Inspiration Archives - Page 2 of 3 - Chantal Breytenbach Coaching

What if Perfection is not required this holiday season?

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? […]

How to have a good birthday

Posted on October 30, 2023By ChantalPosted in Celebrations / Connection / Gratitude / Happiness / Inspiration / Integrity / Leadership / Life / Love / Meaning / Mindset / Perspective / Self-care / Thriving

It was my birthday last week, and I had the most incredible birthday. I used to hate birthdays. I used to want to avoid my birthday at all costs. And for the past three years, I have had really amazing and joyful birthdays. So, I want to share briefly what has changed for me, and why it’s important. […]

Worry is a misuse of the imagination

Posted on October 10, 2023By ChantalPosted in Bias for action / Courage / Emotional Agility / Fear / Grit / Happiness / In the muck / Inspiration / Life / Mindfulness / Mindset / Perspective / Planning / Resilience / Slow down / Thinking

Recently I asked whether your permacrisis has become a state of being? I received quite the response from this community about that article. And so today, I want to say more about it from a different perspective. I want to talk about worry and anxiety. […]

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… […]

On the other side of fear…

Posted on August 14, 2023By ChantalPosted in Bias for action / Commitment / Courage / Decision-Making / Dreaming / Failure / Fear / Future Self / Grit / Happiness / In the muck / Inspiration / Leadership / Life / Mindset / Perspective / Resilience / Thinking / Transformation

The other day on my morning walk, I came across three deer. They wanted to get past me to the other side of a set of stairs. Their fear prevented them from doing so. And this got me thinking. Isn’t this just how we are as humans? We reach a fork in the road of life. We are faced with a transition or a challenge in our lives. We tell ourselves we want to change, and yet we stay frozen right there in the middle of the road, too afraid to take the next step. We consider what might be on the other side. We take a few small steps forward; only to take three big steps back again, when things start shifting… […]

Life lessons I learnt from watching the Barbie movie

Posted on July 25, 2023By ChantalPosted in Authenticity / Courage / Failure / Future Self / Happiness / In the muck / Inspiration / Leadership / Life / Listening / Meaning / Mindset / Perspective / Thinking / Transformation / Values

This past weekend we went to the cinema and watched the new Barbie movie. I was initially very resistant to watching it. I had my own story about Barbie and that it would be a complete waste of my time to watch the movie. I was not a big fan of Barbie growing up. I had some Barbie dolls at one point. And I loved dressing the dolls. And at the same time, I felt a lot of resentment towards the stereotypes that the doll’s existence perpetuates. Barbie perpetuates an unrealistic and unattainable ideal that is very hard for most women to be confronted with. My husband was very keen though. He thought it would be funny. So, we went to see it. Here is what I learnt about life from watching the Barbie movie… […]

What does it mean to be a Hero?

Posted on March 28, 2023By ChantalPosted in Authenticity / Bias for action / Courage / Failure / Future Self / Goals / Gratitude / Grit / Happiness / In the muck / Inspiration / Leadership / Life / Resilience / Story Matters1 Comment

What is a hero? Marvel and DC have taught us that heroes are special. They have incredible strength and supernatural powers, and they perform outrageous acts of courage. So, we tend to think that an average person can’t possibly be a hero. Heroes are special somehow, so they can’t be average people…

We forget to be our own heroes in life. We forget that we get to create who we want to be in the world… […]

Your Future Self wants you to love yourself NOW

Posted on March 13, 2023By ChantalPosted in Commitment / Decision-Making / Dreaming / Failure / Future Self / Goals / Inspiration / Life / Meaning / Mindset / Perspective / Planning / Purpose / Thinking / Thriving / Transformation / Values

We have always lived in a world that is characterised by change and uncertainty. We have never lived in a world that wasn’t changing…

No-one has it all figured out, because what would be the fun in being alive if there is nothing to learn? Until the day you release your last breath, you will continue to evolve. You will continue to change. When we remember our past selves, they seem quite different to who we are now. In some instances, your past self might seem like a completely different person to you, and it may even be hard to relate to who you used to be.

We know how much our personalities and tastes have changed over the years. However, for some reason, when we look ahead to the future, somehow, we expect that we will stay the same as we are NOW. We assume that we will not change as much in the future as we have changed to get to this present moment… […]

What’s your relationship to wanting and dreaming?

Posted on January 30, 2023By ChantalPosted in Bias for action / Decision-Making / Dreaming / Goals / Happiness / Inspiration / Leadership / Life / Meaning / Mindset / Planning / Purpose / Thinking / Thriving

Whenever I’m in conversation with a new person, I invite them to dream. I invite them to consider what they want. For some peole, it’s easy to know what they want. They find it easy to dream. And for others, knowing what they want, knowing the longing of their own heart, feels unreachable or impossible. The experiences of their past are so painful, or they have fallen into pleasing others and morphing themselves into whatever they think others want them to be, so much so, that they lose their sense of who they are and what they want.

I remember a time in my life when I was so busy adapting who I was being to try and be more loveable or acceptable to others, that I had no sense of who I was. During those times, I found it hard to dream. I found it hard to even begin to know what I wanted outside of asking others’ opinions about what they thought I should want.

Recently, my coach Amber Krzys, shared an email with the title What’s your relationship to wanting? And that got me thinking… […]

Heart and Mind Goals

Posted on January 17, 2023By ChantalPosted in Bias for action / Commitment / Completions / Goals / Inspiration / Leadership / Life / Mindset / Planning / Purpose / Slow down / Thinking / Thriving / Time management

Today, I want to say a little more about setting goals. As I’ve shared before, I’m not a big fan of traditional New Year’s resolutions. I believe that when we are setting goals, these goals should come from our highest most authentic self, our Inner Wisdom or Inner Leader. When our goals come from this place, they are aligned with who we want to be in the world and what we feel called to create and bring into the world. When our goals come from our Ego, or from our sense of how we see ourselves falling short when we compare ourselves with others, then our goals are essentially SHOULDS and not WANTS. […]