Claudia Chan
Professional Certified Life Coach
Dec is just around the corner, and this year, it seems like the holidays is upon us faster than ever!
One of the things that I come across A LOT when chatting with other people is, “holiday obligations”.
Needing to be a certain way.
Must do certain things.
Because “I have to”.
Here’s what usually happens:
All these feelings go hand in hand.
We grow up with a lot of expectations placed on us.
How we “must” behave.
What is considered “appropriate”
To be a good mom, good wife, good daughter, good friend.
We have a tendency to over do the thing, because we want to take care of others, we don’t want to “hurt” other people, or we don’t want to “disappoint” others.
But the only person who gets the short end of the stick is ourselves.
This year, what about if we only do the things we REALLY WANT?
Give gifts ONLY if we want to?
Rather than gifting gifts, what if we are able to set a new rule for this year?
We’re going to spend some quality time together?
Cook that dinner ONLY if we want?
Rather than making that dinner, what if we buy take out for some unusual food?
This is what I’d been telling all my clients recently.
When you stand up for yourself, you’re going to be ruffling A LOT OF feathers!
Other people are going to push back, make nasty comments.
BUT, it's do-able!!!
What if you can build up your strength, so that you can stand strong for what you want?
And how you do it, is all about facing all the negative emotions.
Be able to face them, and say, you know, this is dang uncomfortable, but I’m still going to stand by my own choices!
Because I WANT TO!
If standing up for what you want is what you’re looking for this holiday, AND for this upcoming new year (2023 is coming right up!!), I’m offering a free 60-min Jump Start session with me.
We’ll go through exactly what it is you want to work on, and we’ll make a plan to make this happen
Be more “selfish”, be more you!
Listen! When you’re burnt out, you’re no fun!
When you become more “selfish”, when you give yourself more time and energy, that's when you can bring the fun back into your family!
Who wants a grumpy mom who yells and nags and is resentful all the time?
I had the opportunity of hosting a workshop for Mothers to Daughters, and had a chance to share my knowledge about fear with others.
Most of the times, I find that if there is something we really want to do but if we haven’t done it yet, it’s most likely because of fear.
But we don’t actually see it as fear, because our society doesn’t tolerate fear very well.
Most of the times, we see fear as a weakness.
We say things like,
Why are you scared? There’s nothing to be afraid of!
Oh c’mon it’s nothing!
Oh scardy cat!!! Scardy cat!
So we “push” fear to one side, or stuff it down and white knuckle our way through.
But when we feel fear, our brain is giving us a warning, saying that it’s really afraid of something.
And when we ignore the signal and keep going, our brain will send out a bigger signal to stop us the next time!
If we muscle our way through again, our brain will send an even bigger signal the next time!
That’s when procrastination happens! That’s when we stop ceasing movement forward. And then we think it’s a problem, we say things like,
Oh I have “no motivation”.
It’s not what I really want to do.
Or
I’m not cut out for this.
But all of these are NOT true.
It’s just our brain trying to hold us back.
So I shared with everyone that there are two things to understand.
First, fear doesn’t like to show up as fear, it likes to disguise itself as the following:
Logic - it’ll be irresponsible for me if I quit my job to do what I want!
Excuses - I’m too tired from today’s work, it was a stressful day
Blame - I wanted to work on my business but my son got sick again!
Over-analysis - what if they laugh at me, or what if I don’t know how to respond?
Guilt - I shouldn’t do that because my parents sacrificed so much for me.
Perfectionism - I have to work on the script again, or I have to keep taking another course!
So what is your fear’s disguise?
So many times, I was either blaming someone in my life, or I’m making excuses for myself. I was also criticizing myself a lot, being a super anal perfectionist! Those were some of my fear's disguises!
Second there are three types of fear
Fear of Lost of love - being abandoned or rejected, scared that other people no longer love us or support us.
In the old days, if we were ever abandoned, we couldn’t survive!
