Commitment Archives - Chantal Breytenbach Coaching

The Things We Avoid…

My coach recently gifted me a book by Michael Neill called Things I’m Avoiding Doing: A four-week program to overcome procrastination and get shit done. The title of the book is misleading, because it makes it sounds like the focus of the book is to learn how to get over procrastination and get more done. In a world, where we are already overloaded with too much to do, it’s probably not surprising that we are not getting everything done. And yet, when you read the book, you’ll discover that it’s not really about getting more shit done, and that Michael Neill doesn’t believe that procrastination is actually real… […]

Where and how are you adding value without seeing it?

Posted on November 4, 2024By ChantalPosted in Celebrations / Commitment / Courage / Dreaming / Failure / Future Self / Goals / Happiness / In the muck / Inspiration / Leadership / Life / Love / Meaning / Mindfulness / Mindset / Passion / Purpose / Resilience / Self-care / Slow down / Story Matters / Thinking / Thriving / Time management / Transformation / ValuesLeave a comment

Just before the completion of the Coaching Leadership Mastermind I did with my coach, she invited the group to consider where, in which dimensions of our lives, we added value either to ourselves or to others in the past 24 hours. We worked through The Wheel of Life and considered which dimensions of our lives were enriched in the past 24 hours?

Then my coach invited us to reflect on the past week, and consider where in the past week we add value to either ourselves or others? Lastly, she invited us to review the whole month and consider in a deeper way where did we add value to ourselves or others over the past month? […]

Self-care in times of chaos

Posted on September 17, 2024By ChantalPosted in Celebrations / Commitment / Compassion / Courage / Decision-Making / Emotional Agility / Future Self / Goals / Gratitude / Grit / In the muck / Inspiration / Integrity / Leadership / Life / Mindfulness / Mindset / Perspective / Planning / Resilience / Self-care / Slow down / Thinking / Thriving / Time management

The energy in September tends to be similar to that of the start of the year. Once back from Summer break, people now need to recommit to work, and schedules, and often with the start of the new school year, and after having a break, we vow that we will start doing things differently…It’s interesting how I found myself in the first week of September, already wondering how I will get through the rest of September… Perhaps this feels familiar to you too? And yet, often, even when I feel less resourced, I find myself still pushing through. One of the stories running in the background was, “You can’t be tired now. You just came back from a vacation.”… […]

The Gifts of Imperfection

Posted on April 16, 2024By ChantalPosted in Authenticity / Commitment / Compassion / Connection / Courage / Dreaming / Failure / Fear / Future Self / Happiness / In the muck / Inspiration / Leadership / Life / Listening / Love / Meaning / Mindfulness / Mindset / Perfection Detox / Purpose / Self-care / Story Matters / Thriving

A while ago I wrote an article about what your perfectionism is really trying to tell you. Perfectionism is a misunderstanding that we need to earn our self-worth or prove that we are enough or worthy. The truth is that you came into this world worthy and then got disconnected from that truth over time. So, embracing your imperfections is a way that you can choose to reclaim your inherent worthiness… […]

What’s Your Relationship to Failure?

Posted on March 31, 2024By ChantalPosted in Commitment / Compassion / Courage / Emotional Agility / Failure / Fear / Future Self / Goals / Happiness / In the muck / Inspiration / Leadership / Life / Meaning / Mindfulness / Mindset / Perspective / Rejection / Resilience / Thinking / Transformation / Values

How do you relate to failure? Do you believe failure is an essential part of success? Or do you believe that failure is to be avoided at all costs? How we relate to failure hugely impacts our openness and willingness towards risk taking and trying new things. If we see failure as something that is “bad” and that needs to be avoided at all costs, we will be less open to taking risks or trying things that are new, different, unfamiliar, or out of our comfort zone. However, if we believe that failure is part of the process, and that success without failure isn’t possible, we would be more willing to fail. […]

What’s Your Context to Life?

