Chris Kenworthy – Embodiment Coach & Facilitator in Leeds

Tag: coaching

  • What subversive madness must live through you?

    What subversive madness must live through you?

    There’s a door, in a room, above a garage, in Merseyside. And if you scrape off a layer of paint or four, you’ll be looking at a gaggle of mutilated faces; noseless and shrunken.

    And these faces would grin back at you, all eyes and mouth; ghoulish and gormless. A disembodied throng of serious fools, time-travellers, sentinels at a former gateway to lunacy.

    You’re looking at the back of my teenage bedroom door

    Back in the 90s I enjoyed working myself into hysteric fervour, by snipping away at the Viking office supplies catalogue. I’d cut out the faces of pictured models – officious-looking businesspeople, then fold them so their eyes kissed their mouths, leaving little in between. 

    In fruitier moods I’d perhaps lower a hairline, so the face resembled a smirking rugby ball. Or glue someone else’s (usually bigger) eyes in, upside down. Then I’d cry laughing at this hideous transformation of banal to ridiculous.

    It beats torturing animals, I suppose.

    Yet there was one face in particular that always captured my imagination… 

    Let’s call him Viking guy

    The Viking guy

    He was a late-60-something caucasian chap, with frosty white hair, besuited, confident, and sporting a smile somewhere between affable and smug. 

    This kindly man reeked of boardrooms and golf courses – the definitive pre-retirement exec. He was (possibly) the embodiment of business: smart, trustworthy, sensible and serious. The kind of guy who’d do you a fabulous deal on printer ink, and throw in a gentle pat on the head for your anxious, overachieving son.

    He lives on, inside me. Inside all of us?

    I expect this poor gent is long dead. I wonder now what he’d make of my secret anti-shrine to everything he stood for (or seemed to). 

    Likewise, with my lifelong subversion of serious, corporate professionalism. Something so at odds with the noble truth of his adorable little scrunched-up face. And his command of a mutant army of gurning telesales operatives. Their upside-down eyes-bulging, attentive and pitiful.

    This is NOT Viking guy

    Escapism

    My squashed faces were, of course, an inconsequential detour from the seriousness of childhood: school, exams and expectations. 

    I grew up pretty quick – handed house keys in junior school, child-minding my siblings, cooking meals from scratch for a family of five. Someone had to be the grown-up until the grown-ups came home, from their long, stressful day at work. I suppose part of me still waits.

    But that’s the origin of my serious and subversive, silly side. 

    I won’t denigrate either – they both have their place. Mr serious gets things done, and under control. Yet it can dominate. Often at the expense of the playful, funny, absurd side – with its ‘pointless’ outcomes.

    Maybe this sounds familiar? 

    When problems get tricky and existential (like when I found myself drifting in a former career) the serious side can often step in. It creates perfect infinite loops of introspection. And pressurises you to find definite solutions to perennial problems, like meaning and purpose. Be perfect. Do it right. Try harder etc. etc.

    But what happens to your ‘other’ sides when your serious side dominates? Where does your equivalent of the scissor brandishing lunatic, gunning for the Viking guy, go? 

    Perhaps more tellingly, where else in life do they inevitably pop up, no matter how hard your serious side tries to repress them?

    For me it’s always something absurd

    A turn of phrase, snapshot or abstract idea that catches my imagination. Like a seagull with no wings saying “bro I’m outta here”. I giggle to myself, reliving it over and over. And revel in not being able to figure out why it’s so funny. I embrace uncertainty instead of managing it, like my inner Viking guy.

    My playful side instead wants to subvert the seriousness, meet it with irreverence and laughter. It seeks truth through humour. Like a safety valve. Or a different window onto a familiar vista.

    A working theory: everything’s in there, coexisting 

    Angels and demons, inner critics and cheerleaders – you already have options. Perhaps some are muted or lost for words. Yet they’re intrinsically part of your amalgamated identity, out of reach or elusive, but in there all the same. 

    And they will, perhaps persistently, manifest throughout your life as simultaneous traps and escape routes. 

    Like mine did, when squashed faces became a full-on community project. This was in my 30s, when I left the barren grey plains of the corporate wilderness. Or my animal wisdom memes, art that emerged from a dark patch in my mid-30s. 

