up. These feelings are going to happen to everyone at some time in life, no one will escape them. Life is all about positive and negative experiences. What we need to know is how to deal with them when it happens, how to face up to living when it feels like you are falling apart.

Anchors can also be used metaphorically by coaches with clients during NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) sessions when they are experiencing stress or anxiety, want to appear more confident, or want to change learned behaviour from a negative into a positive. These anchors are usually external stimuli, that when applied can trigger an internal response or feeling. If you thought of your own anchors for instance, how do you feel if you hear a particular piece of music that reminds you of a favourite time or a smell that reminds you of a loved one? Or think about an alarm going off and it may bring back memories of stress or fear.

We all know the scenario, you wake up and before you even check your clock, you know that it’s going to be 3.00 am and that you will then spend the next hour or so, tossing and turning, trying to get back to sleep, all the while your brain will be ruminating on all of the things that you really don’t want to be thinking about. Everyone will have been in this situation at some time or another but why does it happen? And what can we do to stop it from becoming a regular pattern?

Self-worth, one of those buzz words that we hear so often now, but what exactly does it mean? There seem to be so many “self” words, from self-worth, self-confidence, self-esteem, self-care, that it is hard to distinguish one from another.

Self-worth comes from within, it is an internal sense of being that is achieved by acquiring self-love, self-acceptance, and self-understanding.

From time to time, we’ve all had that feeling, a sinking sensation in the pit of our stomach when we realize that we have done something wrong; forgotten someone’s birthday, spent too much money on a purchase, made an excuse to not socialize with a friend, usually harmless occurrences, but they leave us feeling guilty none the less. Guilt, a powerful emotion that we have in life that can overtake us at times.

Are you experiencing a midlife crisis? How would you know if you were? Are the symptoms that you are feeling to do with hormonal changes, is it the onset of menopause that is making you feel the way that you do? Are you suffering from a bout of depression and can’t identify why? As many women move into the second half of their lives, they have a feeling that they are at a crossroads in life and they are not sure which direction they should be going in. They are dissatisfied with their life but don’t know which way to turn to fix them. There are ways though, to make the second half of your life the best half, to move you away from feeling dissatisfied and stuck to feeling fulfilled and free to live your life the way that you want to.

We all know the benefits of a good diet and exercise for the well-being of our physical health but they are also fundamentally important for our mental health as well. Following good holistic practice in life is one way that will keep you mentally fit and healthy. More and more people are seeing the benefits of following a holistic lifestyle when dealing with conditions such as anxiety, stress, and depression as a way to deal with their symptoms.

As we move into the final days of the year, many of us will start to set goals and resolutions for the coming year. Whether it is wanting to lose weight, get healthier, exercise more, get another job…..whatever it is, the New Year always seems like the ideal time to start a new chapter in your life.