Just as you budget how you spend your money to stay on track financially, you should also budget your time to keep your mental health on track. While this may seem obvious, many people struggle with saying “no” when someone asks them for their time.  Throw in a hectic work schedule and managing family commitments, and all of a sudden finding balance in your busy life may seem impossible.

If you feel like you are burning the candle at both ends, it’s time to take a step back and breathe. It’s time to reevaluate your priorities and create more balance.

Be realistic with your time

You are only human, and there are only so many hours in the day. It will eventually overwhelm you if you are cramming too much into your schedule. Start by understanding the essentials of your schedule (i.e., the things you have to do). For example, your work hours, extracurricular activities, weekly appointments, etc. Once you understand the fundamentals of your schedule, you will better understand what free time you have for other activities and commitments. It is also important to carve out some personal time to relax and decompress. Whether it’s reading a book, taking a relaxing bath, or scheduling a massage, be sure to set aside time for yourself.

Say no without feeling guilty

We all feel obligated to say yes when we are asked to help, volunteer, or attend a social event. However, it is okay to say no when you are busy. The feeling that we “should” do something can create a pang of guilt that is hard to avoid. It can make us feel obligated to commit to things we do not have time for or do not want to do. So say no, and do not feel guilty. It is within your rights to not feel social, not want to attend, or not want to volunteer your time. And just because you say yes the first time, it does not mean you have to say yes the second time (and vice versa). Saying no allows you to take the pressure off yourself and focus on activities with people who fulfil your life.

But that’s easier said than done, I hear you say, the guilt appears regardless. The trick to ridding ourselves of unnecessary guilt is to change that specific guilt into gratitude. Rather than feeling guilty that you have to say no, be grateful that you were valued enough to be asked in the first place and that there are people who appreciate and want your time. And if it is something that you may want to do when your schedule is less busy, say so. You’ll be surprised by just how other people actually are understanding, as well as appreciating your clarity and honesty.

Make healthy choices for you, according to your fundamental values and goals

When we make choices that bring us closer to what’s essential in our life, we start to bring into being that sense of calm and purpose that we all search for. Sometimes this requires making sacrifices in other areas of our lives. For example, if one of your goals for the year is to dedicate more time to your family and you, therefore, want to take your family away for the weekend, you may need to sacrifice your gym time or dinner with friends to make space for your weekend away with your family. Balance is all about making choices that will match your values and match your goals.

Choose quality over quantity

Balance comes down to choosing quality over quantity. We often view balance in life as how much time we dedicate to things. However, it’s actually about how much effort we put into the events or into people, and not just the amount of time. Ultimately, spending time with friends and family doesn’t mean much if you are looking at your phone the entire time. Half an hour of being truly present with your children, partner, or friends is always worth more than three hours of time spent in the same geographical space whilst mentally giving your energy to whoever is on the other side of the phone. When you offer your time to others, make it a true offering. This can be something as small as setting your phone to silent and giving them your undivided attention. This is just as important also when you are carving out some self-care time for yourself – to meditate, read a book or take a relaxing bath for example – put your phone on silent and truly prioritize yourself.  

Balance is also about making sure you are not prioritizing work over all else. Your work colleagues or boss are not who is going to be by your bedside in your dying days, your loved ones will. While it can be challenging to step away from your work entirely, setting boundaries during specific hours is possible. When you are with your loved ones or dedicating time to yourself,  you want to make the most of your time. This means remaining active, present, and engaging with your loved ones or with yourself. Whether it’s for a few minutes or a few hours, this allows you to get more out of your time.

Stay organized

We live in a world where demands on our time are more and more pervasive. From employers without boundaries to the addiction of social media, staying organized is key to maintaining balance. Making a plan which prioritizes your time into the right areas to meet your goals for the year is therefore paramount. This is especially true for working parents who are managing multiple schedules in addition to their own. So if exercise is a priority in your life, for example,  plan specific but realistic times each week to exercise and stick to it. While planning may feel like the opposite of balance, it helps ensure you have time for what you want to do. With that being said, it is also important to be spontaneous sometimes. Spontaneity is great for maintaining balance.

