A lot of my clients are not sure about whether to have kids or not, as they think all the fun will end. Read about my experience of going on a workcation to Thailand with my family and get some tips how to make it a success.

Waiting for the anxiety to kick in

‘Welcome to the year that will give you the most anxiety and stress in your life’. This was how the head teacher at my daughter’s primary school started the Zoom presentation.

It was 1 a.m. and the alarm had just gone off. Even though I was in a different time zone, I knew I needed to educate myself about the German ‘Förderprognose’.

I had ignored it until now, but it was time to face the reality of what my daughter, and we as parents, would be going through in the coming year.

It will soon be decided if our daughter will continue on an academic path, or if she will go to a school with a more practical direction.

She has ONE year to perform well if she wants to have more opportunities later in life.

She is 11!

‘Thank God I didn’t grow up in Germany’, I thought to myself. At that age I had lost the ‘oh how nice it is to go to school’ feeling and was more interested in boys and dealing with drama among my girlfriends.

A few months ago, when I asked permission to take my daughter out of school for six weeks, the same head teacher wrote me a long list of reasons why it wasn’t a good idea.

One reason was that it was in the middle of ‘that important year for the kids’. But as he mentioned, ‘maybe we are not so stressed about our child’s grades as other parents are’.

I had no idea what I had in front of me. I didn’t grow up in Germany.

Should I be stressed?

Will I regret taking my daughter on an adventure at the beginning of her most important school year?

Maybe.

Will she one day be upset when she finds out?

Maybe.

I leaned my head on the sofa in our villa on Koh Lanta while the headteacher shared numbers and percentages during the Zoom presentation.

I waited for the anxiety to kick in. I waited to feel regret.

Life skills

Instead, my mind wandered off thinking about all the things my daughter had learned during our workcation:  

• The courage to try something new (Thai boxing)
• Focus and balance (joining me in yoga classes)
• Confidence (rowing a gondola)
• The beauty of nature (…everywhere!)
• Adaptation (new teachers, new classmates)
• Relaxation (first massage)

The anxiety didn’t kick in, and I didn’t feel regretful.

My daughter learned important ‘life skills’ that she will one day need to tackle the world out there.

Skills that will be helpful in any job she chooses.

Skills that will be helpful in all her relationships.

Once the presentation ended, I went back to bed with a smile on my face, feeling proud of myself for taking her on such an adventure. Proud of her for being open and curious about the world.

‘You’re going to have an amazing future girl’! I thought to myself.

Tips for a successful workcation with kids

• Plan it at least six months ahead. You need time to get permission to take your child out of school (for families with school-age children), potentially find a local school for short-term enrollment, sort out how to work remotely and find a suitable place to stay.
• Make a travel budget. Things end up being more expensive than you think. Don’t ruin your stay by thinking about money all the time. Be prepared for how much things will cost.
• Check with your child’s current school. Ask early for permission to take your child/ren out of school. Make sure to give a good reason in your application letter.
• Think about your family’s needs. A comfortable home is important for a family’s well-being. How many rooms do you need? Will it be okay to stay in one room all together or do you need more privacy as a couple and for work?
• Check on the reliability of the internet connection where you plan to stay. Internet stability can vary greatly from place to place. If your work requires a good connection, ask about the internet stability in advance.
• Decide on the best location for your family. What places do you want to be closest to? Walking distance to the beach? Restaurants? Cultural sites? Depending on the age of your children, your priorities might vary.

Taking my family to Thailand is one of the best decisions I have made in my life. We came here to recharge, refocus and reconnect as a family, and to individually get some alone time.

Have a look at my ‘Take a workcation with kids’ reel on instagram where you get to see our favourite moments.

If you need help getting ‘off the hamster wheel’ and start doing the things you love, book a call with me here.

Love,

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Many of my clients come to me because they want to find ‘work-life balance’. They feel they’re constantly failing and never feeling good enough. I want to share my secret to finding ‘life balance’ (I mean, work is also life, right? So let’s just call it ‘life’ balance).

An unexpected challenge

I could feel the relief in my chest after the strict German airport personnel didn’t make a fuss about us having too much hand luggage. We were finally on the plane to Thailand – a trip that had been postponed three years – and my family was in a good mood.

