When do you feel confident? When are you a good listener? When can you speak up and share your thoughts?
I love these questions.
They’re all about finding out when you can do or be something, and what helps you do it.
Have you ever realised you’re completely off track?
Have you ever realised you’re completely off track?
Recently a good friend and I were lost on the South Downs. We had set out to do a lovely 4.5 mile loop and ended up doing a hot, hilly and exhausting 9 miles.
It was not intentional!
We’d followed the signs, and it had looked pretty straightforward, and yet we got lost more than once. Even my beloved Maps app couldn’t help.
As we stood at the edge of a field, covered in scratches, hopelessly willing the path to emerge it was a brilliant example of how easy it is to veer off course.
Especially if you’re not paying attention (there was a lot of chatting), or if the sign you’re looking for just doesn’t appear and you keep going anyway (!).
Do you know what people appreciate about you?
Some of my favourite coaching sessions recently have been to identify peoples strengths - the particular contributions they naturally make, the qualities and skills they bring with them wherever they go.
It’s a fun process, using feedback they’ve received and responses to how they’ve shown up and what they’ve done. It’s a brilliant way of gathering the threads from real life experience.
What’s fascinating is that most of these people have only had the information to work with because they’re about to leave - either temporarily or permanently.
Is there an alliance you’d love to design well?
I’ve had a lot of first sessions recently. Meeting someone for the first time, exploring working together, and asking lots of questions about what’s needed for us to get set up well.
Alongside the purpose of the coaching (the what), is the partnership and the practicalities (the how).
This is such rich territory! Each of us has our own recipe of things that help us work at our best - and we’re all different.
What brings out your on-purpose energy?
There’s a particular feeling when our energy is being used in the best kind of way.
We know that we’re playing to our natural strengths and having a positive impact on the people and the world around us. There’s an ease, a joy, a sense of being on purpose. At the end of the day we feel emptied out in a good way, full up of the knowing that we’ve shown up at our best.
Who can you celebrate your wins with?
There’s a particular joy when you achieve something special.
Perhaps a plan comes together, a long-held goal is realised, or something you hadn’t anticipated springs to life. Or you pause to look back and realise you’re exactly where you hoped you could be.
The sense of achievement can be enormous - and accompanied by a whole range of other emotions. Relief, delight, exhaustion, excitement, joy, sadness that something has come to an end, even though that’s what you wanted!
So it helps to take some time to bask in all of it, to let it wash through and over, to settle into it. To reflect on and notice all of the parts and acknowledge them. To celebrate the moment and the work that went into it before moving on to what comes next.
Which can be surprisingly hard to do!
Unexpected lessons from flower arranging
Last week I spent a delightful couple of hours in a Garden to Vase flower arranging workshop with the brilliant Annie Jenkins.
We’d arranged it as a birthday treat for my mum, and 5 of us followed Annie around her garden - finding out all about the different plant varieties, how to cut them, and what to do with them.
We then sat, played, chatted and created in the sunshine. It was a complete treat, a wonderful shared experience, and a fun creative process.
Are you at the start of a big change?
Sometimes, the way we think about ourself or our life can change in an instant. A remark, a conversation, an idea, can throw things up in the air and rearrange them in a different way.
We suddenly see with startling clarity - what’s not working, what needs to change, exactly what we want or where we need to be.
It’s absolutely brilliant! Now we know!
It can also be utterly overwhelming.
It's the Summer Solstice | A lovely time to shine a light on your life
What helps you reset?
When I need to reset, one of my favourite things to do is Yin yoga. It’s a wonderful way to stretch everything out, and I love that I can choose from a range of options to match my mood.
Sometimes I want something more structured - being talked through a sequence step by step.
Other times I want something more spacious - being given the minimal possible cues.
In both cases, my brain knows someone else is handling the process and can focus. It’s the same result from different approaches - tailored to how I’m feeling and what I’m looking for.
