When is it a good time?

I’ve had a few conversations with friends and clients these past few weeks about “when is it a good time” to do something, tell someone about a decision, or make a life change.

No-one likes change. We’re human. It’s how we’re made.when is the right time

And then there’s the mind monkeys, or gremlins, whatever you call those voices you hear in your head. They talk to you all the time prompting more self doubt than you had in the first place. We all have them. They’re normal for humans too. We can learn to control them, so we start to hear them less and less.

If you find yourself saying:

  • When that happens I’ll do…
  • If only I could…
  • I need to wait until…

then you’ll understand that “when is a good time” is a common question to ask oneself.

Working out when is a good time

There may not be an answer to this. If a friend asks you when they should do something, what do you say to them? When a close friend asked me this the other week, my response was, “is there ever a good time?”. She thought about it, and agreed that there wasn’t. So we then talked about what was “right”.

Now right for her may not be right for me or you. I suggested she listened to herself, and when she felt it was the right time it would be good too.

By listening to yourself and working out what’s right for you, is the only way you can work out when a good time is for you. [Are good and right the same things? Maybe that’s a conversation for another day. I’ll continue to use both here as I’ve found people use them interchangeably. So that’s what I’ll do too.]

If you continue to ask others for their advice, you’re not owning your own choices. I know they’re hard and you want someone else to take responsibility. However, it’s hard because you know you want to change something and it feels like you’re ready. You’re just waiting for the right time to do it.

I was forced to make a big change

When I was growing my first business, I knew I was getting close to making the decision to leave my salaried position to grow my business further. Then I was made redundant and the change was made for me. I was fortunate that I had no control over this in one way, as it made me step up and continue to grow the business with a new focus.

You’ll hear some coaches talk about thinking about each day being the day before you die – what would you want to achieve today? What would you do if you knew this was last day that you could do that thing? Would you still stall and not do it? Or would you take the opportunity to just do it?

If I was to tell you now that if you don’t do it today you never will, how would that make you feel? That you have to make a change? Or it’s not worth it?

Life changes whether we like it or not

It is a fact of life that life changes. We have no choice. There are the seasons we live through. Natures life cycles of birth, growth and death. We accept that spring follows winter. We accept that death is a part of life.

Yet we often struggle to do something which only takes a few seconds to do. Yes, telling someone about a decision you’ve made only takes a few seconds, even though it’s taken hours, maybe months to think about it. Farrar Storr’s book, The Discomfort Zone brings this to life. If you’re living in discomfort because you can’t find “the right time” to tell someone about a change you’d like to make, how much are you stopping yourself from moving forward in your life?

Most change makes us feel uncomfortable. You may well feel that the change is outside your comfort zone so you don’t want to take that step. Yet you know that magic happens when you take that step. It’s all so confusing.

All of this is going round and round your head. You’re stopping yourself going anywhere with all this self-talk.

Keep it simple

Whilst the change/s you want to make may be complex, if you can keep your steps simple, you can make the change happen more easily.

Know what you want to achieve

If you know what you want to achieve, you’ll find the small steps to make changes easier. If you’re still confused about what you want, talk it through with a friend or coach and get it clear first.

Stick to your values

Be yourself. Your core values are just that. If the change you want to make is to support your values then you’ll know that it’s the right thing to do.

Ensure you’re staying safe

Whether you’re making a life change or changing careers, staying safe will be important to the timing. I include your mental health as well as your physical health here.

Creating the change at the right time

When a friend asked me to go to Malawi with her to a village in the south of the country, I felt too that it may not be the right time. However, I couldn’t find any reason why I shouldn’t go with her. It’s a fantastic opportunity to live in a village for two weeks and contribute some skills. I’m leaving my family, who are very able to look after themselves, and my business, to go off exploring. Is that a bad thing? For me it’s not. I’m excited and delighted my friend asked me. I’ve had three weeks to think about it and two more to prepare everything I need.

What questions do you ask yourself to work out when is it a good time for you? If you need help working something out, book a complimentary Explore call or work with me.

Sharing kindness by listening more

” Kindness is the language the deaf can hear and the blind can see. “Mark Twain

sharing kindnessThe horror and revulsion after the shooting in New Zealand last Friday has left many people questioning kindness this weekend. We know horrors happen everyday. From poverty in our communities; to crimes which seem to go unnoticed, but not to the victims.

Yet, there is so much kindness in our communities that if we focused on that, would we spread kindness quicker?

We spent a wonderful time with friends this weekend, catching up, sharing laughter and food. Kindness was shared in hospitality, and the thoughtful gifts which were shared between friends. Each person listened to others as we updated them on our lives, and we learnt a little bit more about each other.

That’s no different from the way in which many people spend time – being with friends and family and listening and learning.

How often do you listen well?

How often do we listen to those we don’t know though? How often do we meet new people with no other purpose than to learn about them and what they’re up to? For no other reason than we’re interested?

Would our listening help us understand those in our communities more? Would those who have no-one to listen to them in their lives, start to feel heard?

