The IGNITE Peak Performance Blog
If you’re here, you’re probably looking to make meaningful and lasting change in your life. As a professional coach who specializes in working with women and mothers, I can help you.
The best way for us to get to know each other is for you to contact me! You can also sign up for my monthly newsletter below. In the meantime, keep an eye on this page for monthly blogs containing research-based tips, reading recommendations, and other resources that can help you IGNITE to reach your goals!
Theory or Action?
“One of the fundamental lessons I’ve learned over my thirty-plus-year career is this: “An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson) Of course, some insight is relevant to the process of growth and change. Self-reflection can help us to understand who we are and why we behave the way we do. But gaining that insight, in and of itself, is not sufficient to produce change. Ruminating on the past keeps us anchored in it, and focusing on the past does not help us change the present.”
Thanksgiving Reflections
“This Thanksgiving was not my most festive. I was feeling a little down. I was caught in a negative spiral. I was focusing on all the things that were bothering me. I needed to pull myself out of it. As usual, I took a deep breath and thought about all the things that I’m thankful for in my life. This reminded me of how my grandfather consistently focused my attention on gratitude. He did it long before it was a popular thing. He wouldn’t ever dismiss my feelings, but he did consistently draw my attention back to the positive, and he made it a point to teach me to do that on my own.”
Motherhood and Your Career: Can Coaching Help?
“Work can be stressful no matter who you are or what you do. But for many of half the world’s population of women, an additional stress underlies professional and work concerns – motherhood. Many women either consider or decide to take a career break after having children. Some suggest this may be due to a desire to focus on their families or aspects of organizations that make it challenging to balance motherhood and career responsibilities. Some have suggested that the gender pay gap is related to mothers’ decision to drop out earlier in their career trajectories than men, who go on to be promoted and earn more money. Motherhood transitions are also thought to be related to the scarcity of women in executive positions. Women who leave their careers to have children, even if they return later once their children are older, may be less likely to make it to the ‘top job’ than men who don’t have such responsibilities. In any case, pressure has been building for organizations to make their workplace more mother-friendly. And research has suggested that coaching can help!”
Change What You Can
“It’s not always obvious to differentiate between the things you can and cannot change, especially in challenging situations. How do you know if you’re trapped in this cycle? If I find myself thinking things like, “Well they need to…”, “They can’t….”, “They have to…”, that’s usually a sign to me that I’m focusing on things I can’t change. I may WANT someone to do something or not do something but, unless they’re breaking some sort of work policy or a law, people can behave however they choose to behave.”
A Coach’s Take on COP26
“I believe there is an environmental crisis, and I want to do my best to make sustainable individual decisions. I want to live in ways that are kind to the planet that my children and their children and their children will inherit. However, I also LOVE using paper towels. I do. I love them. They make my life easier. I rip off a paper towel, clean up a mess, and throw it away. I don’t want to give up that convenience. My love of paper towels clashes with my core value of living sustainably. It may sound like a silly example, but it really causes me stress. I just want to go about my business as usual but, because of my value system, I need to educate myself about alternative paper towel options. I need to work to disengage from old, unhealthy habits and form new, healthier ones that are congruent with my values. I may not like the daily work required but, at the end of the day, I will have an easier time sleeping at night.”
Trying Your Best
“In my ‘first career’ as a psychologist, I spent a lot of my time trying to help people cope with the consequences of regret. They become a prisoner of their past, often reliving their pain repeatedly. But, of course, no matter how much we relive our bad moments, we can’t go back and change them. Reliving the past with no power to change it causes an inescapable amount of pain and suffering. You become locked in with no way out. And while we relive the past, we lose the time we have in the present, which also hurts us in different ways. Time is not infinite, and we don’t get the time lost to reliving things back again. The cycle of regret and rumination about the past is incredibly damaging. So, how can we avoid it?”
The Space Between Stimulus and Response
“‘Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.’ This is a quote I live by. It’s often mis-attributed to Viktor E Frank’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning. While it may not appear directly in the book, it reflects one of its core messages. The book is often referred to as ‘new age’ popular psychology, and it’s important to mention that there are very legitimate concerns about Frankl, his life, and his work. Despite that, the book has been important to me throughout my life, and it’s messages (and the ones mis-attributed to it) impact my work as a coach.”
Strength-Based Intervention Works!
“Most of us are acutely aware of our weaknesses, the problems we wrestle with, and the obstacles we encounter. In coaching, we discuss these things so that clients learn what they want to do differently going forward. The focus, though, is on talking about the “good stuff”. Research shows we often overlook the many strengths we all have, which means we can’t USE these strengths to our advantage. It’s like trying to see underwater without goggles: we just can’t see quite clearly enough. Strength-based interventions bring your GOOD things into focus and teaches you to use those attributes most effectively in tough situations. Clients reconnect with their strengths and, most importantly, learn how to build on those strengths in order to reach their goals.”
IGNITE’s Take on Ted Lasso
“You watch how Ted ignores his panic and how, over time, it grows and grows – as problems that need to be addressed will do… And finally, he reaches out for help. You watch Jamie Tartt ignore his pain, make terrible decisions, and lose a lot in the process. As a coach, I see this happen over and over again. We ignore our problems when we could save ourselves a lot of misery by tackling them head-on. I also see the opposite happen, where we just ruminate about our problems, running scenarios over in our heads repeatedly. We get the same result as when we ignore problems: they usually get worse. “
Introducing ‘Research Revelations’
“There’s a LOT of junk out there in the coaching world – empty promises, false claims, glitzy marketing – but there is also a TON of excellent evidence-based strategies that science suggests are effective. And, unfortunately, it’s NOT always easy to tell the difference! IGNITE is built on evidence-based techniques, which is why I say I ‘use science to IGNITE change.’ My newest blog category, ‘Research Revelations’, will summarize peer-review findings to make research about coaching accessible and fun to read! This week, I’ll be discussing a peer-reviewed study that supports the efficacy of some of my typical coaching practices.”