Knowing & Ability is about:

Helping you (know how to) take steps to manage your mental health along with strategies so that you (will have the ability: to) learn what to do to achieve and find happiness.

My business is about a person helping people, and my purpose is to deliver a better educational experience to lifelong learners. My mission is to help people with mental health issues and learning disabilities live life successfully day to day. I value being able to deliver top of the line services at reasonable prices.

My mission broken down:

My mission is to help you:

• Get crystal-focused on managing your mental health and learning, whether you are an individual, business, or organization.  AWARENESS OF EMOTIONS
• Find the exact words to powerfully describe the way you feel, along with the learning transformation you need to succeed. EVOLUTION THROUGH ACKNOWLEDGING WHAT YOU FEEL AND WHY.

 

• Create a workflow (wardrobe, mental well-being, financial statements, therapy Thursday) that inspires you to always perform at best.

• Plan step-by-step for success. ENJOYMENT OF LIFE BECAUSE YOU HAVE RELEASED – THE NEGATIVE ENERGY WITHIN YOU

 

• Enjoy living life, through reflect and repeat, through ability and action.

 

 

 

Mental health – Feeling good is essential to get through your day-to-day life. Life means living, knowing how to do things so that you can feel and look well.

Help –  To get through life, sometimes assistance is what is called for to achieve. People need people to progress, a person who can guide them as they have been where they are heading, and who will listen and learn about the struggles, so that encouragement can be given in the areas of life it is needed.

Healing – The right kind of encouragement leads to evolution. This encouragement starts with and is all about an engagement, of the minds. By this, I mean comedy, such as poetry.

Hope and Faith –  Talking about struggles, life in general, and the nuances of life, that can bring us down can also do some good, as we learn to see things from a different perspective, which in turn can help us progress.

My products and services

What I (do) sell: Memberships that you can join one of which is about show and tell, and the other is about telling a story of struggle to success. Then there are my lessons, which are structured.

The problem (initially my problem) that I solve for customers – is mostly intangible: I help people step and strategize their way to success, by knowing how, so that they have the ability to do. (Knowing&Ability)

Why you should care: When you have mental health issues, and you have a learning disability, being mindful of your thinking and movements is the key that will help you move through your days with ease – I call this focus, flow, and finish. This is also on the home page.

Want to know how you can relate to this? Check out this post I wrote, in which is also on my home page, and one in which I am proud of, because I talk about the exact thing above in “why you should care”.

So how can I help you? 

Hi, I’m Yanna Kostidis.  I am of mixed blood – blood from New Zealand (Whanganui to be exact – Te ati hau is the iwi that I have descended from, and up the river – more on that in my blog) and from the other side of the world, Greece. But I, along with my two younger siblings, one female, and the other male, were all born in Melbourne Australia. But since our life has been lived in New Zealand, we identify also as New Zealanders.

A background story, so that you can get to know me.  I have been creating content, with the intent of helping others, all of my life (since the age of 8 to be exact), and the reason,  you know of those kids who go into remedial reading and the rest, and who never really leave (even as adults)? Yeah, well that was me. Being at school was challenging, for a variety of reasons, but as a result, I did not want to be there.  But as I got older, I felt challenged to do something about the state of education (the beliefs I knew I held, and how I could help others also be abled), not only for me, but for others. My internal knowingandability to achieve, slowly and in steps.

Welcome to knowingandability. 

I was in my thirties when I discovered that I have a learning disability, dyslexia, dyscalculia, etc. I also suffer from anxiety-anger issues, ADHD, and depression. Mental health, and health issues. I spent my entire childhood, my teens, and being an adult feeling “dumb” and lonely. I couldn’t connect with anyone and no one could relate to or connect with me—especially my teachers. I was constantly picked on and bullied by other kids at school.

My Dad was the only one who understood me and we had a very close connection. But he passed away tragically of a heart attack when I was just ten years old. My memories of high school are blurry and nothing felt good during that time. I withdrew from life.

The only thing I cared about was developing a set of important skills that I could feel confident about, that would carry me through the rest of my life. I focused on English, economics, and typing—three skills that I cared about. 

I had a burning desire to become a teacher so that I could help people like me to find their way more easily through learning and life.

I started studying toward a degree in teaching. This was before learning about my learning disability and mental health, and then realizing that University was not the right fit for me, as I have now learned. I learn through doing, such as taking small action steps. 

I took another road, with the determination that I would achieve something. That something was a variety of diplomas in areas in which I have an educational interest in, of which I studied with a passion to gain.

