Hello you,
Well, the weather has changed with us in the last few days, bringing much needed rain at last after a few glorious weeks of sunshine here in the Ribble Valley. It's feeling fresher, almost autumnal; cleansing and cool, shifting our focus back indoors, regrouping and checking in.
The change in weather is coinciding with an autumnal shift in my internal seasons; once again I'm grateful to be cycle tracking and noting these patterns... they've become familiar and saved me from a downward spiral on more than one occasion.
For me, the autumn part of my cycle brings reflection, internal-focus and often a big dose of I'm-not-good-enough. It usually starts with...
- what's the point?
- I'll never build my business!
- I might as well give up...
Once upon a time, I spent many years living with self-doubt, not confident in my abilities despite what others said (in fact the gap between their view of me, and mine, only made it worse), holding myself back from any opportunities and staying really safe in my little bubble. I thought it was because I just wasn't capable of being any other way; I wasn't like the big, confident ones, I was small, unheard and staying like that. It's just the way introverts are... [spoiler: this isn't true]
Like most good stories, a fairy godmother arrived around this point to show me there was another way. Mine was called Colin and he rode a motorbike.
Colin was a coach, the first one I'd ever met, 8 years ago now, and I knew straight away that I too was a coach, already, on the inside. Colleagues told me the same thing; here is what I was meant to do, at last. It just remained for me to find some great training and I could get on with helping people, confident at last!
Except that... despite learning the skills, my self-doubt was still there... who was I to think people would want to work with me? I wasn't good enough, I couldn't shout loud enough to be freelance and I'd never get an actual job coaching...
Long story short, I found myself a coach; this time a namesake of mine, from New Zealand, and working together we got right under the skin of what was holding me back, and how I could move forward. I found ways to grow my self-belief. Yippee!