Francois Esterhuizen

Francois Esterhuizen Marriage counselling and life coaching. Skills, tips and training for better relationships.

18/12/2025

I’m at the dentist today because my crown came loose.
It was uncomfortable, inconvenient, and I dealt with it immediately.

When something external breaks, we act fast.
We book the appointment.
We fix the problem.
We don’t negotiate with the discomfort.

But when something internal comes undone, we wait.
Loss of motivation.
Emotional exhaustion.
Resentment.
Feeling stuck or disconnected.
We tell ourselves it’s fine. We’ll deal with it later.

Internal setbacks are quieter, but they cause more damage over time.
Because while you wait, you keep living on top of the problem.
You compensate. You cope. You normalise discomfort.

Self-leadership is knowing when to attend to what is happening inside you, not just what is visible on the outside.
If something feels off, address it while it’s still manageable.

Free your potential. Go to getclarity.co.za to get started.

11/12/2025

Gratitude becomes a hiding place when you use it to avoid the thing you are actually afraid to face.
You tell yourself, “I should just be grateful,” not because the gratitude is genuine, but because it protects you from taking the next step you know you need to take.

People hide in gratitude when they are scared of change.
Scared of pursuing something bigger.
Scared of outgrowing a situation that feels familiar.
It is easier to say “I’m grateful” than to admit “I’m afraid.”

Gratitude is healthy when it grounds you.
It becomes unhealthy when it limits you.
When it keeps you small.
When it stops you from making the move your future actually needs from you.

You are allowed to be grateful and still want more.
You are allowed to outgrow things you once thanked life for.
Gratitude should steady you, not trap you.

Free your potential. Go to getclarity.co.za to get started.

10/12/2025

Most people ask, “How creative am I?”
But that is the wrong question.
The better question is, “How can I be creative?”

You are creating all the time.
You create ideas, conversations, solutions, plans, clarity, connections.
Creativity is not limited to art.
It is any moment where something inside you becomes something outside you.

Instead of measuring your creativity, start noticing where it already lives.
Maybe it is in the way you problem-solve, organise, explain, design, write, or bring order to chaos.
Your creativity shows up wherever your mind naturally comes alive.

And stop judging it before you express it.
Creativity grows through use, not perfection.
Try things. Make things. Explore.
Your uniqueness becomes visible the moment you allow yourself to create without apologising for it.

Free your potential. Go to getclarity.co.za to get started.

09/12/2025

Most people talk about building a better future, but very few take responsibility for the two things that actually shape it: time and money.

Start with your time.
Not all time is equal. Some of it is wasted, some of it is spent, and some of it is invested.
Wasted time leaves you emptier.
Spent time leaves you exactly where you started.
Invested time moves your life forward in a measurable way.
If you want a different future, start investing your time instead of scattering it. Look at your days honestly. Where does your time actually go, and does any of it serve the life you say you want?

Then take responsibility for your money.
Too many people outsource this completely, assuming that professionals, advisors, or institutions will automatically make the best decisions on their behalf. But no one will ever care about your financial future as much as you do.
Learn how your money works.
Learn what you are paying for.
Learn where your money grows and where it leaks.
Clarity with money is not a luxury. It is self-leadership.

Your future is not built by hope or intention.
It is built by how you use your time and how you manage your money.
Take responsibility for both, and you take responsibility for your life.

Free your potential. Go to getclarity.co.za to get started.

08/12/2025

Most people look for the wrong signs when they ask what they should stop tolerating.
They look for what annoys them.
But annoyances are not the real problem.
What actually costs you is what drains you.

Annoyances come and go.
But the things that drain you leave you feeling smaller, heavier, or unsettled every time you allow them.
This is how you know something should no longer have access to your life.

And the uncomfortable truth is this:
You are the one who has to withdraw.
You are the one who has to step back from certain situations, certain circles, certain dynamics that take more than they give.
Waiting for them to change keeps you stuck.
Choosing differently is what frees your energy.

Pay attention to what drains you.
That is where your next boundary belongs.

Free your potential. Go to getclarity.co.za to get started.

05/12/2025

The end of the year does not drain you because you are doing too much.
It drains you because your mind is juggling too many open loops at once.
Deadlines, plans, loose ends, social plans you regret, things you still “should” do.
It is not burnout. It is cognitive clutter.

Take half an hour and empty your mind onto paper.
List every task, responsibility, and lingering decision.
When it is visible, it stops spinning.