Seek guidance and help

When we are looking to be the best version of ourselves, we often face a wide range of obstacles to overcome, both from the past and present. This can make finding balance in a busy life difficult to achieve, especially when we haven’t brought to consciousness the values we wish to live our life by or the goals we wish to achieve, based on these values. Are you navigating a difficult divorce which is bringing feelings of an uncertain future? Do you want to change your career but are stuck as to how. Or perhaps you simply seek to create more balance in an overloaded life, where you can’t see the woods from the trees. Regardless of the reason, the professionals at One Life Coaching are here to help you navigate the path to the next chapter of your life with a lighter load. We are passionate about helping our clients overcome the obstacles to living a happy and successful and ultimately peaceful life. If you’re ready to take the next step toward realizing your dreams, contact a member of our team.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Whilst divorce can be seen as the end of a negative or toxic relationship, and as such a relief to all involved,  it is still in the top five challenging situations anyone can face in their lifetime. And when children are involved this becomes even more complicated with more hearts to protect than just your own. If you’re worried about how your children will be impacted by your separation or divorce, you are not alone. But be not afraid, there are in fact many ways to make this family transition as stress-free as possible for your children.

Respect their emotions

To children, the separation or divorce of their parents signifies a potential break in their own stability and routine. This will lead to feelings of uncertainty,  fear, frustration and even anger. If these feelings are left unchecked this can further lead to anxiety, guilt, behavioural issues of playing out or regression and/or withdrawal.  So first and foremost as parents, we need to make it clear to our children that we are interested in what they have to say and that their emotions are as valid as everyone else’s in this situation. This may be easier said than done, since what our child has to say may be difficult to hear, but it’s important to give them a chance to be honest and to be able to vent in a safe and supportive space with no judgement. 

One way to let your children know it’s okay to feel sad, afraid, or angry is to allow them to share their feelings. Do your best to listen to your children without interrupting them. This may be hard, as your instinct is to protect them. For example, if your child says they are angry, instead of trying to look for an immediate solution to cheer them up, you can validate their emotion by letting them know you understand why they feel the way they do. Another way is to not hide your own emotions from them. Children often get confused if they are feeling sad or angry whilst their parents are pretending that they themselves are happy and cheery about the whole thing. This makes little sense to children. Obviously don’t burden your children with the depths of your emotions – they are not your therapist – but allow them to see that these things also make you sad whilst letting them know that it will be OK. Try to model appropriate behaviour. If a child’s parent is trying to put on a brave face and pretend that they are totally fine about all this, the child will feel confused and maybe even believe that their own feelings are not correct, are wrong and therefore invalid. Honesty, in age-appropriate language, is the most important factor during a separation/divorce. Children need to know that they can trust their parents and as children literally feel what their parents are feeling, feeling sad and telling your children that you are happy is just confusing for them. Be honest. 

More often than not, however, during a divorce children feel hesitant to share their feelings with their parents as they themselves don’t want to further upset their parents through these difficult times. They often perceive – consciously or unconsciously – that further upsetting their parents will be a further crack in their own stability and they definitely do not want that. Children need their parents to be stable in order to feel that they have stability themselves. This is when they may need an unbiased third party to be able to feel that they can say what they need to say without feeling that they are further burdening their parents. This is where the services of One Life Coaching come in. With over 20 years experience of working with pre-teens and teens, we provide a safe space for children to be able to vent their fears and worries, understand how the current situation will or will not impact their everyday lives and ultimately regain that feeling of stability that allows them to have a healthy perspective during their parents’ separation/divorce.

Maintain Calm and Normalcy for your Children

As previously mentioned, all children really want is stability in their own lives, so maintaining their routine where possible whilst shielding them from adult conflict is paramount. 

The split of their parents is undoubtedly a break to any child’s stability but this can nonetheless be minimised to be the “only” break. That is to say if during a separation or divorce children continue to attend the same school, see the same friends, play with the same toys, sleep in the same bed and attend the same extracurricular lessons – in other words, they keep the same routine – the break to their stability is greatly cushioned. 

The split of two adults will equally invariably bring conflict for the adults involved but it’s important to insulate your child from these conflicts – after all, these are adult conflicts, not child based conflicts. Calm behaviour and positive talk to your child about their other parent will help your children feel reassured during this challenging family transition. It is therefore important that you do your best not to speak negatively about your spouse around your child or to your child. You may be in deep dispute with your spouse, hating every minute of the separation and what you perceive that it is inflicting on you, but your spouse is still the “other” parent of your child and your child wants to love both equally. 

Routine, honesty and trust is important to any child but especially important when their parents are splitting. A child needs to trust that what their parent is saying is the truth.  

