In July of last year, I applied for voluntary redundancy. My Mum was struggling with the day to day of life, so I saw this opportunity as a gift. Three of us walked out of the door that day and into new worlds. My friends found good jobs almost immediately, where they and their expertise were valued. I set off finally committing to working solely for myself.
I spent a beautiful summer with my mum, my husband and wider family, not to mention the new puppy in our pack of 4 working dogs. Nothing earth-shatteringly spectacular, just long days in the garden, lots of laughter and some road trips to connect with the past and our family. These times now feel like the greatest blessing.
My mum was 90 and already in the poorest of health when she took a chest infection and was prescribed some antibiotics. An error was made in the prescribing of the drugs and from there begun a series of hospital stays, and during this time, a terrible confusion descended upon her. The impact of the drugs on her kidneys led to her developing delirium, which is a strange malaise. Delirium steals a person away for periods of the day and night, to another time and place. We always tried to embrace whatever was going on for her, good or bad, we laughed with her and soothed her when things were tougher and she was frightened. I treasure the day she told me that she had met Sean Connery in Accident and Emergency when he was having his foot X-rayed. It was funny enough to think she had spoken to this man at length, in the real belief that he was ‘Big Tam’, but I laughed for hours after she laughingly told me, “I think I held his hand a little too long”. I hope like me he was a big fan of the surreal. My brother, husband and I took her home shortly after that to care for her and sadly in January she passed away with her family around her and in her home of 78 years.
As we all gathered together for her funeral, a musician and singer filled the room with beautiful Celtic music and song. It was so hauntingly touching that it rounded off all of the intensity of sadness we felt and left us instead with a wistful type of melancholy, which is altogether kinder to the heart, but is ever-present for longer.
I am also selling my home by the seaside, and buying another in the city, so it’s fair to say that in the game of ‘change bingo’ I pretty much have a full house.
Although my professional career has been pointed at Culture and Change in one form or another for the last 20 years, none of my skills have been of any use to me personally! Why? Because knowing this stuff doesn’t always count when it comes to actually helping yourself!
For example, I once wrote a training course on Mastering Attention to Detail and then got on the wrong bus home. I also sat an exam on the Memory and its Functions, and then forgot that the last thing our tutor had told us was to remember that the exam was being held in the big hall and not the small room where I sat for 5 minutes before cottoning on?
I am however blessed with optimism, and I have begun to treasure this gift above all in my life because by its nature it touches everything. I didn’t always know its true value though, because early on in my career a manager once wrote on my appraisal form that I was ‘infuriatingly positive’ and told me to “sort it out”. For such a long time after that, I tried to bury my optimism and enthusiasm. I was acutely aware when I was interacting with my team to never look too happy or to look too much on the bright side of any work situations. I began at that time to feel some of my light fade and with it my energy and resilience. I decided one day to leave and did just that with no job to go to.
My natural optimism means that I am trying really hard to find positives within all of these situations; I understand that so much of what has happened was in some cases inevitable and in all cases outside of my control. The other thing I know for certain is that the areas where I do have full control are in how I decide to look at things and then how I choose to feel about them.
I have decided that I need some help. I could do with an opportunity to get everything out of my head and onto the table. I want to dust it all off, file its treasures and throw away the rubbish. I can then get clarity on things and repack everything with it all pointing in the right direction.
No matter how skilled you are at coaching, when it comes to your personal circumstance you can always benefit from someone helping you to look at things from a different perspective. You need the challenge, someone to test you on what you have decided your realities are. Life coaching and business coaching, helps you to get a clear idea of what you want and more importantly how you are going to get it. You can explore and evaluate the right strategies for you in order to overcome the obstacles you face, real or self-constructed. You need dedicated time to focus on you and your goals, identifying what actions you need to take in order to bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be.
If you would like to receive tips from Naked Training’s life/business coaches on how to ensure your mind is the optimum seed bed for nurturing your goals and dreams, then email us at enquiries@nakedtraining.org.uk putting ‘coaching’ in the subject line.
For all you amazing coaches out there, what one question would you give me to meditate upon?
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