Confidence Coaching with Heidi Benjaminsen

It's easy to forget that saying YES to something today might mean saying NO to something in our future. To lose weight and make changes, we need to learn how to delay gratification. It might be saying NO to food, learning to spend time meal preppy or pushing yourself to another class at the gym. Listen to hear examples of how to talk to yourself to do what is hard or "less-desirable" in the moment...

We commonly make 5 mistakes when making goals at this time of year... which result in us giving up by February! Either we make goals that are too big, we forget to make small daily habit goals to support the bigger goals or the goals don't have enough wiggle room. Giving up sugar or social media or anything will be harder to sustain, versus reducing it 90%. Listen as Heidi teaches how to overcome...

Not everyone has been gaining weight in 2020. Heidi interviews her client Suzanne who has lost over 60 pounds this year and started after quarantine began. She talks about the shame she felt and how she handled failures (hint: she got back up). She shares exactly what she has been thinking and feeling about herself the whole way - and the key to the confidence she has that she WILL keep it off. Th...

Here is my holiday gift to you - three of my favorite thoughts of 2020. Listen as I share simple thoughts that have shifted my perspective so I take back my control. These thoughts have been the foundation for me acting in line with my own integrity, eating foods that help me reach my health goals (I haven't gained weight during the pandemic) and allowed me to reach impossible goals.

Our lower brain wants us to avoid pain - even emotional pain - so it creates urges to eat sweet, salty, high fat foods for a quick dopamine hit when we are sad, lonely, nervous, stressed, uncomfortable or any other negative emotion. But emotions are not problems to be solved... and food is only a solution for hunger... not loneliness! Heidi shares examples of how to distinguish emotional urges fro...

Early in life we started creating expectations of our life and writing mental handbooks of how other people SHOULD be and act. The problem is no one can read our mental manuals AND other people are only good at one thing - being exactly who they are. Our expectations of other people create disappointment and resentment in our bodies - a nasty bitter pill - and they create disconnect and distance f...

Our inner critic sometimes works in overdrive, thinking that she can shame us into improving. And she is programmed to find the negative. BUT we don't improve from shame. Listen as Heidi teaches you how you are normal to have negative thoughts about yourself and how these thoughts are NOT you. Learn tools to manage this mean and wrong inner critic. Confident people are the ones who don't believe t...

Everyone in our life falls short of our "expectations" of them from time to time. We get to decide if we fill the gaps in our thoughts with grace and understanding, or with judgment and criticism. Learn how the judgment hurts us and how creating relationships of grace is a gift to this person AND to ourselves. Our self-worth grows when we develop empathy and compassion for others. Grace is having...

The holidays tend to be a time that we pay more attention to other people's needs and sacrifice caring for our own needs. And the side effect of this is that we have LESS to give others. Learn tools, especially for the 2020 holiday season, to have an emotionally and physically healthy season. Learn why we need to tell people what we need as we also find ways to serve them. Stack the odds in your f...

Perfectionism lies to us to get us to chase it. Our brain on default wants to think that other people "like" perfect people, that we should AVOID making mistakes, that another person's opinion is VERY important, that struggling is bad and that there are only two options in life - good or bad. But none of these things are true nor helpful for our growth. When we dismantle these perfectionist belief...

Some of the stories we re-tell of our past keep us stuck and block us from making progress today. Listen as Heidi interviews master certified coach Jody Moore to learn what from our past stories is impacting us today and how to reframe these "hurtful" stories. Learn helpful tools to adjust our lenses of our life and how to make these stories work in our favor. We can be bitter, or better. We can b...

I've been able to maintain a healthy weight over the last 14 years after struggling for decades with my weight. I used to believe I was just a "big girl". I ate lots of sweets, carbs and I ate to numb feelings of sadness, insecurity, discomfort, uncertainty and shame. I was able to break out of these cycles by changing what I believed about myself, about changing my identity... which lead to learn...