Co-parenting / Visitation

Research has shown that for children of separated/divorced parents,  co-parenting, where possible, is indeed the best option. Contrary to popular belief, co-parenting does not mean that the two parents need to talk to each other about their children and/or discuss and agree on the same discipline styles in both houses.  Children at school go from classroom to classroom and are happy to adapt to different teachers’ discipline styles and so they are just as happy to adjust to different discipline styles in mum’s house to dad’s house. Co-parenting means that both parents share equal responsibility for the physical, emotional and psychological upbringing of their children. It means that both mum and dad have a living arrangement that has a space for their child. That the child has everything in one house as in the other and is not that suitcase kid taking their stuff backwards and forwards from mum’s house to dad’s house. It means that the child spends a whole week with mum then a whole week with dad so that both mum and dad are taking an active part in their everyday life – taking them to school, picking them up, taking them to their extracurricular activities, to their parties, to their friends’ house, helping with homework, having bath and bedtime. One week with mum / one week with dad. Some parents choose two weeks on and two weeks off as then the break is only once a month for the child. Whichever you choose, the benefit to the children is that they can see that both parents are available and present in their everyday lives.

Unfortunately co-parenting is not always an option for every couple – one parent may work away, may travel for work, or may have irregular schedules. This is when visitation comes into play. Visitation is when the children have one permanent resident and “visit” the residence of the other parent, say every other weekend and maybe one day a week, to give an example. This can also work as long as parents are able to stick to the agreed schedule. Unfortunately, many parents, believing they are being amicable, swap and change these weekends or weekdays to suit the adults, not the children. This is what is hugely confusing for children who then perceive a lack of stability. So whatever you as parents agree on – co-parenting or visitation – devise a schedule for the year, share it with each other and with your children and stick to it. This way your children will know that they can trust you as you comply with what you agreed. There is no change – other than in the case of emergencies like for example a funeral which children can understand – and as a result, there is no confusion for the child as well as a continuation in the child’s stability. 

Maintain healthy boundaries

Once parents do separate, healthy boundaries should be maintained. Again many parents, with a belief that they are portraying an amicable front, step over these boundaries which can then lead to huge confusion for the children. For example, fathers may say that they will visit their children in the mother’s home and play with them and even have dinner with them in their mother’s home. Unfortunately, children don’t have the same notion of time as adults. One hour can seem to them like a whole day, a whole week or a whole month. So dad coming to play in mum’s house and then leaving continuously can be confusing to the child who may think “if dad can come here for this time, why can’t he live here?’’ And children will more often than not want to blame themselves for this continual departure so the child may begin to believe that every time dad is leaving, dad is leaving because of something that he/she has done. To avoid confusion for the children, once you have decided to separate, separate. Let the child know that they spend time at mum’s house with mum and time at dad’s house with dad. By all means, be civil or amicable to each other when you are doing the handover of your children from one parent to another but try not to cross each other’s space. Respect each other’s boundaries. This equally applies to sharing meals or time out together with the children. Many parents often believe that children want to see both parents together but this is equally confusing to children who again can believe that each time the parents part ways it’s because of something they have done. And again children may be asking themselves if my parents can go out with us together why can’t they be together? Obviously, when children are older they will want both parents at important life events such as graduation and weddings but whilst the children are young, if you say you are separating, separate. Children want access to both parents and want to know that both parents are there for them, you don’t have to spend time together to model this.

Get support

If your children are struggling during your divorce, a child therapist/coach can be a safe non-judgemental space for them to talk without fear of hurting either parent. At One Life Coaching, we provide this space and the expert professional support to help your children through this challenging and uncertain time. In addition to getting your children support, you should get support for yourself. A divorce coach/therapist can provide both practical and emotional support and strategies to help you cope during these challenging times, both to you as an individual and to you together if you are seeking more clarity on how to co-parent.

Coaches/therapists help you become emotionally balanced to make rational decisions. Furthermore, a Divorce Coach/therapist can help you manage the many negative emotions you undoubtedly will experience whilst navigating your divorce, emotions such as worry, fear, anxiety, panic, sorrow and anguish (to name a few). The more emotionally grounded you are during your divorce, the more prepared you will be to help your children as they navigate this time in their life.

Additionally, an impartial Divorce Coach can help you navigate your separation and divorce before meeting with a lawyer to help you define what you want for yourself and your children in the long run. A Divorce Coach/Therapist can also help you guide your children so they do not suffer unnecessarily during their parents’ breakup. 