    In pondering this dilemma of how aspects of character coexist, and how to channel them meaningfully, I came across Dr. James Hollis, a Jungian psychoanalyst speaking on the Power of Ten podcast:

    ‘The people that we admire most in history… in many cases, their lives were very conflictual, full of suffering, often without recognition in their lifetime. And yet we admire them because they embodied something that was meant to be embodied in this world. It wasn’t about their egos. It wasn’t about their fiscal plan. It was about being in service to something that mattered within them. And that’s what vocation really is. And when you do that something supports you.’

    As a visionary clearly in the same category as Van Gogh or Mother Theresa, I’m drawn to Jim’s compelling premise. He speculates that meaning in life (i.e. what to throw ‘yourselves’ into) is something channeled through you. It’s a crusade that you’re in service to. Something inescapable and pervasive. It emerges, through ongoing, daily battles and little victories. 

    Maybe you don’t quite choose it, more it chooses you?

    That’s your thing and who you (already) really are

    Here’s Jimbo again:

    “What wants to enter the world through me? We’re always in service to something. You better figure out what it is, because if you’re in service to the primal complexes, which is to say the clusters of history that a fate presented us, it’s always going to be in some way, someone else’s life, someone else’s agenda. It’s going to be regressive in character. You’re in service to what wants to enter the world through me.”

    Perhaps far too often, we throw ourselves behind what we’re told to get behind, or fall into it accidentally. We do what we ought to and should do in life. Not what we really want to or care deeply about. 

    And when we’re distracted or unaware, maybe there’s a risk we miss what’s right under our noses (or on the back of our bedroom doors), and has been all along.

    Meanwhile, that existential struggle we know all too well. That cause we might rally behind (like my seriousness and lust for subversion with absurdity) and discover ourselves through, goes amiss.

    What won’t go away? What lives through you?

    In case you’re doubting the relevance of your lived experience, your particular lifelong crusade, or who you are: here’s a thought. Sometimes there’s a misconception that to champion a cause – some problem or injustice, one has to have all the answers, and be the expert on solving it. 

    I fell for this slight of hand, in our age of technocratic officiousness. 

    However, just living your crusade, knowing the ups and downs intimately, first-hand, is perhaps really what qualifies you to speak up about it and explore its domain. 

    Maybe I’m only justifying my own indulgent madness here (*reaches for scissors*). But there’s something inescapable about this personal quest for subversion, truth, and exploration of our shadow side. 

    What wants to live through you? And who are we to resist?

    So, I put it to you: what themes seem inescapable in your life? What wants to live through you? And how will you speak up about it? 

    Because maybe there are others out there, just like you, ready and willing to join you on the adventure. 

    And who knows where it will end? Perhaps in some eerie mausoleum to squashed faces, on the rear of a repainted bedroom door in Merseyside.

  • Can’t get motivated? Bad mood? De-escalate, join, tune in

    Can’t get motivated? Bad mood? De-escalate, join, tune in

    Come, bear witness to the theatrical delight of a poxy magpie pecking a blackbird to death over a measly scrap of bread. And savour the continental ambience of brutal, grey concrete benches, smashed and striated by a thousand joyriders, all cowering under the watchful gaze of tower blocks and antisocial housing.

    Welcome to the Grebes housing estate, people – a dilapidated, bin-themed fairground near where I live in Yorkshire, sure to inspire that Monday morning feeling any time of the week. Helplessness, existential dread and lingering despair are never in short supply here. And grebe is a state of mind.

    I found myself traipsing morbidly through Grebes estate one morning not all that long ago, en route to the office. The previous day, I’d knowingly avoided all the things I knew I ought to do. And today I’d resolved to get them done: finding and mingling with changemakers I long to serve, as I built my coaching business.

    But, like the billion dog eggs bejewelling the Grebes estate road, so many unknowns lay in my path. What problem am I solving? For who? How do I help? Where are they?

    And if there’s one thing the mind doesn’t need on a stroll through the Grebes estate, it’s uncertainty. I tried my best to walk purposefully, but that familiar treadmill of doubt span and creaked in my mind, slowing me down. 

    What began as slight hesitancy soon revolved into full-blown, existential panic. I’d resolved to take action, I just didn’t know what or how. So why bother even trying?