Fear of Physical or emotional pain - getting physically or emotionally hurt by others if we do something
There was a time when “witches” were being burnt and we would be physically tortured and humiliated if we did outrageous things!
Fear of failure/the unknown - fear of not having enough skills and feel incompetent and not knowing what the outcome is
If we wanted to fight an animal, and if we were physically incapable to do so, we would die!
Our brains had to survive those times, and they protected us so we didn't die! Our brains had evolved to keep us alive. Even though these fears don’t serve us anymore, it’s natural that we’re still stuck with them!
To overcome them, we have to be able to pinpoint what exact fear we’re facing, and then we process that emotion to embrace it.
Embracing it means, to drop into our body and feel the emotions. Be able to describe the feeling in our body.
It’s this simple, yet we don’t like to do it because it doesn’t feel good!
But embracing it is so important! Because it means to acknowledge our brains and say, hey, I know you’re scared right now, but we’re feeling it right now, and we’r safe. There really is nothing to be afraid of.
Once we embrace it, THEN we can move on.
I’m not saying we can’t move on without processing it, but when we don’t, we feel a lot of resistance moving forward. The forward momentum feels very heavy.
After processing it, the resistance may still be there, but it’s a bit lighter, because we know it’s just an emotion.
So many times we want to try something, and fear is right there! It’s inevitable!
So now we learn to take care of ourselves by creating a safe space for our brains, let our brains know that we’re not in danger.
We can trust ourselves, and we have our own back, no matter what really happens.
If you’d like to learn how to process your fear because there is something you really want to do, even just as simple as speaking up for yourself, I’d love to help.
I’m offering free 30-min coaching session where we can process your fear. And decide on how you want to feel instead.
Imagine how life can be like if you can be you! Not caring about what other people say, you can do what you want, say what you say, be how you want to be, without fear, without guilt.
Look, you’d been doing so many things for other people in your life, you’re seeing so many people move forward, but what about you?
It’s time to look after yourself. It’s time to focus on you!
The first step to do that is to get over your fear.
I can help with that, see for yourself and book a session with me now!
And have you ever felt so tired, but you still muscled your way through to keep pushing on?
I got sick for the past few days, and I didn’t get a chance to compose my blog for 2 days.
I promised myself that I’d write 1 blog post every day in the month of November.
Here were the two things I worked through.
First, I worked through my mindset of “inconsistency”.
This came up because every time I said I was going to do a “challenge”, I would drop off midway through. And when I stop, my mind would say, “See! You’re stopping again! You’re giving up again!”
Second, I working on my “pushing through”.
Because so many times, even though I’m too tired, or I know I’m physically unable to, I’d still push myself onward, without any regards of how my body feels. And when I push, my mind would say, “You’re so tired, but you’re still pushing, you need to rest!”
There would be a constant flip flop between these two extremes. AND no matter which extreme I was on, I would constantly beat myself up for it.
I would either judge myself for being inconsistent, or for pushing myself too much.
Never enough! No matter what I did, I did the wrong thing.
This time around, I actually allowed myself to rest, AND tell myself that I am still being consistent, at my own pace.
And my internal brain actually said, “It’s time to stop, you need to rest.”
And
“You can continue when you feel better, you’re still being consistent.”
WHAT???
This is huge! I’ve worked so hard on myself, I’ve loved myself so much, that I know when to push myself, and when to stop.
And I feel enough where I am!
No guilt, no blame, no shame, no self beat up.
I feel friggin’ fantastic!
Here’s the thing, so many times, we set goals for ourselves, and we start off with high energy, and we do it for a few days, and then things start to get difficult.
We start muscling our way through, and then we stop. So we start beating ourselves up for it.
Or we felt we have to prove something, so even when we are physically incapable, we still force our way through.
Both of which, make us stop pursuing what we’d set out.
But what if we don’t have to prove anything?
Have you ever experienced that?
Maybe you want to lose weight, or write a book, or start a business.
You are like, yeah! I’m going ahead with this, I want to do this!
And then things start getting difficult, and you stop, which make you believe that you’re not meant for it.