One Life Coaching for Divorce

If you need help navigating your divorce, the professionals at One Life Coaching can help you individually, help you both as co-parents and help your children. We understand how emotionally charged and draining the divorce process can be – especially when children are involved. With over a decade’s experience, we’ve helped hundreds of adults and children navigate divorce. You can rest assured knowing there is someone you can trust to give you and your children the best guidance. 

Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you before, during, and after your divorce.

Navigating a divorce is an emotional and challenging time. When most people think of their divorce “to-do” list, they automatically start looking for a lawyer. While a lawyer is most definitely helpful during a divorce for the legal side of things,  a Divorce Coach can be just as  – if not more – helpful in providing the support and guidance you need to navigate the complex matrix of decisions on the path ahead.

Why do I need a Divorce Coach During My Divorce?

Divorce is well known for being 80% emotional and 20% legal. And while a lawyer is helpful to manage the legal aspects of your divorce, they aren’t going to help you navigate the monumental sea of decisions as you move forward in your life. A Divorce Coach can provide both practical and emotional support and strategies to help you cope during these challenging times. 

Coaches help you become emotionally balanced to make rational decisions. Furthermore, a Divorce Coach can help you manage the many negative emotions you undoubtedly will experience whilst navigating your divorce, emotions such as worry, fear, anxiety, panic, sorrow and anguish (to name a few). During this time you will be making legal decisions that will impact the rest of your life. As such, it’s important you are emotionally balanced and making rational and sound decisions as you move forward. Unfortunately, many people immediately run to a lawyer expecting that the lawyer will be able to appease their anxiety and their panic and their negative emotions, to no avail. Unlike Divorce Coaches, lawyers are not normally trained to help you manage and mitigate your worries, emotions, fears and anxieties. 

Lawyers Work in One Specific Area

Every client we have worked with, who went to a lawyer first, came to us saying, “Why didn’t I seek the guidance from a Divorce Coach from One Life Coaching first?”  At One Life Coaching, we help individuals navigate the practicalities of their divorce, as well as the emotional side. This empowers you to clearly instruct your legal team as to what your requirements are, and not the other way around. With a Divorce Coach, the power is placed in your hands rather than leaving it all in the hands of a lawyer. Together with your Divorce Coach, you’ll determine what works best for you personally, as well as what works best for your family, as you move forward in this next chapter of your life. 

Divorce Coaching Looks Out for Your Whole Family

Divorce is tough when children are involved. Meeting with an impartial Divorce Coach before meeting with a lawyer will help you define what you want for yourself and your children and in the long run, meeting with a Divorce Coach during this challenging time will also help you be able to guide your children so that they do not suffer unnecessarily during their parents’ breakup. 

One Life Coaching for Divorce

If you need help navigating your divorce, the professionals at One Life Coaching can help. We are passionate about helping our clients overcome the obstacles on their path to living a happy and successful life.

We recognize how emotionally charged and taxing the divorce process can be – especially in the case of expats, living abroad, without their trusted support network. With over a decade’s experience helping people navigate their Divorce, you can rest assured knowing there is someone you can trust to give you the best guidance. We take great pride in having provided  

100s of clients in the UAE and internationally with peace of mind as they navigate this next chapter in their life. 

At One Life Coaching, we fully understand that hardly anyone ever gets married with the intention of getting a divorce later on in life. So finding yourself in this situation is one of the hardest places you will ever find yourself to be in. We recognize this and are here to help you navigate your divorce so you and your family come out on the other side with the best possible results.

When you are ready, please contact a member of our team. We are here for you.

Do You Really Have to Choose One or the Other?

When most people want to make changes in their life they automatically think of a psychiatrist, a psychologist, a therapist, or a counselor. These have indeed been the go to’s of days gone past and all have excellent approaches to helping. However, now there is a new tried and tested approach that has been proven to provide great benefits to clients who are looking to achieve positive personal growth. 

What to Expect From a Life Coach?

When you first visit a Life Coach, you will have the initial discovery session. During this session, you will explain to your Coach where you are in life right now and what it is you are looking to change. Whether it’s your career, relationships, family dynamics, money worries, health and wellness, or your own personal growth, your Life Coach will help you determine for yourself where you want to be in the future. They will serve as a guide on your path to realizing these changes by providing the stepping stones you need to achieve the changes you seek. 

