One of the reasons why so many people chase riches, relationships and reputation to define their value is that they haven’t been coached to understand that they can build a life of worth, value and meaning without relying on other people, positions or possessions to define them.

If we want to know how we add value to the world, we need to know what our values are. Discovering our character strengths is a building block of this journey; they make us who we are and give us a sense of purpose and meaning.

These strengths are positive aspects of our personality that others like, respect, and cherish. They are the qualities that make us unique and valuable and are essential to our well-being and happiness.

Ryan Niemiec and Robert McGrath, researchers in the field of character strengths, emphasise that when we express ourselves using these strengths in our thoughts and actions, we feel happier and more grounded. This is because character strengths help us engage fully in the present moment, connect with others, and find meaning in our lives.

Character strengths are different from our interests, passions, and skills. While these are important aspects of our lives, they are not the same as character strengths. Interests, passions, and skills may change, but character strengths persist across time and cultures. They are central to who we are and how we think of ourselves.

The Values in Action Inventory (VIA) is a popular tool for identifying and measuring character strengths. VIA identifies 24 character strengths that fall under six broad categories of virtues: wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence. These virtues are not unique to any one culture or religion but are universal to human beings.

Wisdom consists of strengths that help us acquire and use knowledge, such as creativity, curiosity, and love of learning. Courage includes strengths that enable us to face challenges and adversity with resilience and determination, such as bravery, perseverance, and honesty. Humanity encompasses strengths that promote social intelligence and connection, such as kindness, empathy, and compassion.

Justice consists of strengths that promote fairness and equity, such as leadership, teamwork, and social responsibility. Temperance includes strengths that help us regulate our impulses and desires, such as self-control, humility, and forgiveness. Finally, Transcendence consists of strengths that help us connect with something larger than ourselves, such as gratitude, spirituality, and appreciation of beauty.

By identifying and cultivating our character strengths, we can enhance and protect our well-being to lead more fulfilling lives. When we use our strengths, we experience a sense of flow and engagement, leading to increased happiness, productivity, and creativity!

When it comes to financial planning, many believe that the ultimate goal is accumulating as much money as possible. However, this approach may only sometimes lead to a fulfilling lifestyle. Instead, it’s important to consider what kind of life you want and then create a financial plan that allows you to achieve that lifestyle.

As Chris Brogan said, “The goal isn’t more money. The goal is living life on your terms.” This means that financial planning should be about creating a life that makes you happy and fulfilled, rather than just accumulating wealth for its own sake. Together, there are a few key steps we can take to help you achieve this goal.

First, take the time to define what “living life on your terms” means to you. This could involve creating a vision board, writing out a list of goals, or simply spending some time reflecting on what brings you joy and fulfilment. In our meetings, we like to work through open-ended questions that help you recognise blind spots and remind you of goals you may have had earlier in life but have long since left behind. Once you have a clear idea of what you want your life to look like, you can create a financial plan supporting those goals.

One important aspect of financial planning is budgeting. It’s helpful to understand your income and expenses to create a budget that aligns with your goals. A budget, or spending plan, allows us to uncover opportunities to increase your income and enhance how you use it. The goal is to create a budget that will enable you to live the life you want without constantly worrying about money.

Another important area of focus for us is investing. Investing can help you grow your wealth over time, giving you increased freedom in the long run. However, investing wisely and choosing investments that align with your values and goals is crucial. This might even incorporate investing in companies that are socially responsible or that align with your personal values.

For all of us, it’s beneficial to be mindful of our spending habits. We can so easily fall into the trap of “keeping up with the Joneses” and spending money on things that don’t actually bring us happiness or fulfillment. By being mindful of spending and focusing on the things that truly matter, we can create a lifestyle financial plan that aligns with our values and allows us to live life on our terms.

For years there have been copious books, blogs and articles written on healthy time and energy management, and in today’s digital environment, it’s even more essential for success. Experts suggest a shift in how we approach our daily routines, starting with our emails and social media notifications. While our email inbox or WhatsApp notifications may seem like the most urgent priority, it can often lead to “energy zero” if we are not careful.