Then sort it with honesty.
Eliminate what does not matter.
Postpone what is not urgent.
Automate what can run without you.
Delegate what someone else can do just as well.

Your energy returns when your brain stops juggling everything and starts operating from structure.
Motivation follows clarity.

Free your potential. Go to getclarity.co.za to get started.

04/12/2025

Feeling comfortable being alone starts with doing the opposite of what you normally do.
Instead of escaping the discomfort, you turn toward it.

Most people distract themselves the moment the quiet arrives, but the discomfort is there to show you something.
Sit with it and ask, What am I feeling?
What am I thinking?
Name it without trying to fix it.

Once you’ve named it, get curious.
Why am I feeling this?
Why am I thinking this?
Often the fear of being alone is not about the aloneness itself. It is about the thoughts and emotions that surface when nothing is there to drown them out.

When you stop running from the discomfort and start listening to it, solitude becomes less threatening and more revealing.
You learn that the discomfort was never there to punish you. It was there to teach you.

Free your potential. Go to getclarity.co.za to get started.

03/12/2025

You do not need to stop needing validation.
You just need to stop outsourcing it to everyone.

Most people feel powerless because every opinion lands with the same weight.
They let strangers, acquaintances, colleagues, and passing comments shape how they see themselves.
The problem is not validation.
The problem is that the wrong people have access to your worth.

Be intentional about who is allowed to validate you.
Let it come from people who know you, understand you, and want the best for you.
Not from the crowd.
Not from people who do not carry any part of your life with you.

And then bring the authority back to yourself.
Ask, Do I approve of how I showed up?
Did I act with honesty, alignment, and responsibility?
If yes, external validation becomes a bonus, not a requirement.

You stop needing validation from others when your own voice becomes your primary reference point.

Free your potential. Go to getclarity.co.za to get started.

02/12/2025

A setback only destroys your self-esteem when you turn it into a statement about who you are.
It is not identity. It is information.
It shows you where your current skill, belief, or strategy reached its limit. Nothing more.

Self-esteem does not return through positive thinking.
It returns through small wins.
One task completed. One step taken. One moment where you prove to yourself that you can still move.
Confidence is rebuilt by competence, not affirmation.

And the biggest shift is this:
Stop judging yourself and start taking responsibility.
Judgement attacks your worth.
Responsibility adjusts your approach.
The first keeps you stuck. The second gets you moving again.

A setback is not the end of your confidence.
It is the beginning of clarity.

Free your potential. Go to getclarity.co.za to get started.

01/12/2025

You will always feel like a burden if you believe your needs are wrong.
That belief is the real problem, not the need itself.

Most people who struggle with this have two sets of rules.
Other people’s needs are fine. Helping them feels natural.
But your own needs? Those feel selfish, inconvenient, or immature.
So you try to be completely independent, calling it responsibility, when it is actually avoidance.

The moment you do need something, the guilt arrives.
Not because the need is unreasonable, but because you trained yourself to believe you should never have one.

Needing support is not being a burden.
It is being human.
And the sooner you allow that truth, the sooner the guilt begins to fade.

Free your potential. Go to getclarity.co.za to get started.

28/11/2025

Most people don’t put others first because they are endlessly generous. They do it because at some point, keeping the peace felt safer than being honest.

If you always carry everyone else’s needs, your own will always feel inconvenient. But your needs are not the problem. Your old conditioning is.

This video helps you understand why you default to self-abandonment and how to start choosing yourself without guilt.

Free your potential. Go to getclarity.co.za to get started.

27/11/2025

You do not actually know what other people think.
You are guessing.
And the part that makes you anxious is not their opinion.
It is the story you create in the silence.

When your guessing makes you worry, it is a sign that you are outsourcing your confidence.
You are letting your mind invent a version of you that someone else might judge, and then you treat that guess as if it is the truth.
You hand your self-worth over to a fiction you created yourself.

Here is the actual work:
First decide whether you approve of your behaviour.
Did you show up honestly, responsibly, and in alignment with who you are trying to become?
If yes, then your own approval is enough.
If you acted out of alignment, then adjust. That is your responsibility, not anyone else’s reaction.

And if you truly want to know what someone thinks, go ask them.
Assumptions poison clarity.
Direct communication restores it.

Most of your anxiety comes from trying to manage thoughts that were never real in the first place.
Come back to what you know.
Come back to what you can control.
Come back to your own internal authority.

Free your potential. Go to getclarity.co.za to get started.

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