A Life Coach will not teach, mentor, or advise. Through client-centered questioning, they empower you to discover and take ownership of the type of life you desire for your future. A Life Coach aims to help individuals define the desired outcome they want for their future and devises a realistic plan to help them get there.

Life Coaching is forward-focused and looks to your future. Essentially, your Life Coach will provide the strategies and support needed to help you define and reach your goals and aspirations. Coaches provide you with the following:

• The clarity you need to move forward
• Personal empowerment to help you achieve your goals
• Motivation to get there
• Accountability throughout your journey

What to Expect From a Psychologist/Clinical Therapist/Counselor

When you first visit a clinical therapist, you will have the initial discovery session. During this initial session, you will explain where you are in your life right now, what brought you to therapy (i.e., negative behaviours, limiting beliefs and negative emotions like fear, shame, anxiety, panic, procrastination, etc.), and what you hope to gain from therapy. Your therapist will help you look at where these emotions have arisen from and help you change your perspective on past events so you can let go of your baggage. 

Through client-centered questioning, we are here to help you discover and take ownership of your life. It’s designed to help you let go of behaviours that may have served you in the past but are hindering you in the present and future.

A therapist can help you understand and better navigate such conditions as: 

• Mental health conditions (such as ADHD, OCD, Depression, Anxiety, etc.)
• Sleep disorders
• Eating disorders
• Substance abuse
• Healing from past traumatic experiences
• And more

Leveraging Therapy and Coaching

The main difference between coaching and therapy is that therapy is backwards-focused and coaching is future-focused. Typically, coaching is focused on the future. Coaching sessions are focused on defining personal and professional goals and creating strategies to achieve them. Psychotherapy tends to focus on past memories and patterns of behavior to create changes for positive growth. Both therapy and coaching can prove beneficial for teens, young adults, and adults. Therapy helps individuals heal from past mental wellbeing issues. Coaching looks to your future mental wellbeing issues. 

When practiced together, therapy and coaching can help individuals:

• Identify dreams and goals
• Learn solutions and strategies to achieve goals
• Discover talents, strengths, and weaknesses
• Develop a positive mindset to achieve goals
• Identify triggers and negative thoughts/patterns holding you back
• And more

Structure 

During your initial intake therapy session, you will go over your personal and family history with your therapist. Your subsequent sessions will be determined based on your specific therapy goals. The structure of therapy sessions depends on the type of therapy you participate in. For example, couples therapy is different from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. The practices, strategies, and solutions will differ between modalities within psychotherapy. 

Generally speaking, life coaching sessions are geared toward constant progress. Your first session is designed to define your goals and identify obstacles that hinder your progress. Subsequent sessions are designed to recognize strengths, help clients visualize their future, and understand their strategies to achieve their full potential. 

Amount of Sessions

The amount of therapy and coaching sessions needed varies from person to person. Typically, therapy sessions are designed with an end goal. For example, managing anxiety or depression. As such, depending on their specific goals, one participant may only require a few therapy sessions to reach their desired goal, while another may need more. In this sense, therapy sessions are open-ended. The therapist and the participant determine the end date.

For coaching, the amount of sessions should also vary according to your needs. Some clients will need 4 or 6 whilst others may need 12 or 24. At one Life Coaching we take each Coaching client as an individual and decide together when the goals are met or when more work is needed. This is always client led and driven as we work in unison to achieve your goals. 

Do I Need a Therapist or a Life Coach?

Traditionally, you would need to consider seeing a therapist when you want to heal or receive help for past events that have not yet been resolved and leave you with persistent negative emotions or to help manage mental health issues that have been diagnosed. You would consider a Life Coach when you want to get “unstuck” or reach your fullest potential. Fortunately, at One Life Coaching, you no longer need to choose between one or the other. At One Life Coaching, we are formerly trained in both therapy and coaching. 

This philosophy evolved from the fact that to clear out the past and then be left with no idea as to where you are heading to in the future,  or conversely to forge ahead into a supposedly new and shiny future whilst still carrying the baggage of the past is only ever doing half a job. We have learnt to combine a mixture of the two, that we use in different measures, depending on how much of one and how much of the other each individual needs. This is what makes us not only unique but allows every session to be more powerful and therefore come to results faster than if you were to do only traditional therapy or only traditional coaching alone. 

