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Dark Coffee Podcast

Starting brave and bullshit-free conversations around mental health and wellbeing.

20 February 2020

38. Mind Over Grind round-up

9 February 2020

37. Suicide Ideation in Real(ish) Time

29 January 2020

36. Creating head space

22 January 2020

35. Courage, Compassion, Connection

15 January 2020

34. Holding On versus Letting Go

8 January 2020

33. Growing an Entrepreneurial Mindset

1 January 2020

32. Review of the Year (Part 2)

31 December 2019

31. Review of the Year (Part 1)

20 December 2019

30. Get on your Soapbox!

18 December 2019

29. Empowerment through Self-Advocacy

11 December 2019

28. Being Single

5 December 2019

27. Music, Mental Health and Harmonious Communities

27 November 2019

26. The Importance of Connection

21 November 2019

25. A letter to my suicidal self

17 November 2019

24. One Year of Dark Coffee

14 November 2019

23. ‘Strong’ Men + Underdogs

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How hard can it be to ‘just say no?’ • Turn

How hard can it be to ‘just say no?’ •

Turns out, very! It’s especially hard to say to people you care about, like your family, your close friends and your best clients.

Saying no sometimes feels like you’re depriving them of something.

🤔 But here’s a question - if you’re running yourself into the ground trying to meet their needs, how long do you think you can keep it up for?

It may feel like you’re being helpful and attentive in the short term, but neglecting yourself to help others is not a sustainable way to live.

🔥 I repeat - neglecting yourself to help others is not a sustainable way to live.

In fact, that’s a fast track to overwhelm and burnout (take it from someone who’s been there!)

One of the ways we can best look after our clients is by looking after ourselves first.

Sometimes this looks like eating well and working out. Other times it looks like glorious, beautiful boundaries!

This I just one of the topics I’ll be covering in tomorrow’s punchy little ‘lunch and learn’ workshop, Self Care for Busy People.

You’ll leave with:

⚡️ a powerful technique for quickly checking in with your wellbeing

⚡️an action planning strategy to help you prioritise self care in your busy schedule

⚡️a kick up the arse from yours-truly to help reaffirm the importance of self-care

⚡️insights into how to maintain and manage your energy levels, especially when under stress (never been more important than after this year!!)

⚡️ all attendees also get a follow-up coaching call with me to help put the ideas into a solid action plan after the event.

😅 Of course, I’m actually hoping you ‘just say yes’ to this one. Let’s see if reverse psychology works for event promotion!

💻 Link in the bio, of course

- ☕️ Alice

⚡️How do you recharge your energy levels? •

⚡️How do you recharge your energy levels? •

It’s a question that’s worth asking, because depending on whether you’re an introvert or extrovert, different levels of social interaction with DEPLETE or RECHARGE your energy levels.

👩‍💻 INTROVERTS tend to enjoy spending long periods of time on their own.

However, this doesn’t mean they’re anti-social. Far from it!

They can be some of the most loyal and loving people you ever meet - they tend to just have a smaller social group with deeper connections.

They tend to go for DEPTH rather than BREADTH and enjoy meaningful conversations with a few close friends.

🎉 EXTROVERTS can go another way entirely! They can find their energy levels get a massive boost from being around other people.

They don’t have to be close friends - just being able to go out and make eye contact and idle conversation in the wider world can be incredibly reassuring for extroverts.

Particularly during lockdown, it’s important for extroverts to make the effort to go out and mix with other people (restrictions permitting.)

This could include to a sales assistant instead of using the self serve in the supermarket, or working from a coworking space instead of a home office.

💡Getting to know how to energise yourself is really important for knowing how to stay safe, happy and productive at work.

🤔 We’ll be looking at introversion and extroversion for the rest of this week, but based on what we’ve said here, which way do you think you swing?

- ☕️ Alice

🎨 Slide design: @grace_r_hall

😫 Starting the week feeling deflated? ☕️

😫 Starting the week feeling deflated?

☕️ Monday’s can be tough when you’re working for yourself. How do you give yourself the motivation to get ready for another busy week?

💡I regularly take time to invest in my personal development so that I feel like I’m always growing.

👌🏼 It breaks up my usual work flow, gives me a sense of achievement and let’s me know that I’m always up-skilling and growing on a personal level, even if I feel like I’ve had a ‘bad business week.’

🎯 Sometimes this looks like having a coaching or mentoring session to set some personal goals and be held accountable for them.

😅 This week it’s an all-day sales workshop on Wednesday (might sound like hell to some people but I’m so excited about it!)

💡 If you don’t have anything planned for yourself, you might enjoy one of the workshops we’re running this week.

💁‍♀️ Tomorrow’s Confident Content is for you if you’d like to feel more capable of posting on social media as the person behind the business. We’ll look at the fears and barriers that are holding you back and you’ll leave with a new approach that will help you get started.

👩‍💻 Then on Thursday we’re talking about self-care for busy people! A 60-minute ‘lunch and learn’ session to how to manage your personal wellbeing when you’re trying to build an empire.

