Goals Archives - Chantal Breytenbach Coaching

What’s Your Relationship to Failure?

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. […]

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? […]

Appreciate and acknowledge the phase of life you are in

Posted on January 29, 2024By ChantalPosted in Celebrations / Completions / Courage / Dreaming / Failure / Future Self / Goals / Happiness / In the muck / Inspiration / Life / Perspective / Planning / Purpose / Slow down / Thinking / Thriving

Often this time of year, there are lots of posts on social media about big goals and kicking the year off with a strong start. Many of those messages contain a subtle (or not so subtle) tone of “if you’re not all in and ready to go, there’s something wrong with you”. And yet, you might find yourself in a place where you are not sure you are all ready to go.

These messages are not accurate. Not everyone is excited at the start of a new year. And nor do you need to be, because let’s be honest, New Year’s Day, is just another day in the year, like any other, and nothing significantly changes between one minute before midnight on December 31st and one minute after midnight on January 1st… […]

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 “finishing strong” really means

Posted on November 27, 2023By ChantalPosted in Bias for action / Commitment / Completions / Courage / Dreaming / Goals / Grit / In the muck / Integrity / Leadership / Life / Mindset / Planning / Purpose / Resilience / Self-care / Slow down

As I write this, Christmas is exactly 30 days away. And the New Year is 37 days away. Something that tends to be a popular topic of conversation – or perhaps I experience it that way because I’m a coach – is how will you finish the year strong? I’m a big fan of finishing the year strong. I’m not someone who stops before reaching the finish line. And, just like with the concept of Christmas, the concept of “finishing strong” might hold different meanings for different people… […]

How much are you “shoulding” on yourself?

Posted on September 19, 2023By ChantalPosted in Authenticity / Compassion / Future Self / Goals / Happiness / In the muck / Inspiration / Leadership / Life / Mindfulness / Mindset / Perspective / Self-care / Slow down / Story Matters / Thinking

I recently shared what I had learnt from watching the Barbie movie. And the key insight I shared was how we put labels on ourselves or how we identify with certain labels without considering that perhaps they are just that – labels. And the label we assign ourselves or get assigned by others, could never really fully capture who we are, because we are so much more than the labels.

In that article I pointed out that each of us have a responsibility to know who we are outside the system of rules we have created for ourselves. And today I want to talk more about the rules we create for ourselves. A lot of these rules operate unconsciously, and yet, they dictate how we live our lives, so they are worth investigating… […]

What is rest anyway?

Posted on May 22, 2023By ChantalPosted in Goals / Leadership / Life / Mindfulness / Mindset / Perspective / Purpose / Self-care / Slow down / Time management

In a recent article I spoke about unhealthy striving. I pointed out that we live in a society of high-achieving, high-producing, chronically tired and burnt-out individuals. I shared how often we wear a lack of sleep as a badge of honour. People often pride themselves on how little sleep they are getting and how much they are getting done, without realising that “functioning” on only a few hours of sleep per night, is equivalent to driving under the influence of alcohol.

However, have you ever tried to fix a persistent lack of energy by sleeping more only to sleep and still wake up feeling exhausted? The reason for this is that sleep and rest are NOT the same thing. We tend to incorrectly assume that to rest means to sleep. Yet sleep is but ONE form or rest.

So, in the spirit of truly slowing down to take stock, I want to talk about rest… […]

Striving, yet not thriving

Posted on May 2, 2023By ChantalPosted in Bias for action / Coaching / Commitment / Failure / Future Self / Goals / Grit / In the muck / Leadership / Life / Mindset / Passion / Perspective / Purpose / Resilience / Self-care / Slow down / Thinking / Thriving

Recently, I posed the question, can you handle the effort shock? And there was quite a reaction to that article. So, today, I want to speak to those of us (myself included) who tend to overdo it and who tend to not know where the line is between effort and burnout. […]

Can you handle the Effort Shock?

Posted on April 11, 2023By ChantalPosted in Bias for action / Commitment / Courage / Failure / Future Self / Goals / Grit / In the muck / Leadership / Life / Perspective / Purpose / Resilience / Thriving1 Comment

Recently I wrote about what it means to be a hero. Something I did not touch on is just how hard it is to create a life that is different and resonant; just how much effort goes into creating a meaningful and fulfilling life. My sense is that my last article could have perhaps left you confused. I shared that heroes are not special in some way. They are not extraordinary. They don’t have special powers. They are simply ordinary people doing extraordinary things. If this is true, then why do so few of us take up the challenge? Why are we not all the heroes of our own story?

The answer is Effort Shock. Let me explain… […]