Is it time for a change?
/It's a bumpy world out there. Hopefully, you are focusing on what gives you joy, what’s good, what matters to you and where you can make a difference. Some of the time at least.
This is a time of change (I’ve used that phrase a lot over the last 12 months, but it seems to be increasingly true).
Some level of uncertainty, chaos, confusion, fear and loss invariably accompanies out-with-the-old phases of life and while humanity is in it on a big scale, things can be very uncomfortable.
That said, multiple sayings encourage us to have faith that out of the mess, good will come; you have to let go of the old to make space for the new, no mud no lotus, necessity is the mother of invention. My current favourite comes from Albert Einstein:
“You can’t solve a problem with the same level of thinking that created it.”
I am certainly shedding long-held perspectives and beliefs. Although ultimately liberating, empowering and healing, the process is not easy or linear. Maybe you relate?
At the same time, the shedding process is enabling exciting new developments to emerge.
If you've been on my e-mail list for some time you will know I've been unusually quiet for months. I’ve been honouring an inner call to do something that matters to me.
Behind the scenes, I've been leveraging three decades of coaching know-how to equip 16 to 24-year-olds with some of the skills, tools and attitudes that can help them navigate changeful and challenging times, find their path, and thrive.
This is something that has been on my mind since 2008 when I was tasked with creating an enterprise and employability programme for 500 students at Nottingham Trent University. If you want to know more about that you can see it in action here. It contained the usual stuff for starting a business: What will you sell? Who to? How? Etc. What made it different was the self-coaching skills and tools I embedded throughout the programme. Participants not only nurtured business ideas (some of which are still going strong 17 years later!) they also learned how to grow their own confidence, resilience, passion and purpose. All vital ingredients for a rich and juicy life.
That experience ignited a passion in me. Since then, alongside coaching leaders and change-makers, I've developed coaching programmes for 16 to 24-year-olds to empower them as they move from education into work and life. For years, my vision has been to develop these programmes further and put them directly into the hands of young people.
In 2024, the time came to direct resources towards my vision.
With generous help and support from brilliant people and organisations, I’ve been digitising my know-how. With 50 students in three different colleges we’ve tested a digital version to see if it works.
Hooray, it does!
Confidence = strengthened, motivation = increased, ambition = expanded and calm and peace of mind = cultivated.
As student reflections show…
“It has helped me see how I can change myself.”
“I have become more positive; I’ve stopped over-thinking, and I have overall felt calmer.”
“I have a more positive outlook on my future.”
“It has made me question myself and become a stronger and better version of me.”
“I am oddly more relaxed in situations that would make me angry or confused, I have learned about how those things work and how to keep them under wraps.”
“It made me think about what I as a person am like and what I need.”
So, with collaborators, I’m on a mission to take this further. It’s exciting, testing, creative, scary, inspiring and all the other feelings of aliveness that go with doing something meaningful.
I’ll be back when I have something else to share. Until then, if your purpose-fuelled dream is calling you and you would like expert caring help figuring out if/how to move it forward and summoning the courage, resources and confidence to do so I have two coaching slots open now.
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