After running a quick Google search, some of the following stats became clear:

• On average, 28% of work time is spent on email
• We check email on average 11 times per hour
• 84% keep email open in the background while working

Email Apnea, a phrase coined by Linda Stone around 2014, is the temporary cessation of breath when we’re in front of a screen, especially when texting or doing email. This chronic breath-holding puts us in a state of fight or flight, affecting emotions, physiology and attention.

In the book, Manage Your Day-to-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus & Sharpen Your Creative Mind, the recurring advice across many of the 20 experts who contributed essays to the book was simple: don’t start the day by dealing with your email.

Instead, start the day by tackling the most challenging task first. This may seem impractical for some work environments, but we can apply it to any situation. For some, arriving at work early to carve out creative time could be beneficial. For others, it may require retraining themselves not to assume that the priorities of their inbox match their own goals and responsibilities.

Best-selling author and founder of The Energy Project, Tony Schwartz, suggests building energy renewal into our workday. Scott Belsky, co-founder of Behance, recommends allowing unstructured time between meetings to recharge and absorb what just happened.

By taking responsibility for our own time and energy, we can avoid letting email, social media or other reactive tasks blunt our focus. James Victore (yourworkisagift.com) writes, “We are losing the distinction between urgent and important—now everything gets heaped in the urgent pile.”

Taking charge of our priorities helps us filter distractions and plan focused time to use our energy and creativity wisely, and it can also make it easier for our family and colleagues to do the same. Before you begin your day with a race to reach inbox zero, take a breath and consider what’s most important for your day.

Staying motivated to change can be a challenge! It’s too easy to fall into old patterns and habits. 

It can be difficult to remain committed to change because change can be a complex process that requires effort, discipline, and perseverance. Sometimes, people need more motivation to change, and with a clear and compelling reason, it can be easier to stay committed. Negative self-talk, such as negative thoughts and self-doubt, can erode commitment and motivation.

Some of us fear failure, whilst others may simply resist change, as it requires breaking old habits and routines, which can be uncomfortable. Sticking to the plan isn’t easy, especially when faced with distractions, temptations, or other life challenges. Without support from friends, family, a coach or a support group, it can be challenging to remain committed to change.

It’s helpful to have a positive attitude if we want to persevere through these challenges. Articulating and tracking our goals is also a practical way to measure our success, continuously improve and stay motivated and committed to change.

By regularly monitoring our progress, we can identify areas where we need to make adjustments and course-correct if necessary. This helps increase the chances of achieving the goals and ensures that our efforts are always directed towards the most important tasks.

Tracking goals also provides a sense of accountability, as we are held responsible for our progress towards our goals. It encourages us to take the necessary steps to move forward and maintain momentum.

Moreover, tracking goals gives us the opportunity to celebrate achievements and recognise the progress we have made. Celebrating small milestones boosts motivation and helps keep us on track towards our larger goals. Many coaches believe tracking our goals is essential to ensure progress and staying motivated to change our lives, and make informed decisions.

When you feel the lethargy kick in, and you’re tempted to revert to unhealthy behaviours just remember that staying motivated to change requires effort and perseverance, but by focusing on progress, setting realistic goals, and creating a supportive environment, you can stay committed to the change you want to see in your life!

Do you often reach the end of your day and feel like, regardless of how busy you’ve been, you still don’t feel productive?

It’s all too easy to begin our day in our emails and allow all the interruptions of ‘urgent messages’ to run our entire day. These digital distractions can seriously affect our productivity. The constant notifications and easy access to social media and other websites can lead to procrastination, reduced focus, and decreased efficiency. It’s important to set boundaries and limit distractions in order to be more productive.

Asana, the project management tool, often talks about productivity on their website and in one article they share how digital distractions can be the arch-nemesis of deep work (focussed, uninterrupted work). 