    Then, right on cue, came feeling bad for feeling bad 

    I cowork in a converted flax mill near the Grebes estate, where poor young nippers were literally mangled to death crawling beneath heavy machinery, so that toffs might have more comfortable socks. 

    Comforting thought, I thought. Now we’ve lost perspective too, and replaced it with post-industrial class guilt.

    If you’ve ever built a business from scratch or launched any ambitious project, these feelings might sound familiar. It’s not unusual to feel beaten before you begin, and kicked when you’re down, over and over and over again. 

    That’s what you get for chasing your dreams, when grit isn’t your forte

    I used to cope by diverting my attention to well-defined, achievable tasks, like bleeding a radiator or buying some screws. Until brute force or resignation eventually showed up, forcing me to confront the unavoidable, those tricky tasks, with frustration and disappointment.

    These days the stakes are higher for me. While it’s OK to feel what my clients feel, it’s deeply inauthentic to not practice what I preach as a coach – meeting challenges like these with a more helpful attitude.

    So this article is my reflection upon new ways of coping and getting motivated. Of how a black day turned grey, then off-white, and eventually yellow. Yellow being good, because it’s kind of warm and sun-coloured like golden sunlight (another colour alien to the Grebes estate).

    Maybe they’ll work for you too?

    First, de-tangle and de-escalate

    When I worked with naughty boys and girls at an inner city school (ineptly I might add), we were taught to de-escalate if a scrap looked imminent. That means bringing heightened emotions down to a manageable level, so our brains act a little less reptilian.

    One way to de-escalate alone is by journaling (or morning pages). It doesn’t resolve unknowns, it just downloads them, so they’re out of your head. Doodling or wittering works well too. 

    Journaling helps identify what’s really going on and what’s really on your mind. It breaks lumpy thoughts into individual nuggets, giving them coherence. With the brain less dark and muddled, threads of ideas and options emerge, like pulling earphones from a cat tod. 

    On that fateful morning, journaling revealed five or six different themes in my coaching, possible lines of enquiry for the whole ‘who and how do I help’ problem. Too early to answer, but they were jammed in there all the same, throttling valuable CPU time.

    Journaling bought relief and space. It was kind of exciting too, to know creativity was in there somewhere. Playfulness was emerging; laughing at the ridiculousness of sipping an oat milk latte inside a former temple to the crushing forces of ruthless capitalism.

    How might you step back from the brink, and maybe even enjoy a laugh with yourself?

    Second, join something bigger 

    Coincidentally, I’d applied to join a group called coaches helping coaches a few days earlier. So, after braving the toxic cross-fire that is Facebook, I discovered my membership was approved. 

    Isn’t it funny how doom halves when you hear others feel equally doomed? Perhaps this works best when we aren’t looking for answers, like how-to explainers. Although we might think we want to be told the right way to do something, what we really need is understanding and connection from others. 

    I tried that and felt a little better still, as well as empathy and compassion. 

    Although still unresolved, my concluding remark here is that this business development stuff is tricky as fuck. Yet everyone goes through it, there’s no avoiding it or quick fix. 

    But could it be that the very thing you’re up against – effort and persistence as a barrier to entry, is what distinguishes you from those who give up?

    Third, tune in

    With my mood lifted, I had a good hard stare at the canal through a mill window. A grey wagtail balleted purposeful on the frozen water, flashing its yellow underbelly while scrabbling at fags and empty cans of Galahad lager.

    Nature is so restorative, isn’t it?

    Feeling more objective, I wondered what all this resistance might be telling me. Strong feelings are often signals. Perhaps I was doing too much saying – wanting to rush straight to market with a fully formed idea of the whats, who, hows and whys of business. 

    So what would listening involve? Asking? Talking? Would that be a more appropriate, agreeable way to connect with people? What would that look like?

    After realising I’d just coached myself with some magnificent questions, I resolved that getting into conversation with people as an exercise in market research (“hello what’s your world like? Would you like some help with that?”) is a splendid way to shape a business.

    What would it take to lift your mood?

    In my experience coaching, when people have calm and perspective, their questions answer themselves. When I felt less defeated and morose after this remedial action, creativity came back online and suggested five specific things I could do to find my kind of people to coach. 

