If I know anything, it’s what a crappy inside-of-the-mind looks like. Back when chronic pain, drug use and depression were controlling my life, I couldn’t see that it was actually my mind’s unhealthy focus ruling the roost. I’ve come a long way since then and experienced some seriously good and life-altering shit in the process.

How did I do it, you ask? Well, I had my very own mindset coach (in the form of a neurology professor) tell me to shift my focus inward and choose what I really wanted to focus on. He told me that if I focused on what I really wanted, which was freedom, and acted in favour of that, then within 12 months I could have a different reality.

Back then I thought I was focused on not being in pain, but actually, I was only focused on how shit my life was and how hard everything was. Listening to and actioning the neurology professor’s advice is what changed my life – and my focus – for the better, forever.

What does choosing better focus look like?

Shifting your mind’s focus to a more empowering space is an investment. You’re investing a lot of work into something that takes time to see results. But once the results are in, you and your life will become a fk-tonne better.

It’s not about relying on the outside world, financial success or your appearance to make you feel better. What an empowering focus comes down to is how you choose to feel and what you choose to think.

Choosing a more empowering focus will enable you to become the captain of your thoughts – rather than allowing them to run loose and rule you. When you choose better focus, it means that you’re willing to embrace a better quality of life for yourself and accept that you are worthy and deserving of all the good shit life can offer. You’ll face life head on and heart on, and know that you are un-fkn-stoppable.

1. Take a look at what you’re focused on

Are you focused on the things in your life that actually matter? Is your focus empowering or disempowering? If you are focused on shit, what is it costing you? Are you feeling mental ease? Inner peace? Joy?

The first step to choosing a more empowering focus is identifying and becoming aware of what you’re actually focused on. Once you’ve done that, you can acknowledge how it’s impacting you and your life.

2. Surround yourself with legends

This one is a no brainer. All of the greats (Confucius*, Oprah Winfrey**, Vanilla Ice***) say that you should surround yourself with positive people, and they’re not wrong. The people you spend a lot of time with are likely to influence you in some way, and you might even begin to adopt or mirror some of their traits.

So if you want to support yourself in choosing a more empowering focus, look at the people in your life who you spend most of your time with. What does their mindset look like? What about their outlook on life? What are your conversations like? Do you leave feeling inspired or as though you’ve just had a bitch and moan session?

It’s a tough journey realising that some relationships are in fact toxic, but it’s better to see this now rather than later.

3. Take your meds (a.k.a meditate!)

When I swapped out medicine for meditation, it was like my eyes and my mind were opened up to a whole new world of possibilities and freedom. Even now, I spend at least 20 minutes erryday doing my meds, and I can tell you – it’s fkn lifechanging.

Taking the time to just sit, breathe and focus on not really focusing (it’s a confusing concept at first, but you get used to it), has the power to shift your focus in a really big way. And if going solo ain’t your schtick, you can always try giving meditation classes a go.

I set my timer for five minutes, close my eyes, sit in silence and listen to what I can hear, smell, taste and sense around me. When my thoughts come in to take me off track, I come back to the senses to train my brain that I want to focus on something more than the list of shit I need to get done for the day.

4. How are you treating yourself?

If you’re getting a little tough on yourself and beating yourself up with ‘not good enough’ or ‘not worthy’ stories, it’s time for a reset. You need to know when you’ve given yourself enough hell for a day (or two) and say enough is enough.

When I get like this (because I do!), I ask myself what advice I’d give a friend if they were giving themselves a hard time. The advice I’d give to them is the advice I need to take on myself, which is choosing to treat myself with kindness and compassion. This is a far more empowering focus which contributes to me being more gentle on myself.

Find it in your heart to practice self-kindness, self-compassion and self-acceptance. You deserve it.

5. Save your fks for the things that matter

Ding ding ding! The final round: do the shit that makes you happy and save your fks for the good stuff.

If you stopped for a sweet little minute on the regular and asked yourself, what would I prefer to be giving a fk about right now? Then allow the answer to come forward naturally, you’d be doing so much more for yourself that positively contributes to living a better life.

Keep on going even when the going gets tough

Saving your fks for the things that matter and shifting your focus into a more empowering space might not happen straight away. Sometimes your spirits will get smashed, and that’s okay.