Posted on March 13, 2024By ChantalPosted in Commitment / Failure / Fear / Future Self / Goals / Gratitude / Grit / Happiness / In the muck / Inspiration / Leadership / Life / Meaning / Mindfulness / Mindset / Perspective / Planning / Purpose / Thinking / Thriving / Transformation / Values

A question I love to ask my clients, is: What’s your context to life? This question reveals so much about how someone is relating to their experience of life. A context to life, is the story we tell ourselves about life, about ourselves, and about others. It’s the things we believe to be true about Life, about ourselves, and about other people. For example, someone might believe that Life’s a bitch, and then you die. Or they might believe that life is hard, and only the strong survive. Or they might believe that life is the relentless pursuit of more. Or that life is unfair. Or that life is a gift. Or that life is a journey.

What we tell ourselves about life, determines how we might respond to different situations IN our life. […]

What Your Perfectionism is Really Trying to Tell You…

Posted on February 27, 2024By ChantalPosted in Coaching / Commitment / Compassion / Connection / Courage / Emotional Agility / Failure / Fear / Future Self / Grit / Happiness / In the muck / Inspiration / Leadership / Life / Love / Meaning / Mindset / Perfection Detox / Perspective / Purpose / Rejection / Self-care / Thinking / Transformation

I have shared about my experiences with perfectionism before in my writing about a Perfection Detox: Learning to trust yourself and I have shared how I battle with my P Twins – i.e., Perfectionism and Pleasing – whenever I am navigating important situations or events in my life. Perfectionism isn’t just about wanting everything to be clean and neat, or orderly. Perfectionism can take different forms, and often people who are perfectionists, see their perfectionism as a moral compass or guideline to measure their personal “goodness” as a person. In other words, somewhere they internalised the message that they are only a good person, or lovable when they are perfect. This of course sets you up for a lifetime of struggle, frustration, and failure, because there is no such thing as the perfect person who always does everything right. So, you end up living in constant fear that someone will discover that you are not perfect, and that you will be ostracised from the very groups of people you are trying to belong with. […]

The most powerful force in the world

Posted on February 12, 2024By ChantalPosted in Commitment / Courage / Decision-Making / Future Self / Goals / In the muck / Inspiration / Leadership / Life / Listening / Love / Meaning / Mindfulness / Mindset / Perspective / Purpose / Thinking

Recently Rich Litvin posed this question: What is the most powerful force in the world? People have so many different opinions about what the most powerful force in the world might be. What would your answer be? […]

Why it serves you to slow down at the Beginning of a New Year

Posted on January 17, 2024By ChantalPosted in Celebrations / Commitment / Completions / Dreaming / Failure / Future Self / Goals / Gratitude / Happiness / Inspiration / Leadership / Life / Mindfulness / Perspective / Planning / Slow down / Thinking

This past weekend, I led a workshop for 19 people called “Creating 2024 with Intention”. These 19 individuals made the conscious and brave choice to slow down, take stock of what had transpired in their lives in 2023, and really become intentional about who they want to become in 2024 and what experiences they would like to be having this year.

The New Year often evokes within most of us the need to set new year’s resolutions. It’s an invitation to start anew with a clean slate. And it’s been my experience that so often people are so eager to move forward, that they don’t take the time to slow down, turn around, and look back to where they had come from… […]

What if Perfection is not required this holiday season?

Posted on December 7, 2023By ChantalPosted in Celebrations / Commitment / Compassion / Dreaming / Gratitude / Happiness / In the muck / Inspiration / Leadership / Life / Mindfulness / Mindset / Perfection Detox / Perspective / Planning / Self-care / Slow down / Thriving / Values

Last year, at the start of the holiday season, I asked whether you would be inviting the Twin P’s over for dinner this holiday? It seems that many of us – especially women and caregivers – turn in to control freaks during the holiday season. We become frantic and tend to experience a tremendous sense of overwhelm, because we believe it’s our job to create “the perfect holiday celebration” for our family. What that usually looks like, is we want everything to be perfect – whatever that means? – we refuse to ask for or accept help from others, and we become control freaks, so we become impossible to be around. But what if it doesn’t have to be this way? […]