    That would never have happened, had I let the Grebes estate mentality shape my day.

    What’s especially notable is that the three things I put at the heart of coaching others – playfulness, compassion and curiosity, are the very same three things that lifted me out of this particular rut. Who’d have thought?

    Maybe there aren’t any boundaries between career, business and life? Perhaps it’s all one big adventure? Perhaps there are clues to what lifts your mood, in what you already give others?

    Bum days are inevitable

    When you’re in a bleak mood, how might a little less urgency and a little more ‘working up the levels’ towards a more useful state of mind, like I did, help you?

    Attitude is the perennial blocker of many, if not all, routes to where you dream of being, and back on the Grebes estate mine was all kinds of wrong. If that dreadful feeling of doubt and inaction is all-too-familiar and all-too-tiresome, then maybe it’s time we worked on new ways of showing up in the world? 

    Ever had a sluggish start to the day. What happened? How did you recover?

    Photo by sunrisesoup

  • On the impishly elusive state of focus

    Each morning, a former monk pours mellow reassurance directly into my ears via the HeadSpace app, reminding me that the hypothetical future wanderings drifting in and out of my mind, are actually quite inevitable.

    And don’t I know it…

    Your own private peep show

    All it takes is one word or evocative idea and my imagination’s in orbit. 

    Someone chit-chats about the weather; yet in my head I’m wondering what geo-engineered rain feels like. Or while buried in a good book, I’ll be orating a one-sided defence of post-capitalism.

    Whichever distraction prompts it, my awareness rockets skyward only to plummet earthbound, crashing, disorientated, several junctures ahead of where I left off. 

    It’s a bit like living in your own private episode of Peep Show. And it doesn’t half get in the way of being fully present and focused when I’m on-the-go. 

    For others, it’s not quite so simple 

    Luckily (or not) I’m a remorseless taskmaster so shit gets done – I’m just ‘not all there’ while I make it happen. 

    But I’ve coached other folk who don’t even know where to begin because of their greasy focus. And then there are other poor souls who’ve made an art of defer and delay, succumbing to playful distractions, overanalysis or crippling perfectionism.

    Whatever the reason and response – what’s so tortuous is that at a profoundly deep level, every one of us knows what really needs to be done. What matters most. 

    Yet somehow, all too often, it rarely gets done the way we hope it will.

    Quick, buy a book!

    However elusive focus feels, if you’re trying to navigate a meaningful existence through the noisy shitshow that is modern life, chances are you’re in for some frustration and resistance. 

    Cal Newport squeezed a palatable tome out of this de facto state of affairs, in one of those snazzy-covered, one-big-idea books that really only merit a chapter or two: Deep Work. 

    In it, Cal argues that deeply focused, applied concentration…

    “…is becoming increasingly rare and at the exact same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. … the few who cultivate this skill, and then make it the core of their working life, will thrive.”

    You’ve probably read or heard of Deep Work already – worldly soul on a journey of constant improvement that you are. So let’s not cover old ground. 

    Instead, think how what Cal said makes you feel…

    Like you need to fix this? ASAP? Because something’s wrong, there’s something you’re missing out on, or you’re not everything you know you could be. 

    That’s a tricky place to learn and build from though, isn’t it? Perhaps awkward and uncomfortable.

    It does, however, shift a lot of £12 books off the shelves.

    What meddles with focus could be a way forward

    Which brings me neatly onto one possible source of brooding malcontent with focus, or our lack of it. 

    When a coaching client rocks up in knots, one way to create a bit of breathing space is to put a fresh spin on things as they are.

    So, what if this royal pain in the arse focus thing is actually just an escape route in disguise? 

    Seriously.

    When I’m daydreaming-up dendritic dialogues of situations yet-to-be, instead of being enraptured by the task at hand (like I ought to), maybe my rocket-fueled imagination is just under-engaged. 

    At the risk of sounding ethereal and wanky – I’ve not honoured a talent.

    Perhaps if I took it for walkies in the park, let it have a shit if it’s a good boy (by journaling, for example), it might curl up by the fire later when I need to be wholly present and focused on whatever I’m supposed to be doing.

    So under-focus isn’t a hindrance. It could be a signal. An itch that needs scratching.

