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.
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?”.
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!
Way back in the day, when my husband and I got married, we had a clear sense of what we wanted our wedding to be like - partly based on other people’s weddings, partly based on how we were as a couple, and a lot based on our budget!
We knew we wanted to do it ‘our way’ - to celebrate the start of a new chapter by bringing people that were important to us together, in a simple, relaxed, ‘us’ way.
We knew we wanted our guests to have a fun day and evening with good food and wine, and lots of laughter. To know each other and have felt a part of something personal.
My sister recently reminded me of the time I spent 2 months living in a tent in the middle of Hungary, part of a group from Edinburgh University helping to build an eco-village.
For many years it was top of mind - my immediate answer to the ‘tell us something we wouldn’t know about you’ question.
And yet I had almost forgotten.
I love to read - both real books and on my Kindle, a mix of all kinds of things.
I have authors I auto buy, books that come recommended from friends or on social media, suggestions that pop up on an algorithm.
Each may sound like something I’d want to read. I might already like the author, the idea of the book, or the sound of the reviews - so how to decide which to invest the time and energy in?
If I’m not sure, and sometimes even if I am, I Try a Sample. It’s so useful to read the first pages, have a small taste, get a sense of what’s it’s about in real life.
Often it’s just as I imagined and I go onto buy it. Sometimes it’s just not my cup of tea and I don’t. And both are absolutely fine.
It’s such a gift to have tried it and know whether to say yes, no, or maybe later.
Many years ago (almost 30 - eek!) I did a History degree. Not the most obvious first step to a career in marketing, consulting and coaching, but what I really wanted to study.
I loved my teachers at A level and connecting the dots between the past, the present and the future. I loved the stories, the cycles, the learnings, the repeating patterns. I loved finding the thread and making sense of the journey.
I still do.
