Values Archives - Page 2 of 3 - Chantal Breytenbach Coaching

What’s your word or theme for the year?

For many, this time of year often feels like an opportunity to reset and to begin again. Whatever you feel disappointed about in your life, you can course correct by setting different intentions for the new year. Many people kick off a new year by setting their New Year’s resolutions. Interestingly, I read the other day that Bill Gates isn’t one of them. Instead, Gates prefers doing a personal year-end review by asking himself a series of questions, and then settles on an intention for the new year. His ex-wife, Melinda French Gates, also doesn’t set resolutions when the new year rolls around. Instead, she selects a single word to set the tone of her year… […]

How to be ambitious in a way that leads to fulfillment in life and work

Posted on January 6, 2022By ChantalPosted in Courage / Decision-Making / Failure / Goals / Happiness / Life / Meaning / Planning / Purpose / Transformation / Values

The dictionary defines ambition as “a strong desire to do or to achieve something, typically requiring determination and hard work.” In a workshop with Michael Bungay Stanier recently, he said, “we unlock our greatness by working on the hard stuff.” So, it’s when we work hard on something that matters – i.e., when we are deeply ambitious – that we unlock our greatness or have a real impact.

Bungay Stanier believes that when you set a goal, you should also ask how it will matter? Who will benefit if you achieve the goal? How will you achieving the goal change the world? How will you leave the world a little better than you found it? What he is talking about, is an ambitious goal. A goal that is bigger than just reaching a deadline or acquiring a new level of performance. It’s a goal that inspires – a calling or a mission if you will. […]

Why it serves you to do a year-end review

Posted on December 13, 2021By ChantalPosted in Decision-Making / Failure / Gratitude / Happiness / Life / Meaning / Perspective / Planning / Purpose / Self-care / Slow down / Story Matters / Thinking / Values

Most businesses are familiar with year-end reviews. However, I’m also an advocate for a personal year-end review. I first learned about the idea of a personal year-end review from Sarah Peck. And what I appreciate about her approach is that it is not simply about going through your list of goals to identify which ones you hit and which ones you failed to hit. No, rather a year-end review is a slowed down, deep reflection about your year. It’s an invitation to identify what you celebrate about this year, what you are most proud of, what you’ve learnt, and how you’ve grown over the last year.

Looking back over your year also helps you put into perspective the year ahead and where you want to focus your energy in the year ahead. I will share two methods here with you for doing your personal year-end review. […]

Two ways of being with disappointment

Posted on December 12, 2021By ChantalPosted in Decision-Making / Emotional Agility / Failure / Happiness / In the muck / Life / Meaning / Mindset / Perspective / Resilience / Thinking / Transformation / Values1 Comment

How we respond to disappointment is often influenced by our upbringing and the beliefs we’ve internalised about how much control we have in life. According to Manfred Kets de Vries, the way we choose to handle disappointment is strongly related to our developmental history — our relationship with our parents and other early, formative experiences. What I want to share here today, is two different ways of being in the world and how they affect how we deal with disappointment when others let us down.

The two ways of being in the world and in relationship with others is either being an underachiever (i.e., having low or no expectations), or being an overachiever (i.e., having unreasonably high expectations). […]

Using disappointment as a catalyst for inspiration

Posted on December 12, 2021By ChantalPosted in Decision-Making / Emotional Agility / Failure / Grit / Happiness / In the muck / Life / Meaning / Mindset / Perspective / Resilience / Thinking / Transformation / Values1 Comment

In life, disappointments are inevitable, because of the simple fact that we don’t control everything that happens in life. How you choose to deal with disappointments in your life, can become a defining moment for you.

In his thought-provoking article on Dealing with Disappointment, Manfred Kets de Vries postulates that expectations lie at the root of all heartache and disappointment. Think about it, would you be disappointment about something if you didn’t have any expectations about how it was supposed to be? Your disappointment stems from the fact that what you had imagined or hoped would happen, did not align with what transpired in reality. It’s like Brad Warner says, disappointment is what you feel “when your brain is trying to readjust itself to reality after discovering that things are not the way you thought they were”.

Some disappointments are insignificant in the larger view of your life. They are easily filtered out by asking yourself the question, “will this matter a year from now?” If the answer is no, simply let it go.