    • What if indecision and overanalysis is really just a vivid mind in search of a fresh project to commit to? What do the subject matters you ponder over tell you about what makes you tick?
    • What if your happy-go-lucky, effulgent way of engaging with the world – flitting playfully from one sensation to the next, is just a hunger for responsibility or resolution? Do the activities you lose time in tell you something about yourself?
    • What if all these things are just double-edged swords? They’re what draw people to you; part of your character that make you a joy to be around, yet a nightmare left alone.
    • What would working with (rather than against) under-focus look like? If it wasn’t a problem, how would that change things? 
    • Could you nurture distraction, procrastination, introspection like a useful urge that deserves context and direction? And how can you get clear on that?

    James Clear, another peddler of one-big-idea books (though admittedly a very good one), argues that focus frustrations often mask lack of clarity about what we really want. If we’re clear on that – what we want to be, do and have, focus tends to follow.

    In my experience coaching, getting clear means saying no to more stuff. Some put their needs first instead of others a little more often. Others build more variety and routine into their week so they satiate that incongruent human desire for structure and freedom.

    What we stand for presents options too 

    If you believe personal responsibility is a solid principle, how in practice might you raise your hand and say “know what, I’m going to give myself permission to indulge daydreaming/ procrastination/ avoidance/ introspection on Friday afternoons.” 

    Because responsibility isn’t the same thing as blame. You didn’t choose your mind, or those moreish thoughts and feelings that waft like farts through your cheesebox. 

    But you can choose to own what you’ve got to work with, and hack it, gently.

    Likewise, for cooperation, collaboration and community values. If you stand by them, how can you reach out to others when focus wanes? Know any other devout perfectionists or procrastinators? How are they getting on? Who’s taking the lead?

    By way of example on both of these, I take the lead from a lifelong master of relaxation: my darling spouse. With or without me, she’ll have her feet up, guilt-free, whenever the feeling takes her. So, after some resistance I tried her way. I owned my tendency to never sit still (when that’s appropriate), but come 6pm it isn’t so I down-tools, and resist tinkering with my latest DIY distraction.

    In my experience as a coach, inspiration and ways forward often lurk right beneath our noses. They only become apparent when we look beyond the struggle, and take on the role of curious and playful beginner – not weak, but daring, however uncomfortable we feel about the experiments that follow.

    Beware toxic entrepreneurialism

    Time for a pop at the rat-race, so here’s some vitriol…

    There’s a subtext to this whole focus thing. It’s that all-encompassing productivity is a gold standard. And that growth and progress should be linear and relentless. Five minutes suffering the sermons of entrepreneur influencers on YouTube confirms this.

    Sorry, but human progress isn’t like that (for most of us). 

    It’s blindly lurching forwards through puddles of our vomit, followed by a kick in the teeth then a nice sit-down. Then the sun comes out again and we’re off, ad infinitum.

    To put this in a more coach-like way, the mind and body seem to operate seasonally, with day-to-day emotional weather to contend with too. 

    It’d be trite to suggest focus is all about balance – you’re a smart reader, you already know that. My point is that there’s something about planning your route forward with seasons and weather in mind. 

    If the plan is to go pelvis-deep on Monday/Tuesday with wellbeing Wednesday for treats, then suddenly Tuesday arrives full of piss and wind; can you flex? Would you dare bring relaxation forwards when you need it most, shuffling other commitments with intention, and not give yourself too much of a hard time for taking such sensible, honest action? 

    Likewise, if all is well on Friday; can you roll with it and work into Saturday while the world rues its hangover? There’s something sweetly rebellious about stealing a march on the rat-race when it dares not intrude…

    All this demands responsibility, clarity and honesty with yourself – all themes that run deeper than what at first glance appears to be a localised bug in your focus software. 

    Focus defies brute force

    If trusty Buddhists like Andi Puddicombe of HeadSpace are to be believed, focus is less about being perpetually ‘on it’ – driven and productive. It’s more about “remaining undistracted”, apparently. 

    Nor can we fix or find focus. We can only cultivate conditions it prefers. It seems (from my own experiments) that focus may be one of those impishly desirable states, like happiness. We’re all chasing it, when pursuit is the very thing most likely to scare it off.

    It may well be that focus, like happiness, is a default state. Calm is already there within us, we just need to cut the shit piled on top of it, to make it more accessible. 

