Some Christmas crackers for you....
What I've learned coaching women this year
Quick note before the main post…..I’m offering a little New Year Special called Breakthrough 2025 - Your Year to Thrive, two empower hour coaching sessions plus a copy of my book Midlife, redefined: Better, Bolder, Brighter. All the details are below but it is the perfect gift for yourself or a loved woman in your life, to start the year on track.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!
This time next week we’ll be in various states of emotion - heightened mostly, but maybe stressed, maybe relaxing with family, maybe stressed with family! Maybe overwhelmed, maybe underwhelmed. Maybe sad, maybe wistful, maybe happy and grateful, and maybe a smorgasbord of them all.
Here’s what I hope. That you are feeling something. Even if that’s uncomfortable. I’ll be missing my mum and her photo will be on the wall above my girl’s piano as we all sing silly songs together until my brother screeches out a Bob Dylan song which usually ends the singsong when everyone suddenly finds something else to urgently do in another room. And I’ll smile sadly at her photo because she is always missing in action at times like these.
But there is a risk that we women get so caught up in the doing of delivering Christmas, the frantic frenzy of perfection amid an onslaught of pressure, we just go into emergency mode and don’t come to again until it’s all over.
So in my last newsletter before Christmas (there will be the Journal Guide this weekend for paid subscribers) here are some of the lessons I’ve learned from the year to help you through.
1. Be you.
I got trolled a bit last week after my interview on Newstalk breakfast when I spoke about the toll the invisible mental load has on women.... and that’s ok. For those men who told me to go be a crazy cat lady, I’m happy to report, I’m already and always a proud cat crazy. (You can read some of the comments here on IG). What I’ve learned is that there will always be people who don’t like what you say, so you might as well say what you believe is true. Be you. Helping women be themselves is one of the best parts of my coaching work, whatever the main issue is. So be you and let the cards fall as they may.
What I have tried to guide many clients through this year is how to have conversations over conflicts - listen to your voice and speak it with confidence. Hold your boundaries and don’t be afraid to be disliked. Even by those you love. They can dislike your decisions / actions / priorities but that doesn’t mean they will stop loving you. Many of us have a People Pleasing tendency but that’s only because we were conditioned to be the Good Girl and keep everyone happy, even at your own expense. Well enough of that shit. Let’s not take any more outdated conditioning into next year. As I said on Clare McKenna’s Alive and Kicking show recently - ask yourself is your life a reflection of who you really are and who you are becoming, or a reaction to not wanting to upset someone and please an unpleaseable person? Which leads me to……
2. You can’t please the unpleaseables
There are always going to be unpleasebable people. Not because they are bad necessary, but because they have their own agenda, or may be caught up in their own drama. I had a client this year who’s working life was being made miserable by an unpleaseable boss. It has nothing to do with my client’s work performance, but rather I suspect, the bosses own feelings of inadequacy. There was drama where there was no need for drama. People can be unpleaseable at certain times… again, not because you are wrong or they are bad, but because your agendas / values / priorities aren’t matching.
I can feel this a lot as a single parent to three teenagers - no matter what I do, it can feel I’m never able to please everyone. And I’ve learned (Ok, still practising) to be ok with that and not take it personally. I can’t please an unpleaseable person without compromising myself, so as long as I stay true to my values which include kindness, generosity and love, I can withstand not pleasing someone (because my other values include having boundaries, being bold in my own life, and valuing my own needs). I know it’s hard but it’s harder living in a perpetual state of trying to change what you can’t change…..so……
3. Sing “let it go”
I thought I would tear my own eyes out if I ever heard that song again after the Frozen film frenzy in my house a few years ago. But I find it’s the best backdrop to reserving my energy and getting on with life. One of the most important mind-shifts I made - and which I share when a client needs it - it to try not to always attach a narrative to something. As human, storytelling is our superpower - but also our kryptonite. We can attach the wrong story to something someone has said or done which either wrecks our heads or the relationship. So, for example, my teenager comes in with a face like a wet Wednesday and moans about there being no food in the house. (She means processed food and snacks - there are plenty of ‘ingredients’!). I can attach no narrative to this and let her be in a mood, not assigning it as good or bad, maybe giving her a hug, or ….I can drown in a narrative that she’s ungrateful and I feel guilt I have failed AGAIN, despite going to a shop 1839759 times a day and turn into Martyr Mary and end up emotionally drained.