Or you feel the need to show the world you’re a certain way! So you keep muscling through, even when your mind and body are telling you NO!
What if you actually don’t have to prove anything?
What if you can trust yourself that, you can keep going, and it’s okay to stop when you need to stop?
What you need, is to build up self trust. Trusting your intuition. Trusting that you can keep going when things get tough, AND trusting that you need to rest when you need.
It actually comes from loving yourself.
And I want to offer this to you, because it took me a while to get to this point. And I am damn proud of myself.
It feels wonderful to my own body. This actually feels like “flow” and I don’t have to muscle through anything.
If you’d like to find out what this is about, and how you can apply this to your life, I’d love to hop on a free 60-min Jump Start Conversation with you.
We can figure out what you want for yourself, and I can pin point in what aspects of you life you can work on to get there.
Most of all, we can see if we are a great match to work with each other!
Book a session with me now!
I rewatched a talk by Simon Sinek.
He was talking about how he and his friend just finished a marathon, and at the end of the race, there were free bagels.
Simon said free bagels, and his friend said, the line’s too long.
He learned that there are people who see the good thing at the end, and there are people who only see the obstacles.
Right now, a lot of my time are spent on coaching, writing up content, thinking about what’s valuable to share. I’m also working on developing my skills to be a better coach, and a better speaker.
For those who don’t know, I’m also working full time, a wife, and a mom to a 5 year old.
And I hear this a lot, where do you find the time?
I now create time for all of this, but it wasn’t always like this.
For many years, I “didn’t have time”.
I blamed many things in my life:
-Well, if only I don’t have to take care of my son!
-If only I have more help! (My husband actually takes care of a lot of things)
-If only I don’t have to work full time!
(All the external circumstances)
-Maybe I’m too dumb.
-Maybe I am too lazy.
-Maybe I am not really made for this.
(All the internal chatter)
All obstacles.
Through coaching, I realized 2 things:
1 I was using these obstacles to define who I am (I can’t because…)
2 It was really fear that was stopping me from taking actions.
I had to learn to see these obstacles as things I have to overcome, instead of things that define me.
The epiphany moment was when I heard Teal Swan’s Tutorial of Life.
(The first minute was the main idea.)
I set an intention before I came into this world, I determined for myself what I came to learn. I chose the condition, I chose the OBSTACLES that are presented in my life. By overcoming them, I expand.
So many times, we have the tendency to think that we’re stuck, we keep bumping up against the same obstacle again and again.
Maybe it’s money problem, whenever we earn money, something would happen and we have to give it up. Or it’s self love, we keep meeting people who don’t treasure us.
We became stuck in our obstacles, believing that we’re not meant for these things. But these are the exact obstacles that, by overcoming them, we become a different version of ourselves!
Have you ever feel you’re meant for more, but you keep coming across obstacles getting in your way? To the point where you stop believing you’re meant to go after it. You feel like everything in your life is conspiring to stop you from getting what you desperately want!
Here’s what I want to share with you:
1 This IS the obstacle you’re called to overcome, so you can expand. You’re meant to have that thing!
2 Figure out what exactly it is that’s holding you back, not just the surface reasons, but the deeper reason. For me, it was fear, what’s yours?
By seeing these two things clearly, then we can come up with a strategy to overcome them.
You are meant for more! The obstacles that are in your life are not here to define you, but rather, they are meant for you to overcome! So you can be the best version of you!
If you'd like to identify your obstacle, I'd love to help! I'm offering 2 free 30-min coaching session for us to figure it out together!
As humans, we have a powerful pre-frontal cortex that help us create meaning, to remember the past, to plan for the future, etc.
We also have a primitive brain, which is the part of the brain that keep us safe, avoid pain, seek pleasure, and be as efficient as possible.
This is our subconscious mind.
Remember the first time you learned how to drive a car? You use your conscious mind to actively learn how to drive.
As you master this skill, you no longer have to pay as much attention to the action itself. While driving, you can start thinking about other things, or have a conversation with others.