    Now there’s a twist.

    What if focus is neither good nor bad: it just is

    Despite my best efforts, I can’t court ‘becoming more present’ into my life by being (even more) disciplined. I’m already sorted for drive and self-organisation. And I’m quite fond of having an overactive imagination too (sometimes).

    Reading more books and how-to explainers won’t help much either (sorry Cal/James). That’s why I resisted the temptation to burp up yet another article littered with life-hacks on silencing your phone, pomodoro technique or working to binaural beats. 

    These things might help, but substantive change only ever really comes about through identity shift – our relationship with who we authentically are (warts and all)

    For me, that’s calling truce with my mind’s tendency to wander off into well-trodden hinterlands as I get on with things. It’s neither good, nor bad. 

    It just is. 

    I can only meet it as I do most professional challenges; curious, calm, compassionate, comic, contrarian, C-fixated coach I am.

    With that glimmer of calm acceptance quelling any tension, I can toy with step two: alternative identities. And discovering which aspects of character are worth fortifying, any gaps, and how to go about that, before embarking on wild experiments, as a playful beginner.

    To this end, I’ve got some upcoming befriending training that purports to embrace whatever (or rather whoever) is playing up inside our private box of frogs, when focus escapes us. As I understand it, a splash of compassion helps; checking-in with your interruptions. 

    I’ll report back on what I learn; perhaps that’ll shed more light on this whole focus thing.

    What next for you? 

    As we’ve seen, waning focus could be a signal rather than a hindrance. So, what might it be telling you about who you are and what you really want? How might you meet it in a different way?

  • Unsure what your ‘thing’ is? Clue #3: it’s what you obsess over

    Never one to burn time on trivialities – celebrity, sport etc, as usual, I went in hard during a recent walk with a friend: 

    ‘Every career deserves purpose. Work should be fulfilling’, I argued. 

    ‘Horseshit,’ came my friend’s response. ‘Work is a means to an end, the things that really matter happen outside of work.’ 

    Cue a discussion escalating in fruitiness, as we marched through patchwork parkland and sleepy suburban estates.

    Passing through a cemetery (that natural juncture for all existential discussion), we agreed that life is ultimately meaningless. And that people can either invent meaning intentionally or stumble upon it passively, by accident. Both are legitimate. 

    Yet, despite death lingering like a fog all about us, still I refused to concede the premise that people who put values and purpose first are way more fired up, because the job is on their terms. I’ve seen that in the people I coach, myself, and many others who choose a life of fulfilment over obligation – whether employed or otherwise.

    Debate was far more heated than it was conclusive as we neared the end of our walk. Both of us were entrenched. 

    That’s when I tried to break the deadlock… 

    All behaviour is communication

    So covertly, like a crap superman, I swapped my awkward bugger hat for my coaching hat, and soon discovered my friend was secretly obsessed with principled people who live by their values, and actively choose more fulfilling careers.

    Looking back, their obsession should have been obvious. Their reaction to my assertion that purpose isn’t a luxury (it’s a necessity) was disproportionately fiery and cynical. I knew my friend had itchy principles (we all do), but gentle probing revealed scratching them was a ‘nice to have’ not a ‘must have’ – out of fear and laziness, amongst other obstacles. And when they saw other people leading a life of the latter, they reacted strongly. Jealously. Viscerally.

    I’m not judging either. I know what all this feels like, because a couple of years ago that was me.

    Have you noticed these secret or repressed obsessions in yourself? 

    It could be with people making a living from a hobby you have. Maybe you can’t help yourself when a ghastly celeb reality TV show is on – fantasising about the freedoms they undeservingly enjoy. Have you got a secret nemesis you’ve never met, who when faced with the same choices you were, plumped for a different one and saw outcomes you only dream about?

    This isn’t a post about the evils of envy or anger. They’re just emotions – neither good nor bad. But they‘re signals too. Feelings are clues, usually pointing to injustice or a shortfall of what we need – telling us something about ourselves.

    So let’s indulge them a bit longer.

    Are there people you know living lives, plotting careers that disproportionately wind you up? 

    Yet you’re inexplicably drawn to them, charting their progress with morbid curiosity, even delegitimizing their success with skepticism or cynicism. 

