Women Coaches reveal secrets for Happiness, Health & Better Life

The role of life coaching is to identify personally meaningful goals, as well as strategies to achieve them — whether it’s re-energizing yourself and your career, setting up a business, or meeting some health goal. There is no one secret to life but there sure are a bunch of smaller secrets that can help you have better relationships, be a better worker, and reach your life goals. And that’s why we have amazing coaches for all the vital areas of life. The alliance you form with your coach can help you discover what is intrinsically meaningful to you, beyond the expectations and goals of others. Talented coaches do not offer authoritative prescriptions. Instead, they empower their clients to come up with their own answers, dreams and plans to achieve them.

Today’s blog is dedicated to women coaches who dominate in their industries, inspire us and motivating us to reach our dreams. Women today, all around the world, are now reaching for the stars. They show their passion, perseverance in every little thing they do and come out to be better than men in a lot of scenarios. They are helping us to stretch the boundaries of our comfort zone, to break a mental sweat each day and to go to bed full of pride every night. Positive psychologists agree that calculated risk-taking, along with an ample amount of challenge, are essential ingredients in the recipe for a happy life. Taking daily action towards your dreams means spending some time outside the boundaries of your current skills, social group, or familiar environment. A coach can help you acclimatize to the unfamiliar territory by asking you to specify goals for which you wish to be held accountable, and then gently pushing you to kick it up a notch and take some additional risks. You asked them for advice, so we rounded out some of their best answers, so read on!

The influence of the media on women’s self-esteem

People are subjected to media every day. It does not matter whether you are stumbling upon a picture in a magazine, watching commercials on television, or even seeing billboards as you drive. These different types of media have an influence on both men and women. The female body image and what a person should or could look like in marketing and advertising, in particular, is a controversial issue. There are certainly some very direct messages associated with body weight in the media; celebrities, fashion models, and show hosts are often seen as role models, especially by teenagers. They appear to demonstrate what it is to be successful and popular. Their body weight, appearance, and beauty are often associated with their popularity and wealth.

To have a positive body image you must realize that the women on TV, in magazines, and in movies spend their entire life and savings on their looks. Some images are not even real and have been altered by computers or airbrushed to hide natural imperfections. Many models and actresses have had plastic surgery, are buried beneath tons of makeup, are shot with flattering camera angles, and wear only clothes that look good on them. Some models and actresses admit that they often don’t look like their photos in real life.

Given we usually set ourselves up to some cover models, how to get the right balance and be happy with oneself? Is that a reason women often give up, the « I am never gonna be as good as… »?

Instead of finding a model who’s body SHAPE you strive for, find someone who’s story is similar to yours & who’s attitude you find positive & motivating enough to aim for. Bodies are genetic. Attitude is a habit. But your attitude will direct your determination & ability to commit to working on your body & will bring you more self-confidence, Pride & joy! Unreasonable Comparison will suck your joy! Don’t get stuck in that trap :)

MiaMazin — Women’s empowerment coach

Empowering girls and women is powerful.

Women have the right to live free from violence, slavery, and discrimination; to be educated; to own property; to vote; and to earn a fair and equal wage. Believe it or not but gender still plays a critical role in our lives and destines us to certain fates and expectations. The actions of the society caretakers are still not in alignment to the words that promote inequality in its truest sense. Sometimes, even today, the gender inequality ideologies run so deep that men and women both often don’t even realize they ascribe to them.

What is the most beneficial way to empower women today?

It depends on the woman and what her needs are! With that, I think acknowledging that every individual woman is different, with different definitions of what “empowerment” means to them. I don’t like to say that I “empower” women, but that I help women to develop their leadership skills and achieve meaningful impact in their careers and lives.

Christa Davis -Leadership Development Coach & Consultant at Christa Davis Coaching

Eternal dilemma: Exercise vs. Diet

Weight management can be a very difficult balancing act because a desire to be as thin as possible combined with poor body image can lead to bizarre eating and exercise habits. Many active and athletic women struggle to achieve healthy yet nutritional lifestyles. Most women would agree, losing weight is perhaps one of the most difficult tasks and requires constant monitoring. Even if you manage to achieve this feat once, you need to constantly keep exercising and eating right to keep it that way. While weight loss isn’t easy, wrong information on ways to lose weight quickly further add to one’s problems.