Think about the last time you drove, but you barely remembered the drive itself.
That is the subconscious mind functioning under our awareness. And it is in charge ~95% of the time.
It helps us survive, live day to day, doing the same thing over and over again. If we stop consciously directing our brain to do something, the subconscious mind will take over and default to the every day activity.
Also, while growing up, we develop certain beliefs about the world. These beliefs are generated based on what we saw, how we were treated, the experiences we encountered first hand, etc
We drew conclusions of how this world is like, and we develop a set of beliefs based on our experiences, and we are shaped based on these beliefs.
Beliefs such as:
No one really cares about me.
You have to work hard to make money.
I can only depend on myself.
All the guys I find are always using me.
These beliefs are not always true. Sometimes, these beliefs are developed in order for us to survive while we were young. It was meant to protect us.
But as we keep growing, these beliefs end up keeping us stuck in some way, and we end up in a cycle.
For example, maybe you were yelled at by your parents whenever you spoke up. And you got scared, so you stopped speaking up. So when someone starts yelling at you, you find yourself holding back. Even when you really want to speak up, you find it very difficult to do so. And you keep finding yourself “attracted” to these people in your life.
The truth is, there is nothing wrong with any of these beliefs, there is nothing wrong with you.
As a matter of fact, your brain is functioning really well. It had kept you safe all along.
And at the same time, your pre-frontal cortex is now telling you, “It’s time to speak up and stand up for yourself!” Because you’re tired of being treated poorly.
And this is where coaching comes in.
Coaching allows you to dig deeper to find out what exactly are your beliefs around anything you want to work on, so that you can become conscious and aware of it.
Remember, your subconscious mind is working continuously under the radar.
If you don’t pay attention to it, it will take over.
Coaching gives you a chance to slow down and pay attention to you, so you can get to know yourself some more.
It is also a time for you to give yourself the love and attention, so you can heal from previous wounds and traumatic experiences.
Coaching gives you a chance to see yourself as whole, AND addressing the fact that you want to keep expanding and evolving into a a better version of yourself.
Basically, coaching is like having a best friend who allows you to be truly who you are. This friend knows when to give you the space you need, and when to give you a kick in the butt. Most of all, this friend is willing to walk with you whenever you are afraid to walk on your own.
For me, coaching allowed me to love myself so much, that I don’t need to depend on anyone else. If they are too “freaked out” and want to leave, I let them leave. If they love me and want to stay, that’s the icing on the cake.
And this is what coaching is to me.
It can feel scary to dig deep sometimes, because we don’t like to feel uncomfortable. And it’s all okay. Because you don’t have to do this alone.
If you are interested to find out more about coaching, or try it out first hand. I’d love to gift you 2 free 30min coaching sessions! You can bring any of your problems to me, and we go on a journey to get to know you better.
Recently, I saw a video of this Chinese girl who was trying to logically state her case against her dad’s request for doing more homework.
First of all, I had to applaud her, because I can’t even speak this eloquently against my parents. And I’m sure many kids and adults who’d endured through this “pressure” can understand it.
This video made me want to talk about so many things.
The amount of pressure parents are putting onto their kids. Because of the competitive environment, the parents feel the need to keep pushing their kids to be better.
And how this creates a state of never good enough.
No matter how good this dad thinks his daughter is, he still wanted her to do more, because he didn’t want her to fail. No matter how hard she worked, no matter how much effort she put in, it’s not enough.
We end up believing that we’re not enough.
But in this post, I want to address the mentality of expectations.
Not the dad’s expectation of his daughter (or our expectations on our kids), but our expectations of ourselves.
There is a something called the Law of Mirrors.
It is a theory that allows you to understand other people through your own behaviours, and in turn you understand yourself better.
What you see in others, is what you see in yourself.
So many times as parents, we want the best for our kids. So we put a lot of expectations on them.
And we get disappointed in them, when we see that they haven’t “performed” up to our standards.
Or we get disappointed in them when they fail.
According to the Law of Mirrors, It’s all a reflection.