As we started settling in, I called the flight attendant over to ask about my 11-year-old daughter’s seatbelt. And was surprised when she said, ‘Do you need a safety belt for your baby’? while looking down at my belly.

I wasn’t sure if I should feel flattered that a woman my age could be pregnant or offended that she thought there was a baby in my belly.

I looked up in surprise. The Austrian Air flight attendant was wearing a fitted red dress with a scarf around her neck. My eyes landed on her belly, which was flat like a plate.

Growing up, I was ‘the skinny one’. If it wasn’t for my bad skin and strict Polish mother, I might have had a career as a fashion model. I was not used to getting comments about my weight.

I leaned back in my seat and checked in with my inner critic, but it had nothing to say. Instead, I could hear a gentle voice whisper:

‘Yes, your belly has grown bigger in the last three years. You made a choice to make other things a priority, doing sports has not been your focus’.

Little did I know that life was going to throw some similar challenges my way.

Knowing when to shuffle priorities

In the last three years, my priority has been to expand my business and create a safe haven at home for me, my husband and our daughter while going through the pandemic.

This trip to Thailand, a six-week semi-sabbatical, where I would only work part-time while my 11-year-old daughter went to school, was a gift to our family to recharge, refocus and reconnect.

Knowing I had neglected my physical body, I decided that getting back to sports would be my priority during this trip.

I arranged my schedule in such a way that the first hours of the day were booked for walks or running on the beach, yoga with an instructor (finally not on zoom!) and the various workout offers Koh Lanta Island had to offer.

I was ready to let my business grow at a slower pace, trust that my daughter didn’t need me quite as much as before, and to shift my focus!

How to rethink ‘work-life balance’

The concept of “work-life balance” is a myth! We can’t balance kids, romantic relationships, work, hobbies, social life – all at once! We need to prioritise different areas during different stages in life. We can’t care for each area equally all of the time.

Sure, we can be a mother/father, spouse, friend, business owner, friend and still do sports and play the guitar all in the same period of our life, BUT we can’t give all these things the same amount of focus and love.

We only have 24h in a day, and hunting for balance in all areas is setting you up for failure. At the end of the day you will always feel ‘you could have done more’.

When you see someone running around like a headless chicken, multitasking like crazy, you might admire her and think ‘How does she do it all’?? But then ask yourself, ‘Does she look fulfilled’?

Knowing when to say no

We arrived at Koh Lanta (the image of me in the sunset is NOT a stock image!), where we checked into our home for the next six weeks. It was perfect! 100 meters to the beach, an outdoor yoga pavilion, a pool for our daughter and a big terrace where we could work in the shade.

The first morning after school drop-off, I put on my new sports clothes, tied back my hair, and with a bottle of water in hand, walked confidently to the beach to check out a workout place I had heard about.

First, a man with full-body tattoos and a six-pack ran past me. Then another athlete sprinted by, followed by a couple, older than me, who proudly showed off their perfect bodies as they strolled by in their swimsuits.

As I got closer I heard some women speaking Swedish, and I remembered that there are many Swedish people living on the island. They all wore tank tops, had perfect tans and looked like they spent the pandemic boxing and doing sit-ups.

Had I landed in the middle of an Olympic sports team??

I saw a group about to start a workout and walked towards the alpha female who looked like the leader.

You know that feeling when you enter a party and feel like you’re in the wrong place? Everyone looks the same and you are the ‘odd one out’?

Well that’s how I felt in this circle of beautiful buff blondes!

She introduced herself as ‘Amelia’ and seemed very kind and professional. She told me about the different workout styles they were doing and the only word I remember was ‘Bulgarian bags’. ‘What the hell is that?’ I thought to myself.

I took a step back and checked in with myself and my gentle voice whispered: ‘This might be an interesting challenge, and fun to play around with some bags, but maybe you want to start with something softer’?

With a ‘Bye bye, see you another time’ I ran off jogging along the beach.

I noticed how my inner critic was trying to get heard with things like ‘you could have used the time during the pandemic to move around more’, and ‘you will never look as fit as them’.