At One Life Coaching

When we are looking to be the best version of ourselves, we often face a wide range of obstacles to overcome, both from the past and looking forward into the future. We are here to help you with your individual needs and not box up your needs and try to squash them into a specific model of work. We understand each person we work with has a unique past and unique goal for the future. As such, we are not here to squeeze you into a ready-made model or program. We tailor each and every session to your individual needs.

If you are ready to take the next step toward achieving your personal or professional best self, One Life Coaching can help! We are passionate about helping our clients overcome the obstacles on their path to living a happy and successful life. We are here to help you navigate the path to the next chapter of your life with a lighter load. If you’re ready to take the next step toward realizing your dreams, contact a member of our team.

We look forward to hearing from you.

People get a lot of experience during their teenage years. It is the stage where they begin to learn about the world by themselves, even though they received only parental care as children. During teenage, friendships are extremely important. Friendships at this age provide a sense of acceptance and communication for young people. Furthermore, it ensures the development of compassion, empathy, and forgiveness.

Most importantly, it develops the personality of the teen. But you might find your children have no sufficient friends around them. It can be due to many reasons, such as fear or shyness. In these kinds of situations, I can give professional help for teenage coaching. However, following the below steps will also help your teenager make great friends.

• Teach them to be honest.

It is important to teach them that the foundations of any relationship are trust and honesty. Always let them be honest with the people around them. Furthermore, it is important to remind them how trust can keep people gathered. Just give them a good example, such as how you trust them. You have to take enough time to explain this to your teenager. As life coaching for teenagers, I can help you and your teenage child understand the importance of being honest to build a good relationship with other people.

• Emphasize the qualities of their peers.

You have to be honest enough to admire the qualities of your teenager’s peers. If you observe positive behavior from the peers of your teenager, discuss it with your teen. Moreover, ask your teen to admire such behaviors and to adopt them as they fit. It gives a natural push to find new friends.

• Care for your teenager’s desire.

Never force them to find friends according to your desire. For instance, your child might not be very friendly with your friend’s child. If you observe such behaviors, take your child close to you and ask about his desires regarding friends. Again, it is important to use caring words rather than blaming them.

• Teach how to deal with common interests.

While dealing with a team of friends, there will be many interests. Sometimes, those interests might conflict with your child’s interests. So, teach them how to behave in such situations. It is a good idea to find some youth clubs and holiday programs for your teenager. Then, they might meet many people who have different interests. It will help your teen learn more!

• Become an example.

Narrating a story about your teenage years is one of the best ways to help your teenage child make friends. First, tell them how you were behaving and enjoying your teenage years with your friends. Then, finally, tell them that you enjoyed those good old days. It will give a better motivation for your teenager to find great friends.

• Teach them to forgive others.

Teach your teenager about the empathy behind the term “forgive and forget”. Tell them about the bad impacts of having anger in their hearts. So, ask them to forgive their friends and to forget the conflict between friends. Then, let them experience the goodness of anger-free hearts.

Though you love your teenage child very much, you might get impulsive with them while teaching the above stuff as a human. But well-trained teenage coaching can handle it carefully. In One Life Coaching in Dubai, I provide many services, such as personal coaching, executive coaching, and teenage coaching. So, if you require such a service to deal with your teenager, feel free to contact me anytime.

If you are constantly living with stress and anxiety, you are putting your health at significant risk. The two feelings greatly affect your emotional and physical well-being and restrict your ability to think clearly, function optimally, and enjoy life. The ongoing pandemic situation has worsened this, presenting more hurdles that some may have no experience handling before. If you feel like giving up because there is too much to deal with, you need to find a life coach who will help you tackle your challenges and overcome your stress and anxiety. We will examine why this can be helpful in this article.

What are stress and anxiety?

Before we explore the topic, we need to understand what exactly these two emotions are. Stress is the name given to the feeling of being overwhelmed or unable to handle emotional or mental pressure. When you are stressed, it is normal to become anxious. Anxiety is a feeling of unease such as fear or worry. 

When they are present simultaneously, you may feel a wide range of both physical and emotional symptoms. Some of them are increased heart rate, headaches, high blood pressure, depression and fatigue. The longer you are stressed and anxious, the more impactful the symptoms become. You will be at increased risk of developing heart disease, diabetes, gastrointestinal problems, asthma and even Alzheimer’s. 

How can tackling challenges help reduce them?