According to them, distraction—especially of the digital variety—is more common than ever in today’s fast-paced work environment. At a time when 80% of knowledge workers report working with their inbox open and nearly three in four employees feel pressure to multitask every day, avoiding digital distractions can seem nearly impossible. 

However, minimising distractions is still doable with a few simple strategies: 

Turn off notifications.

Sounds, banners, and notifications flashing across your screen have a negative impact on focus and can quickly jolt you out of deep work. When you’re trying to focus, use Do Not Disturb mode or snooze notifications for your phone and any communication apps you use. Or to really disconnect, close your email and messaging apps completely. Remember that you can always check notifications during your next focus break.

Make depth your default.

Instead of living in a distracted state and wrangling your brain into focus mode to complete tasks, schedule focus breaks—times when you allow yourself to take a break and give in completely to distractions. You can use this strategy during your workday or in your personal life. For example, you could schedule a focus break after work when you’re allowed to browse the internet and scroll through social media—then turn your undivided attention to cooking dinner, watching a movie, or talking with loved ones.  

Choose your tools wisely.

According to Asana’s research, the average knowledge worker switches between 10 apps 25 times per day to do their work—and employees who switch between apps are also more likely to struggle with effectively prioritising their work. But just because a tool exists doesn’t mean you have to use it.

Lighten your tech stack as much as possible!

And, let’s not forget that one of the reasons all these interruptions exist is because of FOMO. We need to decide if we will let the fear of missing out run our day and leach our productivity, or if we will be ready to reduce digital distractions.

Digital distractions drain our creativity, our energy and our focus and the key to being more productive lies in managing them more wisely.

Our minds are extraordinary. The human brain has evolved to solve complex problems and successfully manage unexpected situations, and yet, coping is less about what is happening in the world and more about how our senses decipher the situation.

Perception is everything; this is why coping mechanisms focus on managing, reframing, or avoiding how we perceive triggers and stressors. Suppose our inability to cope is hindering us from enjoying a full life, achieving our goals, or causing hurt to others. In that case, we must adopt and adapt the best tools to overcome and reduce anxiety.

Depression and anxiety often co-occur, and many individuals with depression also experience symptoms of anxiety. In some cases, anxiety can lead to depression, and in others, depression can lead to increased anxiety levels. The exact relationship between depression and anxiety is complex and may be influenced by various factors, including genetics, life experiences, and brain chemistry.

For severe cases, you need to talk to someone and see a professional who can help. If you are feeling helpless, it will seem impossible to regain control of your mental health.

South Africa has one of the lowest mental health scores in the world. A 2022 Wits University study showed that 25.7% of South Africans are probably depressed, with more than a quarter of respondents reporting moderate to severe symptoms of depression.

Approximately 9.5% of American adults, ages 18 and over, will suffer from a depressive illness each year and more than 31% experience an anxiety disorder at some point in their lifetimes. In the UK, the figures are around 8% for depression, and about 1 in 20 suffer from anxiety disorders.

A sudden onset of mild anxiety can be triggered by many things—from a significant event, like a death in the family, to everyday stressors, such as work or budget worries—but sometimes it can be caused by seemingly nothing at all—or even issues we are not consciously aware of.

Psychological research has proven the importance of relaxation as an effective technique for managing anxiety, recognising that we can influence our minds by taking control of our bodies (Strycharczyk & Clough, 2015). Here are two ideas if we are looking for an immediate interruption to a pattern of anxiety or even an unexpected onset.

1. Controlled distraction

Like self-talk, controlled distraction reduces anxiety by redirecting attention away from a negative situation. When a quick fix is required, take your mind off your anxiety by focusing on something that doesn’t cause stress. For example, before giving a presentation or having a difficult conversation, count lights or ceiling tiles, listen to music, or imagine being at a happy event.

2. The Mitchell Relaxation Method

According to positivepsychology.com, this technique involves flexing and relaxing specific muscles to increase awareness of body position, breathing, muscles, joints and where we might be holding tension. As we focus on this, we’re able to intentionally release somatic tension and increase our mindfulness, which helps reduce anxiety.