I smiled and kept on running. And then I heard my gentler voice whisper, ‘How do you feel today?’

The voice was loud and clear:

Awake, alive and attractive!

My 5 secrets for finding ‘life balance’:

• Instead of trying to balance everything at once, choose a life area to prioritise on a monthly/quarterly/yearly cycle.
• Review every area in your life regularly to see which ones need more attention.
• Ask a close friend or your partner for feedback, what are they seeing that you could prioritise next?
• Take regular breaks from your everyday ‘hamster wheel’ to get a bird’s-eye-view of your life.
• Instead of comparing yourself with others, compare yourself with where you were a couple months ago and where you are now.

So the next time you look at me or anyone else and think ‘How does she do it all’?, remember:

We don’t!

When you see me doing business successfully, I’m failing at doing regular sports.

When you see me doing regular sports, I’m failing to reach my business goals.

When you see me mastering parenting, I’m failing at being attentive to my husband.

When you see me having a lot of ‘me time’, I’m failing at caring for my friendships.

And that’s okay!

The next time you hear ‘you can have it all’, don’t believe it, because you can’t. It’s crucial for your mental health that you start to make choices about what’s most important in your life.

We want to have a thriving career, loving family, raise our children on our own, travel, and be creative, without having to give anything up.

I’ve been there. The demand to be a better friend, available non-stop for my daughter, maintain my relationship with my husband, keep a clean house, all while expanding my business…

That demand often leads to burn out and unfulfillment.

We can’t have it all! At least not all at once.

Burn bright, not out

The first step to notice signs of burnout is to become aware of what’s dragging you down, so that you have the energy to do the things that lift you up. A quick and easy way to get started with this is to use my free ‘Time To Thrive’ journal.

Users of my ‘Time To Thrive’ journal are telling me:

‘I finally got better at focusing on ONE thing at a time’

‘I feel so much more energised’

‘I’ve started to be more honest and self-compassionate. This journal is truly life-changing!’

Do you want to test it out for yourself and see if it helps your life become a bit more balanced? Then grab a copy of my guided journal!

If you know someone who would benefit from improved life balance, please share this blog post and my free journal with them.

Love,

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At the end of the year there is a pressure to set New Year’s resolutions to ensure that next year will be the best year yet. We want to exercise more, lose weight, get organised, learn a new hobby and live life to the fullest. I like to end the year differently. 

I’m sharing with you my tips for an alternative to New Year’s resolutions and why I think reflecting on the past year is beneficial for personal development. 

Celebrating another year

Another crazy year is coming to an end. It’s one of my favourite times of the year and I always take a moment to reflect and celebrate. 

I hear you thinking ‘What is there to celebrate? I didn’t achieve what I wanted to’. That’s OK! Me neither!  

When we only celebrate big achievements and times when we feel great, we’re telling ourselves that we’re not worthy if we didn’t achieve our goals or were feeling low.  

One year might be the year we felt mostly depressed.  

One year might be the year we had a lot of energy and inspiration. 

One year might have felt like a rollercoaster of events and emotions. 

One year might have been calm and quiet. 

What if we started celebrating who we are right now and what we have achieved up until now?!  

It’s time to be honest

What’s most important is that we’re being honest to ourselves; ‘this year sucked!’, ‘this year I regret that I wasn’t nicer to my kids’, ‘this year I forgot to pay attention to my health as I was afraid of losing my job, so I worked like crazy’ or ‘this year I wished that I set more boundaries’. 

The best way to finish off a year is by being brutally honest and acknowledging how it actually was. Letting go of trying to tell another flattering version of our lives. Making a decision to either forgive ourselves or someone else. 

I forgive myself for my lack of patience while dealing with my daughter’s preteen behaviour. What can you forgive yourself for? 

We’re so good at looking at what’s lacking in our lives and what we can do better that we forget to celebrate what we already are. You wouldn’t tell your best friend all the things she could do better, right? It’s time to be a bit kinder to yourself too. 

Let’s start right now. 

How did you show up this year? How would you describe yourself this year with one word? 

My word would be: CURIOUS. 

