Wiser Ways

Wiser Ways Wiser Ways offers individual & relationship counselling, & executive coaching. Please visit the website or contact us to book an appointment.

I help people realise their goals & strengths, providing them with the tools to reach their full potential. Andrew’s professional journey has been rich and diverse, shaped by experiences in private enterprise, government, coaching, and more. As a counsellor, he draws from these varied roles to support individuals in navigating personal growth and life challenges. Andrew believes that meaningful ch

ange comes from within, and his approach focuses on tapping into clients’ internal resources to help them transform their circumstances in positive ways. Having worked as a senior manager in multiple organisations, Andrew eventually felt drawn to a role that allowed him to give back to his community. His passion for helping others comes from a deep-rooted understanding of the power of self-discovery and the value of investing in personal development. Whether you’re feeling stuck, unsure of your next steps, or simply seeking clarity, Andrew provides a compassionate and respectful space for you to explore your thoughts and goals. Andrew’s extensive experience in various sectors, combined with his strength-based approach, allows him to be flexible and adaptive to each client’s unique needs. His belief in the capacity for individuals to make meaningful change is at the heart of his practice, and he takes great delight in supporting people through their journey of overcoming adversity and achieving their goals. If you’re looking to make a positive difference in your life, Andrew’s empathetic and client-centred approach may be just what you need to spark that change.

16/04/2026

Most people have needed to get something done but felt stuck. This can be frustrating and cause you to try harder to find a solution. But this can make it even harder to accomplish anything.

When you relax, however, you can have new ideas and discover solutions to problems that previously felt impossible to resolve. But trying to relax is a paradox, especially when you know that it’s meant to serve a purpose.

So instead of trying to relax, you can instead let yourself get bored since this is often much easier. You don’t intentionally think about what you need to accomplish and let your thoughts wander.

You can engineer boredom by going for a walk without distractions – leaving your phone behind or keeping it on flight mode – so your thoughts can wander and ideally find solutions. Even taking a few minutes to stare into space when you’re feeling stuck can help your mind disconnect enough for inspiration to flow in.

You won’t always be able to find a solution, but taking a break to be bored can also help you regain perspective and realise that what you’re attempting isn’t as consequential as you’re imagining, that you’re more capable than you’re telling yourself, and you’ve likely been in similar situations before.

Trying too hard to find solutions can cause you to unintentionally focus on all the challenges you're facing, making them seem more daunting than they have to be. But taking a few minutes to disconnect without distractions – relaxing or being bored – can help you find solutions you didn’t realise existed through giving your brain the space it needs to discover them.

15/04/2026

I’ve found that a useful way to learn from my experiences, whether they work out or don’t go as I hoped they would, is to ask myself what were two things I could have done differently.

Taking accountability when things go wrong can be difficult, but if you always ask yourself how you could have done things differently, it can feel less accusatory so you can be more receptive to reviewing your mistakes.

Even if something goes exactly to plan, it’s rare that there won’t be anything you could have modified for improvements. You might have gotten the results you wanted but could you have approached it in a way that was less stressful? Were you overprepared and could do less the next time you're in a similar situation?

When you’re willing to ask yourself about changes and improvements you can make, you’re able to learn from your mistakes as well as recognise that there’s no such thing as perfect success because you always have room to grow.

14/04/2026

What would you quickly learn about a topic or area of your life that’s important to you if you were suddenly a beginner?

The more that you care about a topic and research it – your job, parenting, a hobby – the more likely you are to come across potentially misleading information that is often highly specific and can make it difficult to preform naturally.

You can also stop focusing on the basics that have the greatest potential to be positively impactful: because they’re obvious and well-established they often get less attention than niche and new approaches with potentially questionable results.

There can be valuable information and useful facts in new studies and data, but these shouldn’t entirely replace foundational material. Scientific explanations that appear sound even though they counter traditional wisdom, such as claiming you can only eat at certain times of the day to lose weight.

There are times when changing your approach, even though it’s old and tried can help you. But with the ever-growing number of ‘experts’ on all topics, it’s more likely that much of the new information you come across isn’t necessary to success, or even guaranteed to be applicable, especially if it’s asking you to give up core beliefs.

A commitment to learning is incredibly valuable, as is a willingness to change your beliefs if they’re challenged. But not all information is as useful as those promoting it tend to claim, so it’s useful to be able to identify the types of ‘professional advice’ that aren’t helpful.