I couldn’t believe my luck when I applied and got work as a teacher’s assistant in my thirties. It felt like my dreams were coming true. However, the work only lasted for a fixed term of one year, five months. When the contract ended, I was frustrated and stressed, and I was in deep distress.  

Depression hit me badly. 

I’d lost all sense of purpose. I was nervous and anxious. I had no self-confidence and my self-esteem was at an all-time low. I felt unworthy and not enough. I was asking myself “Is this what my life is?” I took to unhealthy coping mechanisms like drinking.

I knew I had to do something to get myself out of this situation, but what?

Where I started

I was sitting on the couch one day and I looked over at the vacuum cleaner. I suddenly thought to myself “I can do that.” I can clean. I KNOW how to flow, I have a STRATEGY, and I have the ABILITY to make the surfaces and spaces clean and gleaming with shine. And I will call my business clean&gleam. Because I can clean houses. 

 How I started

And that’s what I did. I started my own cleaning business called Clean & Gleam. I thought if I could help people keep their environment clean, it’s the first important step to feeling good about life. I also believe that when you, air and dry your clothes outside, so they smell and feel clean, you have tidied, ordered, and cleaned your home, so as to enjoy your environment, you have taken in some fresh clean air with a walk while listening to something,  a poem or two, something that makes you laugh (also important), a clean body, and fresh clean clothes on, everything feels better. This is MY WHY.  It is important to KNOW these steps so that you are ABLE to flow much more easily with your life. That is your learning, (it’s about what’s on your mind) “how do you want to feel”? You feel great, and as a result, you actually want to engage, and learn, so that you can do more. And so that’s where I started.

What helped me?

• What do I know (how to clean and make a house sparkle with shine) and what can I do well? (lead by example)

• Focusing on something that I could do well. (Show people how I do things that help me to succeed.)

• Developing a sense of satisfaction in completing small things. (Step into spaces and strategize)

• Building confidence in myself. (Do things that scare me and when I achieve I repeat)

• Getting positive feedback from people. (It always feels good when you get to go back to the job – of cleaning for a satisfied customer, as well as helping children succeed) 

• Upwards spiral – When you know what you are doing and you are able to find success – you feel good.

Clean & Gleam was a highly successful business that I ran for eleven years. It’s one of my proudest achievements and it taught me so much about running an efficient business and other important life skills, including time management. This comes back to my why. Why do I live my life this way? My answer: I have had to find a way out of the chaos in my head, so I wasn’t feeling so overwhelmed, and I did.  Steps, like the ones above, help you to focus, flow and finish each day feeling fantastic . Each step and strategy is about managing time (and you managing your mental health), as well as you learning to manage you – overwhelm overcome. Why am I sharing this with you? To live out my dream of helping and teaching others, who are like me. They struggle, and I want them to experience success, not stress!

But, there came a point where I had to acknowledge there was something else I wanted to be doing. If I’m completely honest, I was ashamed of being “just a cleaner”. Cleaning had been my way out of my dark period and a way to build my confidence and skills. It started as a means to an end—getting work and an income. 

But cleaning wasn’t my passion. And it was COVID that forced my hand when I had to close my cleaning business after eleven years.

This was the point where I decided it was time to turn and face my true passion to help people with mental health issues (anxiety and depression) and learning disabilities to find their way through life and learning more easily by focusing on developing a positive mindset, by taking small action steps. Knowing&ability, to do.

Since launching my business Knowing & Ability, I have become a workaholic (because I’m so inspired!) and a shopaholic (I want to look a certain way) after walking away from a long-term relationship of more than twenty years. Making the decision to leave my long-term relationship was the best decision I made, because it was never going to work for me (yes, I know I know). I knew I had to stick to what I wanted for my life—work that I enjoy, and being in a relationship that is working for me.

My one and only child (a boy) is now a grown man, has left home, and he’s making me a proud mum. 

I have spent the past two years (and counting haha) building and developing my business to support people like you to navigate life more easily—from overwhelm to overcome. 

I feel so grateful that I have had the opportunity to start and learn from one business, that I created (clean&gleam), to then develop and grow another one, based on what I know and believe and what I am able to do, that I have called, Knowingandability, that I am developing so that I can deliver learning to people, who are like me. They need help so that they are better abled to manage their mental health, and as a result, learning is not stressful or a struggle to get the success.   

Knowing and Ability exists to help people progress in steps and with a strategy  – where the intention is to lead people to success with their day-to-day lives.

Choose your learning, and let’s get you sorted.