When you do not tackle your problems, they can stack up, and you will feel significantly overwhelmed. It can then lead to increased stress and anxiety levels, making it difficult to pass the hurdles, thus causing a vicious cycle that can be damaging to your self-confidence and self-esteem. It could eventually lead to depression and other mental health issues. 

Therefore, you need to confront your problems and face them. As you successfully overcome each one, you will become less stressed and worried. You will be able to attain a more positive mindset and feel relaxed. 

How can you overcome the challenges?

To overcome a challenge, you need to understand yourself and how you feel, then make a plan and follow it through. Doing this alone, while possible, can be difficult. Therefore we recommend visiting a life coach as they have the knowledge and experience to overcome difficulties. They also will be able to teach you strategies to reduce your stress and anxiety levels so that you will be in a better mindset to face problems. With their help, you will be able to:

• Make a plan: decide on a course of action that will allow you to handle the challenge most effectively.
• Express yourself adequately: be more willing to share your thoughts and feelings healthily.
• Accept support: when people offer assistance, you will be more willing to receive it. 
• Confront challenges confidently: you will feel empowered and able to put effort into tackling your problems.
• Think and dream big: no matter what challenge you face, you will see the bigger picture and continue setting goals and having dreams. 

Confronting challenges and overcoming them will ensure that stress and worry will not cripple you but rather empower you to tackle your problems instead of running away from them. Depending on what type of obstacle you are facing, you can opt for a suitable therapy, such as personal, relationship or career coaching. To find the appropriate one, contact us at One Life Coaching. We will ensure that you receive the best support. 

Grief and trauma can be challenging to handle alone. It is easy to become trapped in negative thought cycles and feel as if no one understands you. In life coaching, group support is available and can give you a sense of clarity and, most importantly, a space of comfort and empathy. In this article, we will explore how this can help you heal. 

What are support groups?

First, we must understand what a support group is. They are groups assembled by therapists that bring together people experiencing a similar condition or situation—for example, chronic illnesses, addiction, grief, or mental health conditions. It provides people with an opportunity to open up and share their feelings and experiences, coping mechanisms and other information about the condition or treatments they are undergoing.

It fills a gap created between their medical treatment and their desire for emotional support. Even if you have excellent doctors and are surrounded by family and friends, they may not be able to understand the impact of the disease or treatment on your overall well-being and emotional state. However, by being in a group with a similar experience and dealing with similar pain, you will find empathy, comfort, and happiness. 

How can they help your healing process?

They make you feel less isolated, lonely or judged.

When you are undergoing a particularly difficult situation, you can feel lonely. Even if the people around you provide a listening ear and a helping hand, you may think they do not truly understand you and that you are alone. You may even think you are being judged for your condition and feel isolated from the people you loved and held dear.

However, in a support group, you will be surrounded by people who know what you are going through, the nuances of the condition, the pain caused by it. So they are less likely to judge you, and you will feel less alone in their company. 

You can talk honestly and openly about your feelings and experiences.

Sometimes you might think that others might not want to know about what you are going through. Maybe they might feel uncomfortable or cannot handle the details of your experience. However, those details and other information you hide are important, and you should express them freely. 

Also, when you do openly communicate to your friends and family about what you are going through, you may feel that while they are initially receptive, they may not want to keep on conversing about it. When this happens, you might become inclined to bottle up your feelings in an effort to heal quickly; but this is counterproductive. 

When you do not express what you feel, you will find it more difficult to make peace with your grief and situation. However, in support groups, we understand that each part and every detail of your experience is essential and sharing the pain through words can help you heal. So you do not have to hide your thoughts and emotions; you can speak it out, and we will listen. 

Improve your skills so you can cope with challenges

While expressing yourself in an understanding environment can help you heal, it alone is not enough. Personal coaches will try to improve your skills so you can cope with the challenges in your future. Healing can be an unpredictable journey with highs and lows, and you need to be able to face them all. 

Some of the skills they will try to improve include communication, empathy, problem-solving and assertiveness. They will do this by giving you tasks to complete before the next session, and if you follow through with them, you will be able to progress better in your healing process. 

Support groups are more than just a group of people to speak to. They can help you make peace with your experience, understand yourself better and become stronger, so you can heal successfully. If you wish to join one, contact us at One Life Coaching, and we will help find you a suitable group. If you also want to have a one-on-one session, we have personal coaching available to help you. 

