#1 Mindset Coach Shares the 3 Crucial Steps That Took Her From Her Breakdown to Breakthrough

Katie D, recently recognised by IBT as #1 Mindset Coach in Australia and #2 Female Life Coach in Australia in 2021 by Yahoo, shared with us the 3 things that turned her world around after her breakdown in 2017, before becoming a coach. 

Katie, at the time, was working in the corporate world in a well respected role at Head Office, when life at home had hit an all time low and rock bottom, and Katie was ready to give up. 

After taking herself off to hospital for assessment, she was put into a Short Stay Ward for 3 days, having nothing allowed in her possession- not even  her toothbrush, until she requested a pencil and paper to start journaling and documenting her thoughts. 

These 3 days marked the beginning of some substantial life changing events that came to follow in Katie’s life. So substantial that from the time Katie was admitted into Short Stay to the time that Katie officially launched herself as a Coach was only 6 months! 

Katie has been coaching for almost 5 years and dedicates her life now to educating and guiding women on how to implement the same tools that she used in order to turn her own life around.

Katie shares below the 3 main and very crucial steps that made all the difference.

• Learning Conscious Awareness

Many of us spend so much of our lives living in a very autopilot state of mind, not even realising or noticing our daily actions or behaviours. Not noticing how we got from A to B, not understanding how that argument escalated so quickly, and so on…

We are travelling through life using programming we didn’t even consciously set for ourselves, and for many people, the current programs we have installed (in our unconscious mind) simply are not serving us. 

With our unconscious mind running the show most of the time, it is vital that the programs that it is running actually work for us- that they can work towards bringing us more happiness, success or stability in our lives. Unfortunately, for many, (including myself at my rock bottom) the programs that are running an autopilot are mostly from a place of fear. Fear of loss, rejection, success, change, judgement, confrontation, losing or lack of control, being alone, being uncomfortable… and the really long list goes on.

These fears play into our emotional states and unconsciously affect the decisions that we make, the lifestyle we have, the way we take care of ourselves, the relationships we maintain, the jobs we stay in- literally everything- all playing out in a very unconscious way. 

People may be aware that they are staying in a job they hate. But WHY they stay in it- that is the unconscious part. Why they stay in toxic relationships, why they continue to eat so poorly, why they continue to hold themselves back- it is the why that many people don’t understand. 

Becoming aware of my ‘WHY am I afraid, or what am I actually afraid of’ became like a mass weapon for me. The awareness it gave me to reassess my life was huge. Awareness of my environment, of my relationship, of the responsibility and ownership I needed to take and the absolute necessity for the changes that needed to happen, was the first and foremost step in changing my world. Without coming into that awareness of my life, there was no way I could have moved through to the steps that followed.

For some people, simply learning about consciousness can be enough for them to start having more awareness in their daily life moving forward. You don’t know what you don’t know, right, so when you now have ‘awareness’ of what conscious awareness is, it is hard to ignore. 

For others, more deliberate actions might need to be taken in order to really sit in consciousness in order to analyse life a little deeper.

Asking yourself questions like:

• What does this mean to me?
• Why does it mean that? 
• Is that my reality, or just an old belief?
• Is this lifestyle/behaviour/pattern/attitude something that I am proud of?
• Is it helping me or hindering me in my life?
• What actions/behaviours/attitudes would I like to be running instead?
• What can I do now to change this?

For me, the fear that was consistently playing out in my world was:

• I am afraid of becoming another single mum statistic
• I will be frowned upon for being separated
• Single mum life will be too hard
• I will be heartbroken if I leave my relationship 

But none of this was really my reality. Being a single mum didn’t mean I had to stay a single mum, no one was actually frowning upon me- that was my own self projection, nothing was harder than staying in the current toxic environment, and I was already so very heartbroken with how my life looked… I had nothing to lose by making changes to improve it. 

The fear that was ruminating in my head WAS NOT my reality. And so now there was awareness of that. But awareness wasn’t enough. It was only the first step…

• Impeccable Self Love

With all the awareness I had now, I had come to realise that I wasn’t actually loving myself at all. So, I had to ask myself the very important question ‘What would a person who loves themselves do?’ as stated by Teal Swan. 

