What do I actually want now?

I've asked myself this question a few times over the years, and I was shocked at how hard it used to be to answer. I was so lost in other people's needs that I'd forgotten to steer my own ship. In fact I'd lost touch with where I even wanted to sail.

You may also have spent years building a life. Doing the job, meeting expectations, being there for everyone else. And you may be rightly proud of that.

But if you ask yourself the question "What do I want now", what happens? Do you go blank? Do you get excited? Do you get excited and then shoot it down straight away with practicalities? Do you end up beating yourself up?

I did. It was a vicious cycle, and it left me more and more at sea and less in touch with where I wanted to go.

Coaching can make you feel better. It may also, at least in the short term, make you feel worse. Because you'll realise that some of the stories you're holding onto tightly are the things holding you back.

Then you realise there is no rescuer coming. It's your responsibility, and yours alone, to make your life work. Which is heavy but it's actually where the freedom is. It isn't blame. I haven't found that particularly useful (whether I was blaming myself or others). What is useful is accepting that responsibility and then taking action.

It takes some work, and that's where I come in.

Sound familiar?

• You go blank when someone asks what you want. Or the idea lights you up for about a minute, then the practicalities put it out.
• Your partner or kids get the snappy, irritated version of yourself that you spend the day masking at the office.
• Your sense of who you are is stuck to a job title, or to your last big project or win.
• There's something you used to make, or always meant to, that has sat in a drawer for years.

Our work's focus

• What you care about now. Not what you were supposed to want, or what you wanted at 25.
• What you've been getting around. The things you feel, and have got used to not looking at.
• What you'd make if no one was watching. The creative side most of us put down years ago, whatever we do for a living.
• What you do next. Small, real, and this week, not someday.

Where this tends to leave men:

• A clear idea of what you want, and a plan that works around real life: money, family, time.
• Clearer boundaries, so the people at home get you and not the leftovers of the day.
• A sense of who you are that holds steady between jobs, and when work goes quiet.
• Less energy spent putting on a front at work, and more spent actually being there.

The work is led by you, guided by me

Each session is led by what's going on for you. These are the themes we move through, and your agenda bends them as it needs to. Although the weekly structure below can often happen, sometimes we touch on several of these in a session, and then the next session something shifts and we start in a new level of understanding from the top.

Sessions might end with one small thing to do: write something, make something, have the conversation you've been avoiding, take the first small step.

Six sessions, six weeks, one price

One package, so we both commit to the work. It starts with a free call to check we're a good fit.

Who it's for, and who it isn't