A common problem for many people, regardless of their age, is career uncertainty. It has been especially true during the coronavirus pandemic, which has caused the rate of unemployment to increase. In the UAE, it is now 3%, nearly a 23% surge compared to the beginning of 2020. 

Even if you have a job, you may feel anxious and stressed about the future of your career. The way to fight negativity is to be headstrong and find a life coach in Dubai who can help you develop a more confident mindset. We will examine how they can help you fight against career uncertainty.

Acknowledge one’s feelings

A significant mistake you make is that you fail to acknowledge what you feel. Instead, you choose to deny your existence and focus on other things. This is a problem as it only acts as a temporary band-aid and does not allow you to find the root cause of the issue. Thus you may start to become even more stressed and upset. At worst, you may begin displacing their emotions by venting at others and losing your temper more frequently, which could harm your relationships. 

Therefore, you need to acknowledge your emotions. If you feel anxious about your career and are worried about your future, you need to accept those feelings. Only then can you identify what is causing you to feel that way and rectify it or achieve personal growth to combat it. 

Learn to let go

You need to identify the things that make you anxious and stressed. Then you need to analyze which ones you can control and which ones you cannot. The latter is not something that you can change or influence. Therefore, you need to let go of them and stop allowing those worries to plague your mind. 

Instead, you need to focus on what you can control. This will allow you to move forward in life and your career without feeling stuck in a rut. A life coach will give exercises to help you successfully let go of concerns beyond your sphere of influence. 

Understand what one needs

When you are uncertain about your career, you need to take a moment to reflect and understand what it is you need. You only have one life, so you need to make the most of it. The career you have should bring you joy. Instead of looking at what is causing you anxiety as a setback, you need to use that as an opportunity to propel your life towards your goals. 

Suppose you fear unemployment and want to stay in your present job because you love it. In that case, you should try everything in your control to showcase your skills and prove to your boss that you deserve to stay. If you don’t enjoy your job, then you can treat it as an opportunity to pursue the profession you wish to have. 

By doing the above, you can become headstrong and be in control of your professional life. You will have the courage to fight uncertainty and come out on top. If you are feeling anxious or stressed about your job, make sure to consider career coaching in Dubai. It could be the best solution to attain a more fulfilling career. 

A negative attitude can be suffocating and act as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Thus, if you maintain a negative perception of yourself and the world around you, your mindset will hold you back from making any advancements. You will be less likely to pursue opportunities and will become more preoccupied with failure than achieving success. Therefore, to advance in life, a positive outlook is crucial. To have this, you need to develop who you are and become more confident in yourself. While you can try to instill change by yourself, more often than not, it can be challenging. Therefore, it is best to enlist the assistance of a personal coach. 

We will be examining how personal development can help you create a more positive outlook in this blog. The process is not particularly difficult. However, you need to be open to change if you wish to make progress. 

Developing skills

A fundamental way a person can have personal development is to gain skills to help one deal with life better. By practicing and honing a skill, you can become more confident in yourself and your ability. Thus, when a situation is presented, you will be able to make use of that opportunity. 

The things you choose to improve on do not necessarily have to be hard skills such as technical or engineering. Soft skills such as communication, adaptability, and conflict resolution will be more likely to increase your self-confidence and help you attain a more positive outlook. 

Controlling thoughts

When you undergo personal coaching, you will be taught how to control your thoughts. It is crucial for personal development because most of the time, the biggest hurdle you face when trying to achieve growth, is your mind. Cynical thoughts will demotivate you and stop you from making the first step to a better life. Therefore, a coach will prioritize changing the way you think. 

They will guide you by giving techniques to stop negative thoughts from creeping into your mind. Sometimes, it can be challenging to prevent a thought from occurring; therefore, they will show you how to change into more positive ones. When you can control what you think, you will achieve a more positive mindset. 

Increasing self-esteem

Nearly always, negative thoughts are fueled by poor self-esteem. That means you will think that your existence has little value and a pessimistic perception of yourself. It is based on your values, opinions, and past experiences that it can be difficult to change overnight. 

To increase your self-esteem, a coach will have to make an individual achieve personal growth. They will do this by providing evidence to attest to your strengths. If there is a negative perception, they will challenge it and show you are worth significantly more than you give yourself credit. They will also give you tasks to complete so you can see yourself improving. As your self-esteem grows, you will have the strength to combat your negativity and attain a more positive outlook. 

Therefore, by developing yourself with the help of life coaching, you will embrace positivity and have better regard for yourself and the world around you.