I became very familiar with what self love really was. What it actually meant to love myself- what all those components entailed. 

Now, Self Love is one of the biggest subjects I teach in my Academy, and in my coaching business. 

For me to truly live in a state of high self love, it meant I was:

• Living in a space of courage and not fear
• Becoming disciplined and taking action with ways to improve my life
• Setting boundaries in my life for what I would and would not tolerate
• Having a high level of self care
• And an even higher level of self respect
• Owning my sh!t and no longer living in a place of blame
• Able to accept, forgive and let go of things that were no longer serving me

 Although it was a lot to take on, it was all on me. My self love was all dependent on my SELF. Literally overnight, I could change my self love by deciding new things for my life… setting new standards and raising the bar. And so I did. 

But without step number 3 being paired along with this, I could have so easily slipped backwards after taking so many strong and positive steps forward, AND this next step is a step many people do not do and therefore, they don’t get the desired results. 

They may start to feel good again after applying some aspects of self love, and stop ‘working on themselves’ consciously, only to unconsciously slowly over time end up back where they started. 

• High Emotional Intelligence

Emotional Intelligence is the ability to understand, use and manage your emotions in a positive way. So, having conscious awareness of your emotions isn’t enough, loving yourself more… also not enough- this is about the control you have when sh!t still hits the fan, when life doesn’t go your way, and how you respond to the world accordingly. 

It is an incredible state of control over your emotions that is the icing on the cake, the cherry on the top- (although I hate glazed cherries) that stops you from defaulting on your previous low level of self respect, from caving in on those boundaries that you have set, from going back into blame and victim mode after all the hard work you had just done to get yourself out. 

Learning how to control your emotional state and have a high emotional intelligence is a critical and very useful life skill. If you are a very reactive person, it will serve you significantly to start practising emotional control. 

Many of our emotional behaviours are unconsciously conditioned from a very young age, so we are usually dealing with many years of faulty programming that needs to be rewritten in order to ‘change our ways’. 

But, it is certainly not impossible. 

Going back to step 1, and having awareness of reactive behaviour and knowing what you do NOT want to do is important, however, knowing what you DO WANT to do instead is equally crucial. It is all good and well knowing that you don’t want to stay in a relationship where you are being cheated on, or in a job where your boss keeps yelling at you and making you cry, or that you are so stressed and taking it out on the kids, but without understanding what exact steps you need to do in the moment instead, you will be caught in a moment of freeze, with no plan or action, and then naturally default back to the original behaviour. 

Getting clear on your new behaviour is key for reprogramming, and heightening your emotional intelligence.
‘If my boss yells at me again, I will let him know that I will know longer tolerate being spoken to disrespectfully, and from now on if he wishes to have any conversations with me, he can do so in a controlled and respectful manner.’  

‘If my children are not listening and I can feel myself getting worked up, rather than yelling, I will remove myself from the room/space, take a moment, and go back in and deal with the situation coming from a place of love instead. Honesty and hugs always work better.’ 

Another key tool in improving your emotional intelligence is noticing the early warning signs. More often than not, something usually happens moments before we flip our lid, something that triggers us to react in such a way. 

Recognising those early warning signs means that you get to decide on the behaviour before it is too late, and still gives you the opportunity to walk away and remove yourself, or allow yourself time to process and consider the best approach. 

Heightening your emotional intelligence is not something that can usually happen overnight. I mean, yes you can decide on a new behaviour and start implementing that in your day to day life immediately, however, that new behaviour will take time to reprogram itself in the unconscious mind, to become embedded as your new normal behaviour, so for the first couple of months, the new behaviour might feel a little weird to you. It might feel a little uncomfortable and forced because you are playing it out from a more conscious place.

But once you have been consistent enough, the programs will be rewritten, and without even realising, this just becomes your new normal. 

Although these step by step tools are easy to understand, they are not always so easy to implement. Making huge life changes can be hard and no one is expected to do it on their own and have the most successful results- unless you are someone who studies this for a living. 

Allowing yourself to be in a place of acceptance, ask for help and guidance on that journey moving forward will always benefit you getting there quicker, and holding you accountable along the way. 

If you would like more information on working with Katie D, you can go to her website- www.katied.com.au 

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