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Don’t worry, this isn’t technically an article on New Year’s resolutions. This is more than that.

It’s an article on self-reflection and self-appreciation. It’s about learning about yourself – what you want, where you want to be and who you are.

I’m Ellen and I’m one of the writers here at Life Coach Directory. I’ve been to university, learned a lot and after a number of different jobs, have found a career I’d like to pursue and develop in.

But despite this, it’s only been recently that I’ve actually sat down and thought about where I want to be, what I want to achieve and how much I’ve changed.

A moment of reflection

Reflection isn’t something we do often. We might have to look back at the past few weeks or months during an interview or our yearly review. We think back to our last holiday every now and then. But we rarely take a moment to really think about what we’ve achieved and how we’ve developed over the past...

Whether you’re in a role you love or a job you hate, habit and comfort zone can keep you from making the changes you want to make. You need to make a presentation but public speaking terrifies you. You want a raise, but you don’t know how to approach your manager. You’re no longer satisfied in your role, but fear you won’t find anything else.

Sometimes, despite knowing what you need to do, you can’t muster up the courage to do it.

What if you don’t succeed?
Why bother risking failure when you’re so comfortable?

Fear is an important part of life. It keeps us safe when facing threat. But it can also be incredibly limiting. Not everything that scares you deserves caution – sometimes, overcoming this fear is what is needed to change your life for the better.

If you’re holding yourself back, here are some tips to breaking out of habit. You may even learn to embrace a little fear.

Picture yourself without...

When asked, just three in 10 Brits answered “yes” to that question.

The 2015 UK Optimism Audit painted a rather bleak picture of our collective happiness levels: only one-quarter of us feel that our career is on the right track, just 7% of us are very happy with the way we look, and two-fifths of us feel that our current relationship is either declining or has no future.

However, there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon. 70% of us think that changing one small thing in our lives could make a big difference to our happiness levels. The problem is though, we have...

With winter fast approaching, our motivation and ‘get up and go’ dwindles. Our lovely, sunny routine is over and things don’t seem to be sitting right anymore.

It’s time for change.

Whether you’re a fan of winter or not, the darker days can hit us hard. We’re tired and sluggish, it’s getting colder and well, we can’t remember the last time we went to the gym.

But winter rolls around every year and sadly, hibernation isn’t for us. So, here are our tips for shrugging off the post-summer sulk, and relighting your fire.

The night before:

Rather than starting in the morning, prepare for the next day, the night before. It doesn’t take long, but when your alarm goes off and it feels like it’s 4am (it’s not, of course) having everything ready for you can be a life-saver.

Prepare your lunch for the week in the evening. Honestly, you’ll thank yourself later – it saves you time in the morning, saves you money and keeps you on...

What does the word ‘balance’ mean to you?

Maybe you think it means something along the lines of ‘equal weight’ or ‘in equal measures’ – like balancing a set of scales. Or, perhaps it means achieving the ‘optimum amount’? That’s kind of what a ‘balanced diet’ means, right?

The truth is, as with many words in our vocabulary, ‘balance’ can mean many different things.

The trouble comes, then, when we associate it with aspects in our lives. For instance, in relation to work. In this case, balance often implies that ‘work’ and ‘life’ are two halves of each of us, that should happen in equal measure – when, in reality, that’s not the case.

So, what is the perfect balance of work and life?

In the summer of last year, I was lacking motivation and generally not feeling as happy as I thought I could be. I heard about the Happiness Planner, a journal that contains exercises and prompts to encourage self-reflection, motivation and overall happiness.

A few weeks into using it, I wrote my thoughts on the planner here on the Life Coach Directory blog. I’ve now completed this 52-week journal and thought it would be interesting to look back and see what difference it actually made to my happiness.

So… am I happier?

Honestly? Yes, I am. And I have the numbers to back it up. Every week in the planner you note down scores for your happiness, how calm you are, how excited, how energetic and how healthy you feel. At the end of the 52 weeks, you input these numbers into one chart...

Latest research from the UK’s leading independent job board, CV-Library, reveals that over two-thirds of the nation’s workers are losing up to 16 days a year commuting to and from work. To top that off, over a third of professionals are commuting up to two hours a day.

Unfortunately, commuting is often part of the job – especially for those living in larger cities and satellite towns, where inner-city housing can be astronomically expensive. In fact, as many as 79.9% of UK workers are on the move to and from work, five days a week.

With such a significant chunk of time dedicated to commuting every day and the thought of losing days (even weeks) each year as a result of this, it’s important to utilise...

Believe it or not, we’re nearing the halfway point of the year (is it just us or have the last six months flown by?). If nothing else, it’s got us thinking a lot about our goals for the year.

Whether you set resolutions in January that you’ve been trying to stick to, or you ditched the resolutions instead for more of an intention-setting vibe, it’s time to take stock on the year so far.

We asked the team here at Life Coach Directory about their goals for 2017, to find out whether or not they are on-track to achieve them.

Ellen, Marketing Communications Executive

I set myself a goal of...

It’s incredible how many times a day we look at our phones. A recent study suggested that the typical mobile phone user touches their phone 2,617 times every day. 2,617 times. That’s over 100 taps, clicks and swipes every hour.

But are we doing this consciously? And do we actually want to be looking at our phones this often?

A lot of our phone use is active; making calls, sending texts, checking up on emails, using apps, browsing social media. In other words, we are using our phones out of our own choice. But, a large part of when we look at our phones isn’t down to our proactivity; we do it because our screen happens to light up with a little message – a push...