As I explain in my interview with Sile Seoige on her Ready to Be Real podcast earlier this year, the best bit of advice I ever got was - You have to meet people where they are, not where you need them to be. It allows me to keep my energy on influencing what I can, changing what I can and accepting what I need to and then figuring out how to help myself. Which leads to…
4. Balance is a dance not a destination
Balance has been a significant issue this year, for me, and many of my clients. I wrote about it recently here, but the main thing to remember is that balance will look and feel like different things to different people at different times. It is a constant dance of priorities to make sure you maintain a steady balance of input versus output. Today’s balance may look different to tomorrow’s balance. It’s an active intention every day depending on the challenges and your capacity. And you can only do this when you……
5. Stop packing your suitcase for guilt-trips
Guilt can be such a wasted emotion, drains your emotional energy and tears down your much-needed boundaries. There are two types of guilt. The first type you feel is when you have genuinely done something wrong or hurt someone deliberately; the kind of guilt where you can make amends without sacrificing your principles. “I am sorry” is a sign of strength.
The second type of guilt that seems to come as part and parcel with having a vagina, comes not from an act that needs to be rectified, but from a conditioning that tells you everyone else’s needs come before yours. It’s not real! It’s a false narrative an out-dated patriarchal society created and turning yourself inside out to please an unpleaseable person doesn’t benefit anyone. Your job is not to please anyone, or to take the mental responsibility for everything, or leave yourself off the To-Do list. Your job is to live your life according to your values and ambitions, and in doing so hopefully lift up the people around you. It’s not to be a doormat. Boundaries are your friend. I always ask myself: Can I say yes and then do it with grace? Or will I say yes and seethe with resentment? That’s a no then… and the guilt is a waste of your emotional energy.
And finally, as you make lists and check them twice (because of course Santa gets all the credit but you do all the work……)
6. You are never too old.
This year I’ve had clients in their 60’s overcome the end of marriage and start again, clients in their 50’s go back to college to retrain and begin a new career, clients in their 30’s, 40’s, 50’s and 60’s decide that they want more back for what they’re putting in and finding the direction and boundaries to get there. You can course correct at any time, create or reinstate a boundary, change your mind, change direction or press refresh. Sometimes all you need is to get perspective and remind yourself who you are and what you want. Don’t dismiss a dream because of a meagre excuse like age; it may not be the time today, but it can be next year if you work towards it. Your dreams never die, not until you do, so keep dreaming and never allow a narrative about what’s possible for you to EVER be written by someone else.
As I like to say - we are the generations to forget about ageing gracefully, we want to age powerfully. From every and any age.
I’ll end with my mantra - when it feels hard, it’s usually because it is hard so ask yourself what do you need. Prioritising your emotional energy is the most important skill to leading a life from within.
So Happy Christmas my wonderful, vibrant, exhausted, hopeful, resentful, loving, generous, curious, confused, scared, ready, strong, sassy women.
Please, shine your light.. the one you shine so brightly on others, on you too.
And until 31st December, you can book my New Year Special (or gift it to a pal or sister) but the sessions can be taken any time before or after the new year. Breakthrough 2025 - Your Year to Thrive, is a package of two empower hour coaching sessions plus a copy of my book Midlife, redefined: Better, Bolder, Brighter for just €250. (Normally one breakthrough Clarity Coaching session is €150). If you’re feeling stuck, need a change or want to get a grip on your life, this will give you the space, guidance and focus to make sure next year is YOUR year. As always, my paid subscribers get a 10% discount.. just email me at alana@alanakirk.com.
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