Procrastination isn't about being lazy. It is us avoiding feeling discomfort, uncertainty, fear or doubt. These are just EMOTIONS and they are the price we pay for achieving our goals. Listen and learn the tricky lies our brain tells us to prevent us from starting something and HOW to overcome these default thoughts. Learn why visualizing how you'll feel when the goal is done can fuel you to get g...

It feels good when people like us. Then we encounter people won't don't like us. And our brain thinks this is a problem. But this isn't a problem. If someone likes us, is NOT about us and is ALL about them. Learn how to manage your brain in these situations, show up confidently and how to let other people be wrong about you. When we build our own self-esteem, we focus more on how we want to show u...

We all have opinions and it can be hard for us to have conversations with people to disagree with us. Our emotions can take over if our brain things we are being attacked. Learn tools on how to agree to disagree with others. Heidi teaches how to question your thoughts, how to determine your subconscious fears of disagreements and how to create connection and respect for other perspectives. Be okay...

Everybody's emotions that pass through our daily lives are like EMOTIONAL BAGS going by on a baggage claim conveyor belt. We get to take close examination and decide which bags are our responsibility - which are ours to pick up - and which should keep on going. The more emotional bags we pick up, the less energy we have to manage our own emotions. I've taught you that you can't create anything tha...

We all have a list of WHO we want to change so we can feel better.  If our spouse would just do this or be that, we could then feel appreciated and loved.  If our mother was kinder or more supportive or more whatever, we'd feel prouder or more secure.  But we have NO control over other people and ALL of this wishing builds walls between us and other people.  These walls distract us from the real w...

Who thinks their life is harder than anyone else's life?  That's the general theme of people who live in self-pity.  It's an emotion that keeps us stuck so we can't make any progress or change.  Learn how to identify the daily emotions of self-pity and pivot what you're thinking to love yourself and your life more.  It's easier than you think to find more self-love, self-compassion,  and curiosity...

One of the easiest ways to release the tight grip our brain has on judgment, opinions and painful beliefs is to add simple words before or after these thoughts.  By making very small changes, our focus shifts.  We see new solutions, new possibilities, our anxieties and stress are reduced.  We suddenly see how we are much more like other people and our frustration calms down quite a bit.  Listen as...

Pornography is very accessible to our teens and we need to have the tools to talk to them about it.  Heidi interviews certified life coach Zach Spafford, who specializes in helping men overcome addictive behaviors, for insight into having conversations with our teens.  Zach gives incredibly useful tools on what to say, what NOT to say or do (freak out!), why our brains like pornography and hope if...

We all have plans, goals and dreams for our lives.  Sometimes, though, things happen in life that aren't what we planned for.  A worldwide pandemic, a divorce, a diagnosis, delaying a return to a career, a premature death and more.  Learn how to adjust your mindset and several tools to help you show up as the person you WANT to be.  It could be our vision wasn't right and life is exactly what we n...

People-pleasing is when we try to manipulate and control other people's emotions at the expense of our own needs.  We show up as our fake selves and we create disappointment and resentment - for ourselves.  Listen as Heidi gives many examples of why it is dangerous and HOW to overcome this addictive tendency we all have.  When we learn to manage it, we become calm, confidence, relaxed and able to...

More than anything, our brains want to be right.  They think being right protects us.  Instead, this desire creates anxiety, stress, and frustration.  Thinking we are right creates blinders that block other options and create judgement and criticism.  In this episode learn why our brain has tricked us into always wanting to be right.  Listen as Heidi teaches you tools to loosen your grip on needin...

Doing "hard things" is often noble and where we learn and grow.  But often we make things MUCH harder than they need to be, unintentionally.  By learning to pause, and ask ourselves a few questions, we can identify "easier" routes.  Taking these routes helps us have more energy for bigger priorities in life, while still reaching the same goals.  Listen as Heidi gives examples of when it's importan...

Teens experiencing anxiety need tools, support and coaching tailored to their needs and circumstances.  In this special episode, Heidi interviews certified life coach, Daelene Byam, a teen anxiety coach.  She shares personal experiences from her own children, as well as tools she teaches clients.  She helps listeners identify when coaching could help their child and how to approach your teen about...