What is more important for weight loss: exercise or diet?

Diet is more important than exercise. I always tell my clients that 80% of weight loss will be from diet and 20% of weight loss will be from exercise. After all, you can’t out-exercise a bad diet and this doesn’t work for a few reasons, the main reason being it takes a lot longer to work off the energy in junk food than we may realize.

Weight gain is caused by an increase in energy intake compared to output, and most people may not really understand how energy dense foods can be and how much energy you actually burn during exercise. For example, a person could eat a 1,000 calorie meal in 5–10 minutes, but it would take them much longer than 60 minutes to burn off (probably closer to 90–120 minutes).

Exercise and nutrition are both important aspects of overall health and weight loss, but when it comes to losing weight you will never be able to burn more than what you eat, which is why dietary choices are so important.

Erin Madden — Weight Loss Coach

Don’t be anyone’s coffee or lunch getter.

For many young, successful women, “making it” professionally means learning to master male-dominated workplaces where boys’ clubs still somehow pervade. In recent years, only 40% of the workforce in more than 80 countries is made up of women, but due to technology and movements for equality, the gap between genders in the workforce is slowly decreasing. However, despite the changing times, the workplace still has its own share of gender discrimination and biases that need to be resolved and put into light. Series of workplace bullying, harassment, “preferences,” and pay inequalities to put women at a disadvantage, which often leads to holding themselves back from coming forward and accelerating. In today’s diverse and competitive workplace, the need for women to have each others’ backs and empower each other is more important than ever.

What advice would you give to young women who want to succeed in the workplace?

Believe you can succeed. If you don’t you will sabotage yourself. There are external factors that can be a hindrance but it is the internal dialogue you have with yourself that can stop you. When you believe you can succeed (you know it) it doesn’t matter what comes up against you. You will do what it takes to get to that place of success! You will not quit!

Wallette V. McCall — Life Coach, Biblical Specialty Counselor, Speaker, Author

Technology has greatly improved our lives, but also causes us to miss out on things happening in front of us.

How many precious minutes do we miss out on because of our smartphones? Unfortunately many of us are guilty of choosing to wind down before bed with our phone in hand, scrolling through social media posts from the day that has been and gone.

What are the important things that you feel people are missing out in lives?

In this age of social media and smartphones, the biggest missing element is in-person interaction! Put the phones away sometimes and spend time with people — have fun, talk, laugh — we are social beings!

My next observation is that we don’t trust ourselves enough!!! Stay away from too much internet searching — and from asking too many friends for advice on health and wellness and even on things like finances!! It can be conflicting information and leave you only more confused, and sometimes you can make big mistakes built on poor advice!

From a health perspective: We aren’t sleeping enough! We need to eat better. For Good nutrition — prioritize eating well 80–90% of the time, with 10–20% room for treats! It’s very simple — choose first the foods from vegetables and fruits, protein (lean meats, eggs, fish, etc), healthy fats (avocado, nuts, olives etc) and carbohydrates (squash, quinoa, rice, potatoes, etc). Leave some room in your week for things like chocolate, cake, wine etc.

Next, we need to do more regular exercise! We sit far too much! It doesn’t have to be insanity workouts — walk daily, move as much as you can throughout the day, and add in other activities like the gym, sports, yoga, pilates, etc 2–4 times a week, depending on your goals.

We overcomplicate everything above — keep it simple, check in with yourself and see how you feel. If you’re tired and lack energy, sleep more! If you’re feeling sluggish, try adding in exercise. If you’re feeling bloated or have lots of stomach issues, look at improving your diet or changing a few foods to see how you feel. If nothing helps, look for someone who can help you — a trainer, coach, dietician, doctor etc.

Tiffany Clay — Pilates & Women’s Fitness, Nutrition& Healthy Lifestyle Coach

Things that happen to your body after you turn 50

As we age, we gain wisdom and experience. Or we hope we do. But unfortunately, our bodies eventually start showing signs of aging as muscle function, healing ability, and blood flow start slowing down. How we lived when we were younger (and how we choose to live now) as well as our genetic inheritance both have a major effect on how healthy we are when we cross the line into our fifties. If you carry on eating the same amount you did when you were younger, you will gain weight. Regular exercise can help to prevent weight gain. Muscle mass is reduced with age and this slows down your metabolism as well, which in turn can make you pick up a few kilos. However, this does not mean that you need to stop taking care of your body shape.