💻 You’ll leave with greater clarity around the topics as well as some practical steps to change theory into action.

😉 All attendees also get a 60 minute follow-up consultation with yours truly to do a deep-dive on the topics we’ve discussed.

📲 Link is in the bio for tickets and more info. Looking forward to seeing you there!

- ☕️ Alice

😭 “I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO POST!!” • “

😭 “I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO POST!!” •

“I don’t know what to say!”

“I’m worried what people will think of me.”

“I don’t think I’m interesting enough.”

😔 These are some of the fears I hear about A LOT when I’m coaching business owners.

It can be really intimidating to know where to get started in your content and how to get over the FEAR of putting yourself out there.

If that sounds like you, our Confident Content workshop is for you.

☕️ Come and join a small group of other business owners and freelancers to learn some mindset hacks for social media.

💫 Recognise what’s holding you back

💫 Learn some techniques for breaking through your self-imposed barriers

💫 Get some sensible next steps for getting started

😊 It’s going to be fab and a lovely group of folks have already signed up, so you’re in good company.

💻 Link in the bio as well as out full workshop program, including:

- Self-care for busy people
- Creating a badass vision
- Journaling for wellbeing

📲 If you’ve got any questions, just DM me 😊

☕️ Alice x x

Rest.... something we could all be using a little

Rest.... something we could all be using a little more of at the moment 😌

But how do you rest when society values us being present 24/7, our jobs are more hectic than ever and we feel uncertainty at every turn?

Here are a few basic tips to cultivate a little more rest in your life:

📲 Switch off - whether it's news notifications putting the fear of God or righteous fury into you, or constant notifications for emails and group chats... sometimes the best thing we can do is use 'do not disturb' to get a little headspace

⌚️ Make time - it sounds obvious, but often, we plan our days to varying degrees for work, but we rarely factor in rest. If you plan time for rest, you're likelier to actually rest.

🧎‍♀️ Focus on yourself - we usually put other people's needs before our own, which means we don't realise we need rest until we're at the point of burnout. Take a minute to focus on your needs!

🗣 AVOID. GUILT - I cannot stress this enough... YOU DESERVE A BREAK! It can be easy to feel guilty at taking time for yourself, but you need it!

How do you rest? Do you find it easy to take breaks or is it a constant struggle? 🤔

- 🦦Grace

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🎨 Design by @grace_r_hall

💻 YOUR BUSINESS WILL NOT FAIL IF YOU DON’T PO

💻 YOUR BUSINESS WILL NOT FAIL IF YOU DON’T POST TODAY •

Remember last week when we were talking about boundaries?

That extends to our use of social media as well.

It can often feel like there’s a lot of pressure to post.

To share value.

To educate our audience.

To show that we know what we’re talking about.

But that doesn’t mean keeping your phone in your hand, answering DM’s on the toilet.

It doesn’t mean that content has to suddenly become your life’s work.

Because unless you’re a content marketer, that really isn’t the case! And spending too long fretting about social media can take too much of your time away from your REAL zone of genius.

Outsourcing is a great shout if you’re feeling overwhelmed.

Create that much-needed headspace to be able to actually DO your work rather than endlessly TALKING about it.

If I didn’t have a team, I guarantee you wouldn’t see me even half as much on here!

Social media can help us find and connect with our audience, yes... but missing a few days here and there will not destroy your business.

Burning out might.

When you feel your heart rate increase at the thought of posting, or you find yourself struggling to know what to say, or you’re scrolling for inspiration instead of actually doing work... STEP AWAY.

- Alice ☕️

💻 TECHNOLOGY: Friend or f****r? • Most of us

💻 TECHNOLOGY: Friend or f****r? •

Most of us are probably feeling a bit ‘zoomed out’ after so many months indoors this year, so it’s easy to hate on technology and the maniacal hold it has over us.

But can technology actually be conducive to good mental health?

We can definitely see some advantages:

☕️ ACCESIBILITY - mental health apps and training can be far more affordable online than in-person, and can be a lot more physically accessible for people with certain physical or mental health conditions.

☕️ APPROACHABLE - it’s also a lot less intimidating to sign up to a webinar anonymously than turn up in a room, especially if you’re feeling emotionally vulnerable

☕️ CONVENIENCE - we can get on-demand support in more ways than ever before, all without having to talk to a real human first. TED Talks on YouTube are still my first point of call for a 3am pep talk

Of course, there are some downsides to tech-based products and services:

❌ They can’t compare to the real thing. Some things that we experience in real life can’t be replicated online. Think hugs, eye contact and body language.

❌ It’s hard to tell how effective these methods are - going to endless webinars will not as effective as engaging in an interactive training session (and increasingly anonymised platforms make it easy to disengage!)

❌ There are also the usual data and privacy concerns that go hand-in-hand with technology.

💻 Technology definitely serves a lot of purposes, but it’s really important to be mindful of its limitations to be able to use it responsibly.

🤔 Which way are you swaying? Are you a tech fan or phobe?

- Alice

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🎨 Slide Design: @grace_r_hall