Everything in life takes time, and it’s okay if transitioning away from the bad shit doesn’t happen as quickly as you’d hoped. But do your future self a favour and begin choosing better focus now so that you can thank yourself in the future.

For a mindset coach who really gets it, hit me up x

* “Never contract friendship with a man that is not better than thyself.” – Confucius

** “Surround yourself with only people who are going to lift you higher.” – Oprah Winfrey

*** “Show me who your friends are and I’ll show you who you are.” – Vanilla Ice

 

We can do weird shit to ourselves sometimes (or a lot of the time). As we go after the things that are important to us, we have a tendency to get in our own way and stop ourselves from getting what we want. This, my friend, is called self-sabotage.

Self-sabotage rears its fugly head in a bunch of different ways. Sometimes, you might be aware you’re doing it, but other times, it’s like something else has total control over how you’re acting and behaving.

Here are some obvious signs that you could be self-sabotaging, plus some suggestions on how you can nip that shit in the bud.

Procrastination

Procrastination: because why do the important shit when there’s a whole lot of unnecessary stuff to do instead?

When procrastination calls, it looks a bit like this:

Knowing your procrastination go-to’s will help you to become aware when you’re smack bang in the middle of procrastination mode. Maybe it’s scrolling through your socials, watching tv or repotting the plants (again).

Just know that your procrastination ain’t getting you any closer to getting done what you set out to do – which is probably gonna make you feel guilty, overwhelmed and like you’re a shit human.

While it may feel productive in the moment, pushing your priorities back will only add to your stress in the long term, and that’s something you have complete control over.

If you’re a self-confessed procrastinator, start observing your behaviour and ask yourself where you really want your focus to be. And is that on your fave celeb’s Instagram profile? Or is it on your new kickass creative project?

Captain obvious, right?

Negative self-talk

Let’s be honest: speaking critically of and to yourself is something we’ve all done. But just know that when your inner critic is being kind of an asshole, you don’t have to listen to it.

You know that Native American proverb about how the wolf you feed is the one that rules you? Well, that’s your inner critic in a nutshell. Feed those negative thoughts and drench them with attention, and they will rule you.

Managing your attention-seeking inner voice isn’t about shutting it down and drowning it out. The negative nancy inside of you is there for a reason, and she’s just as much a part of you as your kinder, more supportive self.

If you want both versions of you (the kind and the critical) to get along, then you’ll need to accept them just as they are – and give love and attention to the one that matters most.

Adopting unhealthy habits to deal with stress

As much as we hate to admit it, we’re all only human. Making mistakes and shit choices is just a part of the deal. We all have our less than productive go-to’s, and during times of stress, these vices tend to take the reigns.

A self-sabotaging habit is something that brings us comfort when we’re feeling overwhelmed or afraid. We tend to like them because they’re familiar, like a cuddly block of chocolate or a friendly glass of vino.

Unhealthy habits are different for everyone, but common ones include:

Try becoming aware of your unhealthy habit next time it takes over. Getting a hold of it may take some time, but if it helps to stop you from dragging yourself or others down, then it’ll be the best damn thing you ever did.

Saying no to new opportunities

How many of you have turned down new opportunities out of fear? Taking the leap – especially without a safety net – is scary. Trust me, I know.

But if I had been too afraid to change my life when the opportunity came knocking, I wouldn’t be the zerofks, meds-obsessed and kickass life coach that I am today.

It’s a lot easier to stay in an unhappy job, home, relationship etc than it is to risk getting the hell out of your comfort zone and doing something exciting, crazy and totally fucking life-changing.

Following your dreams means saying yes to new opportunities, even when they scare you. Sure, fear alerts you to danger, and yes, sometimes you should listen to it (use your best judgement).

But sometimes, fear is simply holding you back from the mind-blowing experiences that could change your life.

Stop self-sabotaging and start living!

Self-sabotage can impact us at any time, and I am no exception. Whenever my sabotaging self appears, I notice her arrival and start looking at my behaviour.

Like, do I need to wipe the kitchen bench down for the fifth time in the last 30 minutes?? Ahhh, no. Is recording the next real, raw, relatable podcast where my energy and focus needs to be? Yes! So that’s where my attention will go next to stop the self-sabotage from playing out.