Why do most females stop caring about their bodies and their physical appearance after a certain age? How can they stay confident and interested in maintaining their self?

I’m not sure most women stop caring about their bodies, but I think as we get older we realize it’s not all about the physical and gain confidence in our bodies even if they aren’t the way we would like to look. Hormones can really wreak havoc on premenopausal and menopausal women for sure, which often affects the body’s ability to lose weight. So with a lot of factors making it more challenging at that stage, I think many women shift their focus to feeling as good as possible rather than living up to societies standards for what women should look like. Frankly attempting to meet these standards is extremely tiresome at best and impossible at worst for many women whose genetics just aren’t compatible with being super thin. I think women actually just wise up as we age and realize that true beauty has nothing to do with our body. And as long as our body continues to allow us to do the things we want, ideally with ease, and keeps us feeling vibrant then if it’s not in supermodel shape, that really is okay.

Christy Van Vliet — Health & Fitness Coach for Busy Moms

How do you handle failure? What is your advice to keep one going after it has not worked out and how to know which fights are worth fighting?

Personally, I have taken a few hits in the “failure” department for sure. In the past I allowed those hits to really affect me mentally, causing me to not try again because I believed I would not succeed. After many experiences and trials at working to accomplish my goals I have developed my own way to process my “failures”.

So here is my advice.

• I would first define what success and failure mean to me and be very clear about not defining them based on anyone else’s terms. I think sometimes we call setbacks or the need to change the plan failures when they really aren’t. It really is a mindset issue.
• If I know I am facing a failure I would allow myself some time to process. Processing includes “feeling” the effects of the failure and being ok with how I may be feeling at that moment (anger, disappointment, frustration, etc.). This is time-sensitive because I don’t want to allow myself to process for too long because it may be harder to bounce back if I do.
• I would then seek to find the lesson. What did I do wrong? What could I have done differently? How will I use this information to move forward? I would then create my new plan which may include me trying again or deciding not to continue that “fight” and this all based on the lessons learned from the failure.
• Lastly, I would trust and accept that failure is an integral part of my ultimate success. It helps me appreciate and value my successes because my failures are a product of my journey and I am much stronger and wiser because of them.

DaVita Garfield — Founder of empoWermentNOW, LLC where our mantra is Women Need Other Women.

Figuring out who we are and what we want out of life can be challenging.

That voice you hear inside your head — is it yours? Probably not. It is some authority figure — your father, your mother, a teacher, a priest. And it probably tells you how you should or shouldn’t act and what a horrible person you are if you fail to act in a specific way. Finding yourself means hearing your own voice over the clamor of these other voices in your head and listening to what you really think.

Its all about fully experiencing life. Good and bad situations are come and go. You need to focus on how can you be happy always in any situation. If you aren’t in good mood then read something in which you are interested. Human behaviour and mindsets related books are helps a lot to you. Watch motivational videos. Remove all negativity from your mind. Stay positive. And one of the best advice to you is that join mindvalley community which is the biggest affecting factor which change your life fully in positive way.

I’ve done everything I thought I was supposed to do, why am I not happy?

You say “what you’ve supposed to have done.” What does that really mean? There is a difference between what we are “supposed” to do and what we are “meant” to do. If someone tells you that you should be an accountant because your family comes from a long history of accountants, you might feel like it’s something you are “supposed” to do but perhaps your heart tells you that you’re meant to be a painter. I liken “meant to do” like finding our purpose in life. There’s a good bit of reflection that goes into that. That’s not a process that works overnight. That is where coaching can help — only you can decide what life you want to live and how you want to live it but coaching can bring awareness to you.

Jan Johnston Osburn, Certified Career, and Life Coach

Keep smiling :)

Written by our genius blogger Tina based on advice from our great Hosts in www.HealthAMA.com and originally published on www.AMAfeed.com