​​If we can see stress not as something to be shied away from but as an opportunity to embrace, we can live a more complete, authentic life. After all, although evolution has shaped our minds and bodies, we are free to choose how we react and behave. Overcoming challenges, pitfalls, and failures in life are just as crucial as celebrating the wins and enjoying happy outcomes. Stress can be a valuable force for growth.

It’s easy to feel like our lives are just a series of obligations – choices and decisions made because we have to, not necessarily because we want to. From paying bills and working 9-5 to attending continuous professional development seminars, family events and keeping up with the Joneses. When we view life through the lens of obligatory choices, we can feel frustrated, stuck and hopeless.

On his blog in 2019, Seth Godin wrote: “If it’s an obligation, then you don’t have a choice. Pretending you do is simply a way to create frustration. Free yourself to simply do what you have to do. On the other hand, if you do have a choice (and you probably do) then it doesn’t make sense to treat it as an obligation. Own the choice.”

He’s not actually talking about obligations and choices here; he’s talking about mindset. Whilst acknowledging that some things are as they are and we can’t change them, Godin reminds us that we can choose how we think and feel about our actions. Rather than blaming others, owning our choices empowers us to make different choices.

When we own the choice, we can change the choice. Then, it’s not because we have to, but because we want to.

But – we need to understand what’s happening when we make a choice. With every choice, there is a trade-off (or multiple trade-offs).

Saying yes to something generally means that we’re saying no to something else. When we accept the loss inherent in the choice, we can move forward with peace and clarity.  When we choose something, it is so easy to only think about what we get from that choice. However, by choosing something, we are actually letting go of something else.

Our lives, ultimately, are not merely down to chance but choice. We don’t have to stay stuck in a job we don’t want, or a relationship that’s unhealthy for us. We can change the situation by either changing how we think about it – or trading it for something entirely different. From debt to a dead-end job, from unhealthy eating to sedentary lifestyles, we can change because we want to, not because we have to. 

When we know what’s in the trade-off, it’s so much easier to find the motivation to become unstuck.

There are moments in life when we slow down and reflect on where we’ve been, where we are – and where we’re headed. Sometimes this is at the start of a new year, or perhaps it’s at a significant milestone in life when we feel like we’ve crested a hill and can take a rest and enjoy the view.

At this point, as we identify things we’d like to change and things we’d like to amplify in our lives, we set intentions and goals and share our dreams. When it comes to financial planning, it’s vital that we set our intentions with integrity and authentic values, not superficiality and disconnected values.

There’s a quote by Kevin Heath that goes like this: “In the end, kids won’t remember that fancy toy or game you bought them; they will remember the time you spent with them.”

As you read this and reflect on your own childhood, and perhaps your parenthood, it’s easier to remember the moments – not the monetary value – that defined us and motivate our choices today.

Yes, we can remember times of financial hardship or prosperity, and we can often remember big-ticket purchases, but it’s not always about the money spent, but what the money meant. This topic keeps coming up in our reformed thinking around financial planning: it’s not about how much money we have but how much we can achieve with our money. The two are linked, for sure, but where we place our focus will determine where we find our value.

When money is tight, it’s an opportunity for us to draw together and find creative ways to achieve our goals and dreams with the resources we have. And, when money is plenty, we have an equally challenging responsibility to invest or spend it wisely in ways that will have lasting value.

Ultimately, it’s about deeper relationships, not deeper pockets. As Charles Dickens wrote in his Christmas Carol, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour. Wherever you are in your planning and reflection, may you be encouraged to focus on what you can achieve rather than what you can earn.

With a positive approach, physical and mental stress can both be helpful in moving from a fixed to a growth mindset. Research has found that people who adopt the mindset that “stress is enhancing” experience more exceptional performance and fewer negative health symptoms (Crum & Crum, 2018).

It’s easy to try and avoid stress entirely, especially since we operate in overdrive way too often. Instead of finding the balance, we swing from each end of the spectrum to try and find better ways to cope. This affects our mental, physical and financial health as we find ourselves making decisions that have tradeoffs that sometimes sit in our blindspots.

