Meet Mikaela St. Laurent

We recently connected with Mikaela St. Laurent and have shared our conversation below.

Mikaela, we’re so excited for our community to get to know you and learn from your journey and the wisdom you’ve acquired over time. Let’s kick things off with a discussion on self-confidence and self-esteem. How did you develop yours?

This is such a good one! Especially now that I work directly with women to develop their own confidence and self-esteem. For me, I think I would say that it started when I felt my most insecure and unhappy in life, which was sometime in high school. Your body changes, your friends change, you enter romantic relationships and that can take a toll on you too. I was just tired of feeling insecure in who I was both physically and mentally and I knew that no one was going to be able to pull me through besides myself so I started really diving into the gym and movement in general. I fell in love with lifting weights and going for long walks. It was a space for me to clear my head and also work on strengthening my body in way I had never done before. Being skinny was all I ever looked for but when I started lifting weights and increasing my weights in the gym, I felt more empowered and capable in my body than I ever had. Physically my confidence started to increase from the gym and then when I began getting creative with ingredients in the kitchen and trying new recipes, every time I would succeed, my confidence would grow. I would say the mental side of my confidence and self esteem was the hardest to develop. I leaned into therapy, I started journaling daily, I would practice replacing negative thoughts with positive ones, I really allowed myself to slow down and feel all my feelings, while also taking the time to write them down and work through them. I had spent a lot of my life bottling up my emotions which only lead me to feeling even more insecure. As I grew older, I would purposely sign myself up for things that I knew made me uncomfortable so I could build my confidence in that way. I was always terrified of public speaking and I kept forcing myself to take on any opportunity I could find to have to stand up and speak in front of people. I think what helped me the most with confidence and self esteem was whenever I felt resistance towards something I know would make me a better person because I was afraid of it, I stepped into it anyways and pushed through feeling so uncomfortable and scared and each time, I grew and learned something new.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I started my brand/business, Breakthrough Performance, about 3 years ago now all online and I work 1:1 with women to ditch limiting beliefs, breakthrough mindset barriers and really just learn how to live life to it’s fullest potential by tapping into their health, fitness, nutrition and total wellness. I love what I do so much because every single day I get the pleasure of celebrating a new win with clients who when I first starting working with them we’re struggling to even just get enough energy to go for a walk or honestly sit down and eat a meal to fuel their body. It’s a complete transformation and these women take on new identities through working with me. When I started Breakthrough Performance, I really just wanted to be an outlet for women who had been struggling with their body confidence and mental confidence for years. I wanted to be that person that they could finally rely on and knew had their back when it came to the work it takes to reverse years of habits that are not beneficial and replace them with some really powerful routines. Over the years, I’ve had the pleasure of growing a client base of amazing women and each day I am excited for the conversations I get to have and the new women I get to work with. I get to see women go from lifting 5lbs to 100+ lbs, eating 1200 calories and struggling to lose weight to eating 2,000+ calories and building their dream body. We have such a strong community here at Breakthrough Performance between all my clients and I truly believe that community is one of the most important things to have in life! Right now, we are working on adding a few more 1:1 clients to our team. Specifically, women in their 20s-40s who want to step into their most optimal health, feel dang good in their body and learn how to sustain their healthy weight and habits/routines long term.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Looking back, I would say the three qualities/skills or areas of knowledge that were most impactful on my journey are the ability to focus on only controlling what is truly in my control and letting go of everything else, understanding that I don’t need to do it all alone and getting support, and thirdly would be taking on the identity of someone who is committed and does not quit no matter what. I went from having essentially no physical or mental confidence, to where I am now and truly feel completely confident in my body and mental health by leaning into those 3 things. Often times, when we try to control everything in our life we actually cause way more stress than is necessary and that has a negative impact on our body and health. Ask yourself, is this within my control? Yes or no. If it’s not, then learn to let it go and focus on what YOU can change today. The second piece about understanding that I don’t need to do it all alone is huge because I wasn’t someone to ask for help. I liked to show that I could succeed on my own but getting a mentor, coach, therapist, etc. has always made the biggest difference in my progress. Whatever you are struggling with or whatever you are not happy with in your life, find someone who can support you and bring you through that. Lastly, by taking on the identity of someone who is committed and does not quit, you eliminate all the limiting beliefs and negative self talk. The way you speak to yourself or think about yourself is exactly what your brain will interpret to be true. Something I used to help me work through that hurdle was daily gratitude and affirmations, while also visualizing the life I wanted to lead and acting as if I already had it. Stepping into the future version of yourself and making decisions that she or he would make is so beneficial to build self trust and become more disciplined.

Who is your ideal client or what sort of characteristics would make someone an ideal client for you?

My ideal client and who I serve is a woman in her 20-40s that is confused by the media about what is “right” or “wrong” for her body and her health. She so desperately wants to feel comfortable in her skin and confident in the way she looks but for some reason she has tried time and time again and yet still isn’t where she wants to be. She feels like every time she tries again, she just falls off or doesn’t see any progress and feels like quitting because it feels so hard and nothing makes sense. She kind of feels defeated and is tired of not being able to wear her cute clothes because she doesn’t feel confident in it and she knows that there is a different way of living! She’s brilliant in the work she does and she’s so capable of committing to herself with the right tools and support. She tends to get in her way of thinking that she should be able to do this on her own but she also knows that it’s been years and still nothing has changed for her. She’s willing to try something new in order to get to a place in her body and life that she has never been before and she is willing to say yes to committing regardless of fear. I serve women who want to be held to a higher standard and really change who they are from the inside out.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mikaelastlaurent/