    It’s OK, we all have these dark thoughts from time to time.

    For many years I was inwardly jealous, outwardly cynical in private about a nice person who’s a talented coach. I didn’t dare explore the hows and whys, I barely knew anything about coaching, I just watched from the sidelines and cast judgement. 

    Yet secretly, I was wondering what would that be like…

    Obsession needn’t be so negative of course. A fixation or compulsion is just something we’re inexorably drawn to, whatever form that takes. The clue you’re looking for is in the visceral reaction you have to it. 

    If it’s a strong and recurrent fascination, always emotive and inescapable, then there’s probably something in there. What are you longing for? It’s unlikely to be a thing, more a state of being – how what they’re doing makes you feel.

    Take it as your signal to explore the deeper recesses of your ambition. Maybe you could reach out and talk to that person? Be curious. Do a little research. Read some objective information on the subject instead of what your eyes would have you believe.

    Once you’ve made peace with your longing – accepting it for what it is, who knows where it’ll lead you.

    This article is part of a trilogy about clues to finding your thing

    Part one was about what you take for granted, and part two was about what you give but don’t get enough of yourself. Use them like “you are here” starting points on a map, as signposts for where to direct your curiosity. 

    That’s how I work as a coach – you’ve got the answers and the wherewithal to make things happen – it’s my responsibility to help you realise that.

    So if you’re interested in exploring your future, chasing your dreams and getting more purpose in your life, career, projects or business – here’s how to get some help with that.

  • Why no wanky spiritual coaching bollocks around here?

    Great question to ask a coach! I know exactly the sort of stuff you mean. Far too many coaches harp on about awakening the consciousness with positive energy, and twiddling chakras and all that bollocks.

    It really put me off getting my own coach when I began seeing what was out there on the coaching market. It was either hire a twig-chomping shaman or some smugfuck entrepreneur in a smart-casual blazer, jeans and t-shirt.

    Neither appeal to my kind of person, but let’s focus on the former and explain why.

    So why don’t you, as a coach, sound like that?

    Well, it’s a deliberate choice. All that positive mental attitude may very well be valid and effective on some people, but it’s a galaxy away from where the people I want to help are, right now. 

    When you’re in the mire, maybe wrestling with a big decision, worn out by an unfulfilling career or wondering what your next steps are with an exciting project the last thing you need is some pseudo hippy twat wittering away at you in psychobabble. 

    That’s why I describe my sort of people as do-ers, makers, thinkers – they’re practically minded. Too much woo-woo shite is a turn off.

    Sure, the mind-body coaching angle is interesting

    And there’s certainly useful stuff in there; I’m open-minded enough to draw from different perspectives (as I hope you are too).

    But only to a point. 

    I won’t ever pin my coaching practice to it. 

    Boring or scaring people who are wrestling with a very real dilemma, one that’s right in the way of where they need to be, isn’t a great way to run a coaching business. At least not one that’s accessible and delivers real-world results, sooner.

    You might find the odd subtle allusion to the ethereal alternative. But instead, my clients and I prefer to focus on pragmatic action, new ways of looking at old problems, stories and insight – all delivered in a clear, straight-talking style.

    Hopefully you’ll appreciate that too, if you’re interested in finding the right coach for you

    If you want a guru, a shaman, or an exorcist – there are plenty of coaches out there offering that sort of mystic coaching.

    If you want down-to-earth coaching, very much grounded in the here and now of the world you really live in, I’m your coach. 

    We can dream big, use our imagination and work practically towards your ideal – nothing wrong with that. But I won’t whip out a voodoo doll and reveal which crab is blocking your zodiac.

  • Unsure what your ‘thing’ is? Clue #2: it’s what you give but don’t get enough of yourself

    It’s all very well, a reformed copywriter-turned-coach harping on about the virtues of getting more meaning in your career. But when you’re knee-deep in the mire of figuring out what that actually looks like, it all sounds a bit wanky and conceptual, doesn’t it?

    So welcome back to the second installment (here’s the first) in a pragmatic trilogy of articles, on the subject of unraveling the mystery of what your thing is.

    This is all about working with what you have now (a random assortment of experience and skills), unpicking them, and seeking clues that’ll help you dive deeper – if you’re curious about having more purpose in what you do for a living.

