Blog
What's your definition of success?
Jul 01, 2022
I have just delivered my annual Power Up event in London and I wanted to share some of the learnings that have come from that event.
When I envisioned my event and came up with the idea originally, it would now be very easy for me (a few days after) to see it as a failure in comparison to what I had in my mind.
It was during a coaching session with my own coach last June, where I was in the process of bringing forward Kelly Swingler as a brand. I was stepping away from my old consultancy that I started in 2014 and over the last year I have really put myself out there, flying the Kelly Swingler flag and brand. During my coaching session I said I wanted to reach as many women as possible, in person, in a room, being able to help women step into their core power.
My coach asked me to do a visualisation exercise, where we went into a brief meditation, to visualise ‘this thing’. I knew it was something that had to happen in person and as...
Mind The Gap
Jun 24, 2022
Mind the gap is the title of my next book and is now available on pre-order.
This book is the most difficult one I’ve written to date. This will be my 5th book and is released on the 13th July.
With the other 4 books, they have been commissioned by publishers in the first instance. So the publishers have asked me to write a book, they’ve given me the word count, the layout and a rough idea of what’s to be in the book. They’ve also edited it and published it for me.
But with this book, I had some challenges initially. The title had been going around in my head for months, but I had no idea what I was going to write about, I just wrote down ‘Mind the Gap’ in my notebook.
I started to write it and contacted a publisher and I was so excited because I not only had this book in mind, I also had 4 more. I knew the order they were going to be in and why, everything was in place and I was over the moon when...
My Success, My Way
Jun 10, 2022
Success comes in all shapes and sizes and is personal to each of us. I want to help you create your success, your way.
Have you thought about success?
What does it mean to you?
Are you on track?
Some of the women I work with are incredible and successful women, yet sometimes when I start working with them on a 1:1 basis, they don’t always feel successful. They say that other people label them as successful, but it’s not necessarily a word they would use to describe themselves.
I can relate to that!
So, have you thought about what success would look like and feel like for you?
I hear the word failing or failure a lot with women in my coaching, in my programmes and in my DM’s.
“I feel like a failure”
“I want to feel successful”
“I feel like a fraud”
“I don’t feel like I can celebrate my wins, as I don’t want to come across as arrogant”
...
What Happens When Women Speak Up
Jun 03, 2022
I recently watched the latest Davina McCall documentary- her second one talking about her experience with menopause. Whilst this post isn’t necessarily all about menopause, the impact that it has on women is something that we all need to pay attention to and talk about.
I was menopausal at the age of 33 with an endometrial embolization and found out at age 41 that I probably should have been on HRT at 33. I knew I had all of the symptoms and had been seeing the doctors over and over again and repeatedly told ‘you’re too young’.
After the first Davina documentary I found a private GP and paid thousands of pounds for lots of different tests and the only test that wasn’t done was the one for menopause, again because I was still deemed to be too young. Through a conversation with friends of mine, I was introduced to an organisation called Newson Health that is run by Doctor Louise Newson. I had 1 consultation with one of her...
Mind The Gap
May 27, 2022
This is the title of my next book which is launching in July and available on my website for pre-sale very soon. Very soon it’s going to transform from words on a page to an actual real life book and the feeling of seeing and holding months of your work in book form, is something I never tire of.
Mind the gap is the journey from balance to burnout and back again, my experiences and my journey in recognising that the gap between health and burnout, isn't always a big one. And if we're not doing what we need to do, we can fall through the crack quite easily.
Core-led living is what got me out of burnout. I had created this gap between the true me, (who I am at my core) and the façade version of me that was trying to live in a way that suited everybody else.
I was going after everyone else's level of success.
I was trying to fit into these leadership boxes that were just not me.
I was living in a way that wasn’t aligned to who I am...
Nourishment
May 20, 2022
For the last few years rather than creating a long list of resolutions (that quite frankly I never do), I instead have a word of the year. I still have my big goals and quarterly goals for the year, but I focus on a word rather than resolutions.
For example, my resolutions used to be, quit smoking, quit drinking, eat healthier etc, but I failed so quickly into the New Year and never quite managed to get back on track. So I created a habit and a focus on one word for the year.
This year my word is NOURISHMENT.
In previous years my word has been:
Focus
Permission
Kindness
Growth
Compassion
Success
Abundance
Before I came up with my word for this year, I’d realised that I had been writing down and talking about the word ‘nourish’. So I sat with it for a while and it just felt right for all Four Core-Ners of my life:
Self
Relationships
Work
World
For me, it’s more than just...
Ego Vs Being Core-Led
May 13, 2022
It’s impossible for us to be ego driven when we are being core-led.
When we are core-led we can easily spot the people that are living and leading from a place of total bulls**t. We can spot them a mile off and those who think they are amazing and successful are usually leading from a place of ego and arrogance instead.
One of the things I hear women say when I talk about stepping up, speaking up, being more confident and living and leading more from their core, is that they don’t want to do that because they are worried people will think they have a big ego and their confidence will come across as arrogance. We do see some of this arrogance in our organisations, in our communities and on social media etc, but normally our worries are just that and they don’t actually happen, especially when you are coming from a core-led place.
Definition of Ego; I or self of any person. A person who is thinking, feeling and willing, and...
True To Yourself
Apr 28, 2022
What can change for you when you start being true to yourself?
I had a conversation with a woman recently who was turning down the opportunities of presenting to her organisation and widely in her community. She is seen as an inspiration and a leader in her community, but she wasn’t feeling this herself. After listening to my podcast episode about being a core-led woman, that day she had been asked to do a talk and her initial reaction was no I can’t do that. She then took 10 minutes and did a little happy dance and went back to them and said YES! This week she is delivering a talk to 1500 people on a stage and it’s the first time she has done a talk to that many people. A lightbulb went off and she thought she just needs to stop hiding.
YES! This is what happens when we are aligned with our core, we can’t hide anymore. I felt a similar way a long time ago, I was nervous to give talks about myself and what I do. I was nervous about...
The Impact Of Burnout On Our Creativity
Apr 22, 2022
What impact can burnout and high stress levels have on our creativity?
Problem solving
Our perspective
Seeing the bigger picture
Ability to generate new ideas
I believe all of us have the ability to be creative and when I think back throughout my career, I’ve always been a creative person. The way I work, the way I have recruited people into teams, the way that I have led induction programs, was all about creativity.
Throughout school, although I loved contemporary dance and got an A* for it in my GCSE’s, I hadn’t thought of myself as a creative person. But I loved the movement and the stories you could tell and being able to partner that with powerful music. However, art class wasn't my strong point and I wasn’t artistic at all. If you were to ask me to just draw or paint something right now, I just couldn’t draw anything that resembles anything. But sometimes after my meditation class we are asked to create a...
Taking A Break
Apr 08, 2022
I want to share the benefits of taking a break and here is a quick reminder of the 7 different types of rest that we need:
Mental
Physical
Emotional
Sensory
Creative
Social
Spiritual
When I talk to new clients we talk a lot about taking time and doing things for yourself. That can be self care, learning or anything that involves taking time out. In the start of my sessions with clients, I often hear them say that they don’t have the time to take a break.
We know that our brain and body needs breaks and rest. We need to mix things up daily with different scenery and give ourselves different things to focus on, or just take time out for ourselves. Time comes up a lot with the women I work with and in particular as to why they can’t or won’t take breaks. In not giving ourselves the time and space to take regular breaks, we’re not doing ourselves any good.
Our workplaces and society have conditioned us...
