Are you circling a decision?

Are you circling a decision?

When we’re grappling with a big decision our thoughts and feelings can go round and round, stuck in a loop that we can’t find a way to divert or direct.

It can feel exhausting, like we’re not getting anywhere, and yet… sometimes circling is an important part of our process.

In my own experience - and in coaching others - I find that we can often circle and explore the same topic or decisions over a number of sessions, days, weeks or months.

Especially if it’s a big one. One that takes us somewhere new or different in our life, work or relationships. One that impacts our lives or the people around us.

And that’s absolutely fine.

What kind of plant are you?

What kind of plant are you?

Our long-suffering palm tree is finally about to flower after years of ups and downs.

We bought it with high hopes and great expectations for how it would grow and what it would look like. Instead, it gradually wilted and browned and declined.

We couldn’t work it out. It was supposed to be a good one for our garden and everyone else’s looked amazing. Why wasn’t it living up to its potential? What was wrong with it? Had we bought a bad plant?

Turns out there was nothing wrong with the plant.

What's the shape of your story?

What's the shape of your story?

The last few weeks have been full of my favourite things - people and their career timelines.

I love collaborating with someone to look back and learn from their journey so far - to make sense of it and use the insights to shape the path ahead.

It’s a complete gift to be a part of the process. To see and hear someone’s story. To find the themes, the patterns, the ups and the downs. To spot the threads and create a compass to navigate forward with.

But what strikes me more and more is just how much there is to learn before we even start exploring the detail.

Are you trying to follow someone else’s recipe?

Are you trying to follow someone else’s recipe?

When you’re doing - or being, or experiencing - something for the first time, do you reach for an existing recipe?

I know I do, it’s been my default.

It can feel easier to look to someone else for the ‘right’ answer or approach.

After all, they’ve done the hard work and figured out the solution - surely if it works for them it will work for me?

Especially if it’s a proven formula, or it seems to be working for other people, or it’s simply the way it’s always done.

And yet so often, it hasn’t worked out that way. The results have been a mixed bag.

Instead of "Could you give me some feedback?"

Instead of "Could you give me some feedback?"

Feedback is one of my favourite topics to coach around. There’s so much to unpack and explore, and a lot we can reframe in a short amount of time.

While most often we’re working through how to give and receive it, there can also be times when we want more than we’re getting - because how can we improve if we don’t know where we are?

We just need to remember to ask a useful question, so that we get some useful information in response - instead of defaulting to “Could you give me some feedback?”.

Are you trying to rush the process?

Are you trying to rush the process?

I love fitting pieces together to create a picture - in all areas of life.

It’s such a joy to make sense of things and see how they come together, to join the dots, to see the clarity emerge and the wood for the trees.

I know now that taking time at the beginning to sort through the pieces is an important part of the process.

In a puzzle that’s finding the edges, grouping obvious colours, gathering things to build around. And it’s a pretty similar process in other situations too.

I know how useful it is, and I am always, always tempted to skip it, because I’m impatient to get going and want to be onto the satisfying part!