Rebekah Ballagh - Be Your Best Self

Practical strategies to help you
transform the way you see yourself
and create lifelong change. Its time to embrace your full potential. Covering everything from the inner critic to perfectionism, self-sabotage and procrastination, soothing your nervous system to limiting beliefs, inner child work to boundaries and self-love, Be Your Best Self is here to guide you. Discover your barriers to growth and contentment and, most importantly, explore ways to become your best self. Rebekah Ballagh is the bestselling author of Note to Self, Note to Self Journal, Words of Comfort and Big Feelings. Shes a qualified counsellor, self-development coach, trainer, speaker and the creator of popular Instagram community @journey_to_wellness_

CONTENTS

Introduction

I am so glad you are here. Its time to find your best self and Im here to guide you on the journey.

I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself, this book, and to give you a few ideas about how you might like to make the most out of whats inside.

My name is Rebekah Ballagh, but you can call me Becks. Im a qualified counsellor, a self-development coach, a mindfulness teacher, a mama and a wife a lover of food, hot water bottles, being with family, slow strolls in nature, Netflix binge sessions, fluffy socks, Kmart and spending far too long in the shower. Im also someone who has a long story of my own involving anxiety, panic attacks, depression and struggles with self-worth and my inner critic.

Ive spent years training, taking post-graduate specialist courses, and working on my own self-development. For more than thirteen years Ive worked in wellbeing and mental health, helping thousands of clients on their own paths. And I cant wait to share with you a smorgasbord of some of the things I have learnt along the way.

I hope as you read this book you experience some lightbulb moments when that little bolt of insight or sudden understanding makes you say, Aha! As you explore these pages you might have moments where something just goes click! in your mind, and you get the sense that something profound has just dawned on you. When you have a lightbulb moment, there is huge potential to create change and find your best self. Change starts with awareness. Acknowledgement. A lifting of the veil of what we once believed, in order to see our truth and re-write our stories.

Over the past few years, I have been working with groups online in coaching programmes. During this time we have explored many of the topics that you will find in this book, and there is a common thread to the feedback I have received. The participants so often write to me to tell me that suddenly it all makes sense. They feel seen, normal, validated. They realise nothing is wrong with them. Many point out they spent years in therapy or thousands of dollars on psychologists and counsellors, but it wasnt until they found the information from my programmes all of which youll find in this book, and more that it suddenly clicked and things changed for them. (I dont know how to say this stuff without feeling like I am trying to toot my own horn! It must be that pesky imposter syndrome of mine again. But this isnt about me, and I have certainly never considered myself an expert. I dont have a magic wand dammit! but I do have a toolkit of information and things to show you that just may change your life.)

Maybe you are here because youre struggling with self-confidence and you want to discover ways to feel comfortable in your own skin. Maybe youre battling anxiety and worries and want to learn how to be more present in your life. Maybe you feel stuck in a rut, never feeling good enough, and you want to be free from all those old limiting beliefs and critical thoughts about yourself. Maybe youve noticed you have a tendency to hijack your own attempts at growth, becoming stuck in a pattern of self-sabotage and you want to find some genuinely useful tools to get unstuck. Whatever your reason for being here, I trust that you will find lots of incredible tools in this book to help you on your journey.

When I say this book is a smorgasbord, I really mean it. I have collected some of the most life-changing tools and information I have gathered along the years and put together a toolkit of offerings that just might change your life. Were covering everything from your inner critic to perfectionism, self-sabotage and procrastination to the nervous system, limiting beliefs to inner child work, boundaries to self-love. It is all here. There are so many nuggets of pure gold in this book (well I think so, anyway!) and my greatest hope is that you are able to find some pieces that resonate with you and are the catalyst for finding your best self.

Ultimately, I hope that what you take away from all of this is more self-compassion for yourself as you navigate your life. We can be so hard on ourselves. Often we are our own biggest barriers to growth and contentment. Id like to teach you some of the reasons why that is and, most importantly, how you can change your old unhelpful patterns to create a new way of being in the world, with others and in your relationship with yourself.

In terms of how you might like to use and navigate this book, Be Your Best Self is split into ten life-changing ideas to improve your life. Within each of these discoveries, you will find wee treasure chests of chapter topics to make it easy for you to head straight to something you need at any given time.

Many of the chapters lean on and reference one another, scaffolding you into higher learnings and deeper discoveries, so you may like to read the book in order first and then possibly revisit sections that really speak to you or that you feel called to do more work around.

The ten life-changing ideas are:

1. Discover your inner critic & inner worth
2. Decode your emotions
3. Step out of the worry trap
4. Break free from self-sabotage
5. Tame your thoughts
6. Re-write your limiting beliefs
7. Let go of what others think
8. Protect your energy
9. Create healthy habits
10. Learn to love yourself

I encourage you to take some time to digest each idea as you navigate them. Do try to stop and pause if there is an exercise you come across in these pages that might benefit you. So often we pick up books like this, read them cover to cover and then sit back wondering why we arent suddenly a brand new person. I read the darn book, so why am I not floating on air and glowing?!

We will explore all of these barriers and how to change in the chapters ahead but a disclaimer now, in the very beginning: you need to invest in yourself and your development by setting aside some time to actually put the tools ahead into practice in your life. I also suggest jotting down any of your personal aha! moments put them on Post-its, and read them daily. Highlight sections that speak to you. Dog-ear the pages! Use this book to its fullest potential and make it your own.

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