By cutting out self-sabotagey behaviour, we can all work towards living a more positive and fulfilling life.

With me as your mindset coach, say goodbye to self-sabotage and hello to a happier life

The downside of people pleasing

Giving zerofks to the dark voices inside my head and finally not believing everything they’re saying has been bloody hard. The voices that tell me all the shit things about myself, often followed by feeling miserable and focusing on all the wrong things. Landing in this place enabled me to save my fks for backing and being my true self, which is fking priceless!

Being a people pleaser was my specialty (and I still have that as an automated backup program). I wanted to fit in, to be liked, to be loved – so in order to get that I would leave my soul and sense of self on the curb and do whatever it took to satisfy that gaping hole of wanting to belong.

I’d morph myself into other people’s values, wants, opinions and needs, all in the name of feeling wanted, liked, and loved. By the time my last relationship ended after six years, I was a shell of a human. I had taken on his likes, hobbies, and friendships, and in the meantime had ditched mine. That thought, “oh, fuck, how do I rebuild from here?”, was so overwhelming. So much so I tried to get into the next relationship so I didn’t have to deal with myself. The voices in my head were screaming to latch onto someone else, but my soul had other plans.

None of the relationships worked out and after nine months of dating, it was time for me to take a look in the mirror and see that the problem and the solution was staring back at me. I had zero control over my thoughts and was just going along with them. But somewhere deep inside I knew better – I knew I wanted more for myself.

Alternative practices

After seeing some changes within my big brother, I grew curious and threw myself into alternative practices – kinesiology, life coaching, chakra courses, meditation, and retreats. I was on the search for my soul, not that I knew it. But I knew I was in search from something more within myself, I just didn’t have the words to put around it.

Looking back, this in itself was a zerofks moment. Choosing to pave a new way forward, try new things and get out of a life that was built on limited thoughts, feelings, behaviours and patterns. I had no idea where it would lead me but knew I had to follow it.

A big zerofks moment

A big zerofks moment that took place over that time was at a sober dance class at Five Rhythms. At the time I was part of a chakra program and the suggested homework was to attend this to become uninhibited. Oh, my, gosh. I stood there for 20 minutes dead still whilst 80 or so people around me were dancing, seemingly freely, and I hated it. I hated it because of the thoughts in my head.

“You fking loser, why won’t you just dance?”
“OMG, don’t dance, you’ll look like a dick!”
“Just leave, it was only $20, no one will notice or care!”

“If you leave you are weak and pathetic!”
“This place is weird, get the fk outta here!”
“I can’t believe you’re not dancing, just move something!”
“No, don’t dance, people will think you’re weird. People will think you’re copying their moves!”

20 solid minutes of that, plus more, going on in my head – no wonder I was frozen and stiff in my body. I remember closing my eyes, taking a deep breath and saying, “fk it” to myself. “Fk it Kat, just let yourself be free”. Little by little I started to move, finding the rhythm in my body and the music. Within 15 minutes I was free from those thoughts, free from being ruled by nonsense, free from being stuck inside self-created limitation. This was a big moment I gifted myself to be free to be me.

That night imprinted so deeply in my mind and heart that allowing myself to be me was what mattered way more than the thoughts in my head, and that it was up to me to make this matter of utmost importance. Every day I would observe where I was giving into thoughts that said I couldn’t be me, enquiring into why and then I’d ask myself, “how would life be different if I allowed myself to be me?” The more I did this, the stronger and more brave I became, taking risks where previously I would hold myself back.

I began sharing with people I was dating how I felt, expressing what I wanted and began letting out more of how I saw the world. I stopped hiding my interests and what mattered to me. I relaxed more into myself at work (was nursing at the time) and began to show more of my true self. And fk, it felt good! And I wasn’t going to let my thoughts take this away from me again.

To be real, I hoped I’d get to this place, the place where I can hear the voices in my head, allow them be there and not be overly bothered by them (some days are easier than others). There was part of me that knew I could, but another part of me that told me it was impossible. It’s the latter voice you want to start giving zerofks to, so the things that truly matter can come to life.

I’m so keen to hear your zerofks moments #zfmoments and how they have changed aspects of your life in the comments below.