Why I Do This
I didn't become a coach because I read a book about it. I became one because I've been the person sitting across from where you are now, more than once.
I joined the RAF at 21, by the time I left my uniform had defined alot of my personality that I hadn't even noticed. It told people who I was, what rank I was, what role I was currently doing, therefore approximately how old I was, roughly what experience I had etc. It even told me who I was. I was known by my rank and surname, I'd had enough.
There was a structure around everything; where to be, what to wear, when to eat. In the Officers' Mess there were two or three options for dinner. That sounds ridiculous now, but I genuinely didn't appreciate how much mental energy I was saving by not having to make a thousand tiny decisions every day.
And beyond the logistics of it, there was something else, something I found harder to name. I felt like I was part of something, contributing to the Country I loved and serving a purpose that was bigger than a quarterly target or someone else's bonus (thanks City for teaching me that!). This feeling mattered to me more than I realised, I hadn't valued it or noticed it so much until it was gone.
Leaving felt like stepping off a moving train, invigorating for about five minutes, also terrifying and maybe discombobulating. I felt disorientated, a little listless but excited about the change.
Working in the City was my next chapter, taking a well trodden route by Veteran's of His Majesty's Armed Services. It meant wearing my hair down for the first time in my working life, I could have red or pink nails for work, I could wear heels or make up. I had many more decisions to make and couldn't just pick a Wedgewood blue shirt off a hanger and throw it on... I had to think smartly about making the civilian clothing work harder for me. More tiny decisions each day...
It also meant long hours at a desk and a much longer commute, heading into the City of London on (often) unreliable trains, before the Elizabeth Line had opened. But getting to return home to my own house, not an Officer's Mess. I had my own space.
On paper it made sense, I had so so many options, I had a new career, so many new decisions to make all the time. It should have felt fresh, invigorating, exciting, even joyful. In practice, something was quietly wrong almost immediately.
I remember sitting on a train at gone 8pm — again — because a boss had told me they' were leaving a 4.30 and they'd "log back on at 7, after the kids were in bed. I'll speak to you then" (this was in the days before Covid and I wasn't able to work from home...) Like that was a normal thing to say.
No extra pay. No acknowledgement that I'd been there since 7am. Just an assumption that my time was infinitely available at the desk because theirs was finite.
When I left the RAF, I'd carried out an exercise where I'd sat down and thought about what actually mattered to me. What I wanted the key pillars of my life to look like. And the further I got into that City role, the more clearly I could see the gap between that list and what I was actually living.
I was tired, properly tired. The running I so enjoyed had dropped away, I was drinking more than I should. I wasn't keeping up and I knew it. It wasn't a dramatic collapse. When I've noticed it in others, it rarely is. It was just a slow drift in the wrong direction and a growing feeling that something had to shift.
That feeling has a name. Most people I work with know exactly what it is, even if they haven't said it out loud yet.
Is this it?
It's the question that sits underneath the 'busyness'. Underneath the packed diary and the decent salary and the life that on paper looks absolutely fine. It's the question you ask yourself on a Sunday evening when the week is about to start again and something in you goes quiet.
I've asked it myself. More than once. At the end of my RAF career, in the middle of the City years and at various points in between. I've had to figure out who I am when the title someone else has designated me with changes. When the structure disappears. When the version of myself I'd built around a particular role or identity no longer fits.
It's uncomfortable. It's also, I'd argue, one of the most important things a person can sit with if they have the right space to do it.
That's what I offer, not a five-step plan or a dramatic transformation promise, I provide a thinking space. That is confidential, practical and with someone who actually understands what it feels like to stand at a crossroads and not know which way to go because they've been there, done several versions of it, and come out the other side with a clearer sense of direction.
I'm not going to tell you what to do. But I can help you get clear on what you actually want and from there, the next steps tend to get a lot less foggy.
If any of this is landing, you know where to find me.
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