Looking back, this year has been one of the hardest years in my adult life; living with the aftermath of the pandemic has been more challenging than dealing with emergencies under lockdown. 

In the past, when I didn’t want to feel, my go-to place was work or going through my to-do list. These things saved me from feeling uncomfortable emotions.  

But as we all know, the unresolved stuff always comes back in some shape or form.  

This year I decided to be compassionate-curious about myself. Curious about all the heavy stuff that was buried under the surface of ‘I’m fine’. 

Yes, as a personal development junkie I have of course been curious and worked on myself for years, but this year I decided to discover myself on an even deeper level, on my own. 

I have had the tendency to dive deep into therapy and coaching sessions, retreats, training sessions, and women’s circles. 

But when leaving the therapist, coach or group, I very often closed the door to the exploration into the unknown. 

I didn’t want to sit alone with it all. 

It was a scary place. 

‘How do you sit with whatever you are feeling?’ is a common question I hear from my clients. 

There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ answer. For some, meditation helps, for others journaling, or being in nature. We have to figure it out by trying different things. 

Questions to help you reflect on the past year

At the end of one year and the beginning of another,  it’s easy to bypass how the past year was and how we’re feeling right now. All the marketing around ‘the new you’ and ‘new year’s resolutions’ focus on the future. 

It’s valuable to have a vision and goals for your future but when we only focus on the future, we’re kind of telling ourselves that we’re not good enough as we are right now. 

No wonder so many never feel good enough! We’re obsessing about what to do differently, setting future goals, finding our life purpose and all that anxiety-inducing stuff. 

This year I invite you to journal around these questions: 

What was the highlight of the year? 

What was the hardest part? 

What did I want to do, but didn’t dare? 

What haven’t I been honest about? 

What do I need to forgive myself for? 

Who do I need to apologise to? 

What kept me awake at night? 

What am I grateful for? 

Block out some time, pour your favourite cup of tea, get cosy with a blanket and create this year-end ritual to honour the way you showed up in this world. 

I hope this helps you to feel free to be you, give space for grief and fully own who you are. 

Love,

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While some can’t help but be cheerful and excited about the festive days to come, not everyone feels so merry and bright as the holiday season approaches.

Even though it’s considered the most magical time of the year, for many of us women it’s also the most stressful.  

We’re usually the ones organising the perfect gifts, planning the perfect meals, hosting the perfect parties, while also navigating the family calendar and all the different family dynamics. We run around serving everyone even though we feel the need to be served ourselves.

December panic

As the calendar flips to December the panic sets in. You go into overdrive, running around like a headless chicken, complaining that nobody helps you, until… 

You can’t think straight anymore. 

Suddenly it’s Christmas Eve. It’s time to celebrate but you feel like you’re just back from bootcamp, and now you’re either sick or feeling grumpy and resentful. 

‘I suggest we postpone Christmas,’ I said, hoping the armour I put up would protect me from being judged. 

My daughter didn’t say much, but I could feel her disappointment. And who could blame her! She had had enough postponements lately… 

It was 2021. We had been dealing with pandemic lockdowns for nearly two years. We had all gotten Covid and were just coming out of a month-long quarantine. It was challenging to get back to our old rhythm. I was functioning, but my shoulders were tense, my breathing was still shallow, and I was feeling more tired than usual—definitely not looking forward to travelling  over Christmas. 

All I wanted was to snuggle up under my beloved blanket and watch new episodes of my favourite series ‘This is us’ on Amazon Prime. 

Every time my mum called from Sweden to ask about what we should cook for Christmas (and it was often!), I kept repeating myself like the drunk butler in Dinner for One: ‘same procedure as last year’. 

I had stopped caring about the details. Life had become more about the essential need to stay healthy. 

And just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, I got a phone call with the news that my dad was taken by ambulance to hospital. They didn’t know what was wrong with him and how long he needed to stay. 

We all just needed to wait and hope for the best. And that meant postponing Christmas. Looks like I got my wish after all, though this wasn’t how I had pictured it! 