However, some disappointments can change the course of your life. They can become character defining moments. You see, it doesn’t matter that you feel disappointment. It only matters how you choose to deal with your disappointment as you take the next step forward. […]

Thriving in life requires both differentiation and integration

Posted on August 30, 2021By ChantalPosted in Courage / Decision-Making / Happiness / In the muck / Life / Meaning / Mindset / Purpose / Thriving / Values

I’ve spent a lot of time lately thinking about what is required to not merely survive but to truly thrive in life. I remember reading a thought-provoking article by Zat Rana about a year ago, where he reasoned that there are two states of being in this world: surviving and thriving. To survive is to live in a way that “limits downsides, to eliminate the risk of ruin. It means fulfilling our basic need for food and shelter and companionship”. Thriving, on the other hand, is different. It’s an attempt to transcend this basic state of existence not out of fear, but out of desire and yearning for growth and learning…

When we live in a state of survival, our actions are motivated by fear. We want to avoid pain…

The fortunate situation we find ourselves in today, also poses a different challenge; the challenge to self-actualise and move beyond mere survival to find ways to truly thrive beyond the physical realm. We are presented with opportunities to grow mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. We have an innate need to satisfy the requirements of survival, yes, but we also have a deeper desire to make something of ourselves beyond that, so we can thrive in the world. […]

Become a Cycle Breaker

Posted on August 30, 2021By ChantalPosted in Courage / Decision-Making / Emotional Agility / Grit / Happiness / In the muck / Life / Meaning / Mindset / Passion / Perspective / Purpose / Resilience / Self-care / Story Matters / Transformation / Values

One of the most important lessons I’ve learnt in my time working with my coach, is to appreciate that things in my life happen FOR me, not TO me. Everything in your life can be used for your growth and learning. EVERYTHING. Even the things that seem insignificant. And most especially the things that cause you the most frustration and heartache.

I feel compelled to share something vulnerable with you here. Healing from abuse, neglect, trauma, and violence is never easy. Sometimes it requires heroic effort to not fall into self-destructive patterns. It requires self-awareness, a deep inner knowing that things can and will be better, and that you are capable of change. It requires committed effort to learning, growing, healing, forgiving, and to never stop trying. […]

Fierce loving and Emotional agility

Posted on July 26, 2021By ChantalPosted in Courage / Emotional Agility / Failure / Life / Meaning / Resilience / Self-care / Values

Traditionally, emotions were viewed as either good or bad. People actively work to avoid feeling any of the so-called “bad” emotions. And in some cultures, even the active expression of what could be considered “good” emotions is discouraged. In some cultures, if someone is overly enthusiastic or exuberant, they are told to quiet down or to stop over-reacting, or to behave.

Susan David, author of the ground-breaking book, Emotional Agility, believes that this traditional, black-and-white approach to emotions is too rigid. In her view a too rigid view of emotions limits our potential, gets us stuck, and could potentially be truly toxic; especially given the complexity of life we face every day. For this reason, she advocates for emotional agility if we are to truly thrive and remain resilient. […]

You don’t need to burn out to succeed

Posted on May 31, 2021By ChantalPosted in Courage / Failure / Grit / In the muck / Meaning / Mindfulness / Mindset / Passion / Perspective / Resilience / Self-care / Slow down / Values

Susan David highlights that success — in life, in work, in creative pursuits — is often synonymous with keeping our noses to the grindstone as we rack up the requisite 10 000 hours of mastery that Malcolm Gladwell popularised.

There are many reasons to celebrate grit. The things we value most in life, like meaningful relationships, and pursuing work that matter to us, or building the requisite skill to thrive in life and work, those things require commitment and persistence to get you through challenging times. Sometimes persisting even when faced with failure and disappointment, delivers incredible results in terms of innovation or personal growth and transformation.

However, despite its many virtues, it is possible to overvalue grittiness. Susan David postulates that the self-awareness to know when to quit is just as important as the discipline to hold on and grit your way through. There are times in your life, when perseverance doesn’t lead to you thriving, but instead to you burning out. Perseverance is a necessary ingredient for human thriving, but we must be thoughtful about what we’re persevering at and why. […]

How to create a good day

Posted on April 8, 2021By ChantalPosted in Coaching / Courage / Happiness / In the muck / Life / Meaning / Mindfulness / Mindset / Perspective / Self-care / Slow down / Time management / Transformation / Values

A powerful coaching question I often pose to clients is “What does your ideal day look like?” or “What would constitute a perfect day for you?” This is one way to get someone to think about what they would like their life to look like day by day, or to consciously think about how they would want to create their life one day at a time.

Some clients can immediately describe their perfect day. Some clients don’t actually know what would constitute a perfect day for them; usually because they’ve never been confronted with that question before. It’s so easy to simply live on autopilot, that so many of us do it without even realising. Worse still, is you tell yourself that you can’t take time out from your busy schedules to think about what you actually want.

But think about it, if you don’t know what you want and you don’t actually know whether you are truly happy and fulfilled, where are you going then? What are you chasing? […]