09/04/2026

If you often impulsively do things you later regret – speak to others sharply, eat unhealthy foods, go on your phone whenever you feel even a little bored – you can reduce these behaviours by building the habit of pausing before you act.

Many unhealthy behaviours are caused by immediate reactions; as soon as you feel the urge do something you automatically respond without considering the outcomes. Because these behaviours are largely automatic, getting yourself to stop can feel impossible.

But if you ask yourself to pause, you create the time and space to reflect.

Pausing before doing something you know will have consequences you want to avoid gives you the opportunity to think about the results and ask yourself if this is aligned with the type of person you want to be. This can make avoiding them easier since you can remind yourself that the rewards are only short-term and you’ll soon regret your actions.

Changing your automatic reactions so you can choose healthier behaviours often takes longer and is more difficult than you would like it to be, but through asking yourself to pause before acting in ways you want to avoid, you can give yourself to opportunity to make better decisions more often.

08/04/2026

Having goals you’re working towards is motivating and a commitment to self-improvement can have many positive effects on your life. But knowing what goals you would benefit from can be challenging.

To have a better idea of what goals are most likely to be rewarding, consider what you would like to change about your life. Do you feel isolated? Do you wish you had more energy? Are you feeling bored with your job?

Once you’ve identified something you aren’t happy about, ask yourself how you could change it. Someone who feels tired most of the time because they stay up late scrolling on their phone would need to set different goals than someone who is tired because they’re overcommitted and don’t get many opportunities to relax.

Also consider what you want to add to your life that aligns with your values and the type of person you want to become. What tends to cause regret and when do you feel the proudest of yourself? Who do you admire and why? Who do you want to be one, five and ten years from now?

By answering these questions, you can then identify goals that have the potential to require less motivation to stay committed because you're personally invested in the outcome while being rewarding to progress because they’re personally significant.

When you choose goals that reflect what is important to you, they can be enjoyable to work and meaningful to advance.

06/04/2026

Talking to someone agreeable before making a decision is rarely as productive as getting input from someone who challenges you.

It’s useful to speak to others when you have an important decision to make. They could help you consider aspects you hadn’t thought of and discover possibilities and drawbacks that wouldn’t have occurred to you otherwise. They can also ask you questions that challenge what you previously believed.

Some people, however, are uncomfortable being confrontational or disagreeable, so instead of helping you learn, they’re more likely to reinforce that you already believe. This can be satisfying since they aren’t giving you new information to think about or asking you to justify your position, but this doesn’t help you improve.

Having your ideas challenged and needing to justify your beliefs can be difficult, which can make you want to avoid these potentially unpleasant conversations and seek out someone who will support you, but this is unlikely to lead to improving or discovering anything new.

Talking to someone who isn’t as agreeable is often less rewarding, but you have much greater potential to learn from the conversation.

02/04/2026

If you find yourself repeating the same things with certain people and it’s causing you to become frustrated, it can be useful to consider what you should do to be less impacted.

When someone repeatedly ignores requests you make, including things you ask them not to do, often the best response is reinforcing a boundary or changing your expectations.

Boundaries are what you need to feel comfortable, so having them be frequently challenged can put strain on relationships. It can be useful to fully explain your boundaries to people who aren’t respecting them to ensure they understand what they are. But if they still refuse to respect them, then finding a solution, including creating distance can be necessary.

It’s also possible that certain people aren’t capable of meeting your expectations, so if you want to have a healthy relationship with them, you’ll have to adjust what you expect. This could be acknowledging that a certain friend will always be late, that your partner will likely never be as tidy as you would like, or that a colleague isn’t going to stop asking for more help than you want to give.

It’s important to let people know what you want from them, although not everyone will consistently comply. In these instances, it’s valuable to be able to tell when an important boundary isn’t being respected and you will have to reinforce your position and where you can accept that others aren’t willing or able to change so you can adjust your expectations.

01/04/2026

Many people underestimate how kind and willing to help others can be. This is unfortunate because everyone can benefit from thinking the best of each other, especially when you need help with something.

It’s common to underestimate how much other people are willing to invest their time and energy in each other, which can lead to enriching interactions and connections. When you feel connected to the people around you, you’re more likely to be content and confident since you can rely on support from others.