The opportunity to recharge

Of course we wanted to be there to support my parents, so we packed up the car and headed up north. And that Christmas, instead of decorating the tree and handing out gifts, my husband, daughter, and I spent the holiday on the Swedish coast having snowball fights on the beach. And you know what? It was pure bliss. No stress. No tension. (Dad turned out to be fine.) 

And a few days later, we celebrated our family’s traditional Christmas with Polish barszcz soup and Swedish köttbullar. 

Postponing Christmas was the best gift I could have given to my mental health. It gave me and my family the opportunity to recharge—even my dad said he rested well in hospital! 

Tips to help you stay calm over Christmas

What helped me to cope with this situation? 

Choosing to stay calm. 

‘Choosing calm’ had been my most important practice during the pandemic. When we choose calm before a panic response, it usually has a tremendous impact on the people in our lives. 

“Our calm can be as contagious as our anxiety.” – Brené Brown 

Though practising staying calm is especially hard when we are with the people we love most. It’s easy to get triggered and irritated by the things mum and dad, or a sister or brother, even a distant aunt, uncle, or cousin might say. 

All it takes is for my mum to say something that reminds me of how I felt as a child, and the overreaction is immediate. Or our kid misbehaves in front of our parents, and we start correcting, judging and controlling.  

Why do we go back to behaving like when we were rebellious teenagers?! Why is it so challenging to stay calm when we’re with our parents? 

We have become adults, but our parents awaken our unmet needs from childhood—the need to be seen, heard and validated. 

If you feel you have a tendency to panic and overreact when you’re seeing family over Christmas, these three tips from Brené Brown will support you: 

• Be quick to think and slow to respond. 
• Stay mindful that a panic response produces more panic and fear. 
• Ask yourself: Will freaking out help the situation?  

We are always more easily triggered when we are tired. 

What can we do to reduce stress before the holidays so that we’re more rested when we travel to see family? 

I believe all the stress leading up to Christmas—making the perfect Advent calendar, getting the right gifts, preparing for either work or kids school events—comes down to one thing: 

We don’t want to be judged.  

We don’t want to be the one who doesn’t bake her own cookies, whose kids misbehave, who can’t handle the whole big chaotic snowglobe of Christmas stress. So we juggle, bake and smile. 

How to enjoy the festive days

A client of mine shared with me recently how she is always the one inviting friends over to her house the weeks before Christmas. It makes her feel exhausted afterwards. This year she chose not to. She decided she wanted to be invited by others instead. What a great example! 

Here are a few things that have helped me enjoy the festive days leading up to Christmas: 

• Be clear about expectations. Talk with your partner or immediate family about what to prioritise in the time leading up to Christmas so that you are clear about everyone’s wishes and expectations. If you travel to see family over the holidays, talk with them beforehand about what you want the holiday to look like.
• Take responsibility for your well-being. Make sure you take responsibility for your mental well-being and get the rest you need, so that you have energy to enjoy the beautiful festive days. Do you not have the capacity to take on more projects at work? Then get someone else to take it on. Not really feeling up for another party? Then don’t go. 
• Focus on the good things in each other. A couple of years ago I invented a game we play on Christmas Day called ‘The Heart Game’. Everyone writes down four things they appreciated about every family member during the year. Then everyone gets to read out loud the cards that were written to them. It’s a heartfelt way to focus on the good in each person.
• Ask yourself how you want to feel after Christmas is over. Do you tend to feel like you need a new holiday after the Christmas festivities come to an end? If yes, what can you do differently so that you rather feel nourished and rested? Maybe a spa day with friends? Being clear about how you want to feel afterwards can help you prioritise. 

Now, what action will you take as a result of reading this blog? Write down three steps and put the note in a place where you’ll see it often! 

My Time to Thrive journal

If you need help to identify what’s dragging you down so you’ll have time for things that lift you up, my free guided journal ‘Time To Thrive’ is a useful tool. Download it here. 

Users of my ‘Time To Thrive’ journal are telling me:

‘I finally got better at focusing on ONE thing at a time’

‘I feel so much more energised’

‘I’ve started to be more honest and self-compassionate. This journal is truly life-changing!’

Grab a copy of my free guided journal here.

And have a joyful, nourishing, stress-free holiday season. 

Love,

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