We see a potential in them because we see a potential in ourselves
We place high expectations on them because we have high expectations in ourselves.
We get disappointed in them, because we are disappointed in ourselves.
We get upset and mad at them, because we are upset and mad at ourselves.
So guess what we do? We place an even higher demand on our kids.
The next time you are disappointed in your kids, ask yourself this:
Is there something I really wanted to do, but I have somehow “failed” and I’m disappointed in myself?
Maybe you had a dream, but you gave it up.
Maybe you "should have" studied harder, but you didn't.
Maybe you felt like you'd disappointed your parents.
These are all valid.
So now the question becomes
Can I love my kids right where they are right now?
Without having to do more, perform more, study more, behave better?
And more importantly:
Can I love myself right where I am right now?
Without having to do more, have better behaved kids, have a cleaner house, have more money?
The Law of Mirrors also applies to other people in your relationship, not just your kids. It could be your parents, your spouse, other people at work.
How you see others is how you see yourself.
I remembered the first time I started working on myself, I got so impatient with everyone around me.
It was all because I was really impatient with myself.
Because of how I grew up, I wanted things to be done quickly and efficiently. I wanted to get the results right now.
In the beginning, I only saw that in other people, when they are too slow, not efficient enough, taking too long, I became impatient.
Through understanding myself better, I realize how impatient and disappointed I am of myself, for not creating the results I wanted right away. I kept pushing myself, and being disappointed in myself.
I'd like you to bring your attention to yourself, what expectations do you have of others? Because those are probably the expectations you have of yourself.
If you’re interested to explore more around this area, and would like to dive deeper into it, I’d love to offer you 2 free 30-min coaching sessions. So that you can what coaching is about.
Through this exercise, you'll be able to accept and love yourself more, so you can accept and love the people around you more, so you can have a stronger connection with them.
One of the things I love to do with my clients is to bring them the awareness. The first step is really to be aware of what’s going on. It’s eye opening every single time.
Book your sessions with me now.
I had a coaching session yesterday. I was preparing to meet a friend who said she could introduce me to someone for an opportunity to go on TV. I had serious doubt about myself, so I talked to my coach about it.
She and I worked through some of the thoughts in my mind, and processed through some very strong emotions I had within me.
Near the end, I shared with my coach on this one belief, one I held onto very strongly since I was young:
"Do your best. Hope for the best but expect the worst."
I lived by it since I was in my highschool years.
And I know I believed it because I was very much against feeling disappointed. It was a feeling I constantly have because of my high expectation of myself.
What this belief does, is that it would make me try new things, do my best. I would keep making things happen, BUT it makes me doubt myself, deep down, I refuse to believe that things will happen.
So my coach asked, what if you believe that what you want will happen?
I started crying, because I realized how scared I am of that thought. I mean, can you imagine? You want it so bad and if it doesn’t happen! I’d be so disappointed! But I realized what this belief is really doing is that it holds me back from truly believing in myself.
To explain it in another way, this is the imposter part of me, always believing that I’m just a fraud.
If it happens, it is just a fluke.
Because when things happen, I didn’t actually believe that it was me and my efforts. I didn’t believe that I am actually capable. All of this was just a fluke.
For her to ask me that question, it was like, wait a minute, you mean I am this powerful version of myself? You mean this is real??
And this is the belief process, from not believing to believing, stepping into the next version of myself.
And it’s ok. changes happen from within before it can be seen on the outside. I know it’s still a long road ahead, but I am excited to see all the changes in my life.
If you want to create changes in your life, it all starts with this: What if it’s possible for me too?
It all starts with the awareness that it’s possible, and the willingness to try.
For a while, you may feel like you’re an imposter, but it’s all part of the transformation process.
And if you’re scared, you don’t have to do it alone. If you believe that you’re ready for a change, but have no idea where to start, what you want, or how to get there, I’d love to offer you a free 60-min Jump Start conversation with me.
Even just to have a glimpse of what's possible. What if it's possible?