We see this in our personal choices, but also in the way we interact with others. We might overspend in order to make a partner or child happy, or we might underspend in order to keep ourselves feeling like we’re minimising the impact on our finances. We might avoid certain conversations, or spend an unhealthy amount of time on one activity in order to avoid others.

In their research with athletes and Navy SEALS, Crum and Crum developed a three-step approach to harnessing the positive aspects of stress while reducing negative health impacts.

Step one – “See your stress”

Don’t attempt to ignore stress. Label it. Seeing it as something positive, rather than to be avoided, can change our physical, cognitive, and behavioural response to it.

Say to yourself: “I am stressed because I haven’t discussed our monthly budget with my partner.”

Step two – “Own it”

When you are at risk of being overwhelmed by stress, own it. Say to yourself: “I need to make time to have this conversation and stop avoiding it.”

Step three – “Use it”

Your body and mind have evolved to respond to stress; use that energy, alertness, and heightened concentration to boost your mind. Be open to the opportunity. Use the stress to energise and motivate yourself to have that conversation you’ve been avoiding.

Reframing stress to something positive can enable you to overcome existing and future obstacles.

Another psychiatrist, Professor Steve Peters, specialises in the human mind. His bestseller, The Chimp Paradox, explains the inner workings of the brain using what he describes as the “Chimp Model.” It consists of three elements: the human, the chimp, and the computer, and can help us understand why we behave in certain ways when under stress.

According to Peters, the human element uses a logical and rational approach to solving problems. The chimp element describes the fast-reacting, instinctual parts of the brain. It solves problems emotionally and often reacts impulsively, frequently causing us problems. The final element, the computer, stores previous experiences and uses this information to advise the human and the chimp. It represents your memory and a set of learned, automatic responses.

Ultimately, dealing with stress is a key skill to living a life that we’ve planned and designed. Without coping mechanisms and language to label, own and use our stress, and understand our motivations, we will frequently find ourselves stuck in situations that we could very likely avoid.

When life gets full and busy, it’s hard to remember why we do what we do, and it’s easy to become unhealthily disconnected from who and what we value. As Dr Susan David often says, finding your “why” can be as simple as reconnecting with your values and reframing your everyday activities in relation to those values.

This is not so easy when we’re under pressure to perform and meet the expectations that have been placed on us. But, if we’re cognisant of it, we can learn to be more intentional about seeking out our values, even when feeling the squeeze. This is how we can find and remain connected to our purpose and meaning in life.

As Dr David puts it – perhaps you’re dreading a particular meeting with a client with whom you just don’t see eye to eye. But when you remind yourself of the values you want to bring to work—such as clear communication and collaboration—you begin to evaluate this tricky relationship through a lens of possibility instead of struggle.

It’s not always as tepid as this, sometimes it’s red-hot volatility or significant change that we need to confront in order to find our peace. Engaging with our deeper values may call upon deeper disruption – like leaving a dead-end relationship or choosing to move to a different country. 

The challenging reality is that if we don’t, at some point, try to engage deeply with our motivational values, no amount of money, status, property or relationships will give us the value that we’re desperately seeking. So, whatever it means to you, find it.

Dr David says that walking our why is a surefire way to cut through life’s messy and confusing meanderings to connect with who we really are. We cannot find our meaning at the end of an investment strategy or career path. All of those have little meaning, and equate to ‘just stuff’, if we don’t know who we intrinsically are at heart. 

It is helpful to think about choices not as better or worse but as equal and different and to remember that values are related to quality over quantity. Consumerism puts blinkers on us and keeps us constantly ‘busy’ – so practice social snacking and find opportunities to enhance relationships when life gets busy. For example, prioritise phone calls and coffee dates!

Show up to yourself with courage, curiosity, and self-compassion. This is where we begin to experience authentic, deep, long-lasting value, which we can then lean on to guide our choices.