    This clue, number two, is probably my favourite one to watch out for when I’m coaching people. Not only is it the least theoretical, it turns up again and again whenever someone unloads in one of our sessions.

    Here’s what the clue looks like

    I once met a branding consultant – talented as you like. They work with businesses large and small helping them go beyond mere logos, to developing full-blown communities of people who rally around a shared mythology.

    If you ever sat down with this person, and plonked an existential dilemma in front of them, they’d not only have it sussed within minutes, they’d have sketched out umpteen possible futures to choose from.

    Anyway, we got talking and they soon made an unexpected confession (it’s a heavy cross to bear as a coach). At a recent presentation, some senior bod suggested they put aside the branding stuff for a moment, to just talk about themselves: what they stood for, how they wanted to change the world – that kind of thing.

    Only then, they went to pieces. They couldn’t consult on themselves.

    Likewise, I know a talented programmer who’s ruthlessly perfectionist on delivering bullet-proof systems on time. They’ve a reputation for doing things right by their employer’s customers, by the book, everytime. A paragon of best-practice.

    But ask how their personal projects are getting on outside of work, and it’s a litany of clever, albeit perpetually shelved, self-improvement projects. An ever-growing list of things they keep meaning to get around to, that would undoubtedly fix their own perennial problems.

    We give others what we don’t get enough of ourselves

    This sort of unwitting self-sacrifice isn’t rare amongst good, capable people. It’s a pattern of behaviour I see with increasing frequency, the more I coach. 

    Now, call me a head-in-the-clouds, soft-leftie utopianist but you can see why this happens. Societies (and the relationships within them) don’t just function, they flourish when we compensate for one another’s inadequacies. 

    On top of this, we simply didn’t have the luxury of stepping back to work on ourselves, to learn and self-improve because we were too busy watching crops fail, getting stabbed or watching our kids die to do anything about it. Thankfully, a privileged minority of us now have the means to toy with that luxury.

    My working theory is it’s all about helping others with a struggle you know well. Cooperating to ease a burden, avoid or lessen the pain and suffering for someone going through what you’ve been through yourself.

    It also makes for a compelling argument for our vocations being a hefty force for good. We’re essentially making the world a better place, saying:

    “Let me save you some bother here. Don’t make the mistake I did. I can help you with that.”

    Yes, this can come from dark places

    I won’t dwell on this too much; I’m a coach not a therapist. So let’s just say rich clues often lay hidden in our wider, personal stories, beyond the typical professional journey of finding a solution to a problem then scaling it up (textbook entrepreneurialism).

    When your livelihood is rooted in the personal, it becomes a source of real depth and conviction. It’s visceral – a feeling that’s tricky to put in words. You just seem able to empathise better with the people you help, and therefore serve them better. Put simply, you care more. In fact, that’s a really good test of whether something really is your thing – how much do you really care about it?

    I suppose my own story of escaping the barren grey corporate wastelands and going a bit mad in the basement makes for a handy example of this. I know what it’s like to approach life’s junctures, feeling a little lost or stuck, like something’s missing – no soul in your occupation or grand plans forever just out of reach. I care a lot about that, so it helps me know where my clients are coming from and what it’s like to long for sunnier uplands.

    And the clue? I’d spent a decade going around helping clients express what they stood for, as a copywriter and analyst. So they felt valued, unique, expressed, clear and capable enough to take on the world.

    But, like those folks I mentioned earlier – did I give enough of that to myself in the same way I gave it to others? Nope, not without an arduous struggle. I needed my own coach to lance that particular pustule.

    So here’s how to spot clue number two yourself

    If you’re finding it tricky to get a handle on your thing, try looking at how you already throw yourself into the service of others. Maybe you’ve noticed a pattern emerging in your projects, and the kind of people you can’t help but help?

    What are you compensating for in your line of work? Perhaps you go out of your way to do something for others, that’s above-and-beyond what you’re contracted to do in your daily duties?

    Ever find yourself unable to bite your tongue when someone’s wrestling with a particular kind of challenge? When do you feel compelled to meddle because a predicament has echoes of one you once battled through yourself?

    Follow the clues, look for themes that emerge, and you’ll be hot on the trail of finding your thing.