What if you stopped shoulding all over the place?

Settle in for a moment. Just one. Put that cuppa down; in fact, don’t put it down; hold it close like a little comfort blanket - no judgment here, I grasp my cup of coffee like it’s going to give me life.

What if I told you that you're running at 100mph, doing All The Things, and your brain's sending up flares faster than all the messages fly into your WhatsApp groups during Storm Bertie.

"What if...

What if you took a moment for yourself.?

Just one moment.?

What if you took a moment for yourself and you felt better?

Just one moment.?

What if you took a moment for yourself and gifted yourself some space for reflection.?

Just one moment.?

What if you took a moment for yourself, gifted yourself space for reflection and it provided you with processing time.?

Just one moment.?

What if that processing time allowed you to think more clearly, be more productive and for just one moment you were able to lift yourself out of the weeds and see the potential.?

What if you switched off the noise and got focussed.?

What if you rethought what peak performance and success looked like? ?

What if you stopped chasing someone else’s success script.?

What if you leaned in to what you needed and you felt relief.?

What if you got to focus on you, on what you stand for and you created the space to work that shit out.?

What if you stopped looking for the quick win, stopped listening to all the conflicting advice and worked on the success of you.?

What if you did that and everything changed. You found peace, calm, got some joy back and your life, leadership and your business."

What if your success was about you, your values led leadership and your approach this whole time and you’d just got too busy listening to all the noise out there to remember that.?What if you stopped living under a cloud of shoulds….what you should be doing now, next, today. How you should be feeling? How you should be behaving? How you should be showing up?

When we live in the land of 'shoulds', our brains are actually working against us. That constant mental chatter of "I should be doing this" and "I should be doing that" triggers your threat response system faster than you can say "but I should just finish this one thing." Your amygdala (that's your brain's anxiety alarm) goes into overdrive, pumping out cortisol like it's going out of fashion. And when you're running on cortisol, you're about as effective as a trying to make your screen wash work when it’s been freezing overnight and you realise that maybe you should have put proper screen wash in, not fairy liquid (just me?).

What if you gave yourself permission to take just one moment? Because here's the thing - your brain physically can't function at its peak when you're constantly in 'should' mode. The science shows us that this perpetual state of emotional debt (hello, guilt and overwhelm) actually reduces activity in your prefrontal cortex - that's the clever bit of your brain that does all your strategic thinking and decision making.

Quick top tip that actually works (none of that toxic positivity schizzle here): Try the 'could' swap. Every time you catch yourself saying "I should," swap it for "I could." This isn't just positive thinking fluff - it's neuroscience. "Should" triggers your threat response, while "could" activates your brain's reward system, releasing dopamine instead of cortisol. It's like switching from running on empty, mainly raging to that feeling after a full night’s sleep and someone has actually taken the stuff up the stairs.

What if you stopped trying to follow Edna from LinkedIn's "5 Steps to Success" and actually figured out what success looks like in YOUR world? (Spoiler: it probably doesn't involve getting up at 4am to journal while doing yoga and drinking green juice.) And it’s definitely not following Edna’s plan because that’s full of mahoosive nonsense.

Because here's what happens when you work with me - we don't just talk about making changes, we rewire your approach, recode your system and rethink success doing it without burnout, without sacrificing yourself on the altar of always on and always achieving, with some humour (because let’s face it, if you’ve got this far; you’ve got to be able to laugh) and with space for all the ranting.

Think of me as your professional permission-giver and brain-science translator, working in actual brain science, working with your energy systems. Think of me as your accountability mate. Your "let's sort this shit out" partner in crime. We'll work together to figure out what success actually looks like for you - in your life, your leadership, your business. No cookie-cutter solutions, no one-size-fits-all nonsense.

Just proper, focused work on getting you back to being... well, you. But a you who understands how to work with your brain, your energy instead of constantly fighting against it.

Rethinking Your Success is back in late Jan 2025 - this programme is about how YOU achieve peak performance in midlife in life, leadership and business. Rooted in brain science. Delivered with realism.

You've already proven you can succeed while running on empty. Imagine what you could achieve when you're working with your brain's natural strengths, supported by science-backed strategies, and surrounded by women who get it.

Don't wait until burnout forces you to change. Don't wait until you're completely exhausted. Don't wait until you've lost the joy in your success.

Join me now. My waitlist is open and if you join before December, then we can get your Emergentics Profile done before Christmas with a bonus coaching session to start 2025 the right way, your way.

What if there was a different way?

(And yes, that was deliberate - ending with another "what if" because I'm annoying like that.)

Fancy a proper chat about this? You know where I am. Let's talk about how we can get your brain working for you, not against you.

P.S. If you're reading this while simultaneously doing three other things - I see you. That's your brain's task-switching killing your focus and burning through glucose faster than a teenager raids the fridge. Maybe this is your moment to stop? What if you just said "stuff this for a game of soldiers, sat down and just gave yourself ten minutes"?