When you think of the majority of people as being generally good and willing to be helpful, you’ll be more optimistic. This can enable you be more open to possibilities instead of guarded and alert for threats. You can feel comfortable enough to recognise and admit to being able learn from others so you can be curious and willing to take on challenges since you believe that the majority of people will help you if they can and won’t judge or ridicule you if you fail.

Thinking of people as wanting to help each other – and being one of them yourself – is a highly valuable mindset that can enable you to learn from others while having a mentality that makes life more secure and fascinating.

31/03/2026

If you’re struggling to begin something because you think you’ll struggle, starting can be easier if you accept that challenges and mistakes are part of the process of learning how to do something new.

Some people don’t want to attempt something until they feel capable of beginning with the skill level of an expert. They can spend a great deal of time researching the best techniques, planning their approach, and trying to feel mentally ready to get started.

Knowing that you’re likely to begin something unskilfully can be liberating – instead of thinking that you have to painstakingly prepare and do everything possible to avoid mistakes, you recognise that you’ll struggle and make mistakes, but they will teach more than you could ever learn from theory.

When you're willing to learn through experience, even though this is at times challenging, beginning new things can be much less intimidating. And the mistakes you make don’t have to feel like failures.

26/03/2026

If you want to understand someone else's perspective, especially when you disagree, it's important to ask them about what they believe and why. Without first understanding this, you can only have limited insight that's likely based on assumptions and generalisations.

When learning about someone’s beliefs and opinions, it’s important to go beyond stereotypes to truly understand them. People often identify with a group or belief system while still having their own nuanced opinions that may differ from those of the group. This is common in political parties, sports fans, members of religious groups, and much more.

If you're curious, you can learn a great deal. This is important if you want to form a connection as well as potentially encourage them to reconsider some of their positions. Otherwise you can treat them as if they believe something they don't, argue points they already agree with, and be alienating and polarising.

Unless you've spoken to someone about what they think and feel - asked questions and listened to the answers without assuming that you already know the answers - you can't truly understand their position. This takes time and effort, and suspending your beliefs to empathise with another perspective is often challenging, but it's necessary to making connections and being a listener.

25/03/2026

“Not everyone can win competitions, but everyone can be a winner.”

Some people place a strong emphasis on out-performing others to feel successful; they want to be the best and win competitions, even if they’re the only one who thinks of what they’re doing as a competition.

While in some situations this mindset can be motivating, it’s far more likely to make you feel pressure to accomplish more than you’re capable of and be disappointed with yourself even if you did very well because someone else did better.

A competitive mindset can also prevent growth by enabling you to feel successful for being the best by comparing yourself to people with much less experience. You could even choose to seek out people you’re confident you can out preform to give yourself the best chances of ‘winning’.

But the healthiest source of competition is often yourself. Instead of trying to be better than others who could have very different skills and experience-levels, your ambition is to be better than you were in the past.

This approach can also take into consideration when you’re facing additional challenges and aren’t capable of preforming as usual, such as recognising that you didn’t do as you could have but you were also supporting a friend at the time so you should be proud of what you were capable of accomplishing.

When your goal is to do better than you did previously, you're asking yourself to grow instead of just wanting to win. Wanting to be your best is much different and healthier than feeling a need to be the best.

24/03/2026

Carefully planning how you’ll make changes or accomplish a goal can seem like you’re giving yourself the best chance of not only being successful, but avoiding plenty of mistakes and challenges as well. But most of the lessons you need to learn so you can improve can only be acquired through experience.

Making a plan for how you’ll achieve something ambitious is necessary; otherwise you’ll lack clarity on what you want, how you can achieve it, what you’ll do when you’re challenged, and other important details. But planning can become a diversion from getting started.

Thinking you can plan so well that you won’t have to experience mistakes and challenges can keep you from getting started while setting yourself up for disappointment and frustration.

Much of what you have to learn can only be discovered through experience. It’s impossible to anticipate every challenge you’ll face, predict what mistakes you’ll make, or know how to motivate yourself before you begin.

Planning can make you feel like you’re giving yourself the best chance of avoiding mistakes and challenges but this isn’t true. Making mistakes and feeling challenged is an inevitable part of growth that will teach you much more than you could ever learn through research.

Address

Adnar Street
Wishart

Opening Hours

Wednesday 8am - 8pm
Thursday 7am - 8pm
Friday 8am - 8pm
Saturday 8am - 1pm

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Wiser Ways posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Practice

Send a message to Wiser Ways:

Shortcuts

Share