I’m not professing to have any answers. All I seem to have is questions at the moment! Yet the questions I’m asking myself are helping me to explore things in a bit more depth. The questions others are asking me, are also allowing me to dig deeper and understand the world I live in a bit more.

Why is it important to understand? To listen? I believe if we don’t listen to ourselves, or to others we go off down a path which isn’t quite right for us. I’ve done it before, not followed my intuition. Yes, I learnt a lot on those journeys, but wouldn’t it be more beneficial, less time consuming if we followed our intuition and listened to ourselves more?

When you listen to yourself you’ll uncover some new ideas. Some ideas you may have had years ago and put away until the time was right and promptly forgotten them! That’s what I’ve uncovered these past few weeks of reflection in my own business and life.

When you share your story with others, and they ask you questions as they’re interested to know more, it helps you to shape your ideas. Friends, strangers, coaches and business partners can all help you to fine tune the ideas which have popped into your head, without you needing to spend a lot of time or energy on developing a new business plan. Simply sharing with others helps you hear others opinions and they’ll help you explore if the idea is a good one, or the challenges you may face from how they see it through there eyes.

Being kind doesn’t cost anything

Being kind doesn’t cost anything. It usually doesn’t take any extra time either. Yet, I hear stories of people saying that they found it unusual when they were shown kindness.

How about we switch that around? That being kind is normal, and what we expect from everyone in our lives and our communities.

As the UK enters another tricky week of discussions about Brexit, what if politicians listened to their constituents and shared kindness to one another to listen to the views of others. Actually listened. What would that do for the conversations we had in our families, in our social networks and in the media? Whatever the results of parliamentary votes, if we all treated each other with kindness would we feel like we were making progress in our country?

As you can see, I’m exploring so many ideas at the moment, but they come back to listening and kindness. These are at the heart of all my work, my life and my passions, so I have to explore them each and every day. I’d love to hear what your thoughts are on kindness. Also what you’re exploring at the moment. Are you asking big questions, or being challenged by others or outside forces to look at things in a new way?

If you need help listening to yourself and your ideas, please feel free to book a free 20 minute explore call. I love listening to you, and hearing where you’re up to and what you’re looking to explore next.

Listen to yourself, you’re right

I’ve learnt to listen to myself much more closely these last couple of years, thanks to being an Acorn tutor, where I teach others to listen. The amazing thing is, when I listen to myself, I’m always right!

We’re often afraid to listen to ourselves, because we don’t believe in our ourself. Oh, there’s so many reasons we don’t listen. “I’m not good enough”, “I don’t know enough”, “They’re an expert, so they know what’s best”. What’s your main reason for not listening to yourself? I think mine has been, not believing in my own ability, and knowing what’s right for me.

I’ve wanted other people to tell me what to do, so I can ‘blame’ them if it doesn’t work out. Rather than take that responsibility on myself, I’ve chosen, in the past, to listen to other people’s advice, rather than my own. Guess what? Things didn’t work out, and I blamed myself and those others who’d advised me.

Listen to yourself, you’re right

are you bling to your own needs or do you listen to yourselfListening is powerful, and it really brought it home to me this weekend when I was running a course with a massively experienced listener and trainer. Part of the delivery is that as trainers we show a ‘formal listening’ session, using a live issue for one of us. I was the listener on this day. My colleague had given me an inkling about the topic – it’s one she’s talked about before, and I thought it was going to be a continuation of the story.

As she began to talk and explore her own thoughts out loud, it became obvious that what she thought was troubling her, and the area she’d been focusing her energy thinking about, (and not sleeping), wasn’t the actual deep issue. The deep issue, which my listening helped her explore, was something very basic, and also something she helps others with all the time in her work and volunteering. It was, “look after myself first”.

It struck me that this lady with all her knowledge and experience was still blinded to her own answers as she hadn’t spent time listening to herself. She was caught up in her busy life, and despite offering listening to others, hadn’t taken the time to listen to herself. It made listening come to life again for me, and how important it is to all of us. Do you listen to yourself and others?

We’re often blinded by others people’s knowledge, or enthusiasm, or we love their take on life and the bigger picture. However, no-one knows you like you do, and no-one can know what you’re really feeling or thinking right now. Only you know. Only you can know and do what’s right for you in your situation. It may well be hard, but deep down you know it’s right. For you.

I know my passion for helping others to listen better, and inspiring confidence to listen to yourself, will help many people live happier lives. Whether you want to be a better parent, or grow your business, or become healthier, it all comes back to listening to yourself. You’re right, and no-one can tell you otherwise.

If you’d like to learn more about listening, and the plans I’ve got for helping young people to listen to themselves, get in touch.

If you’d like to book a listening session with me, I’m opening my diary up from next week to listen to you, so that you can listen to yourself, as you’re right, and I want you to believe it.

[If you’re in Lancashire, then I recommend using the One2one Listening service run by volunteers]

Listening, being creative and writing for your business

Thoughts from my week – I hope they inspire you to be creative, listen to yourself, and write. We all have talents and skills hidden away. I believe today is the day to start finding them and using them 🙂

Happy Friday & it’s a beautiful autumnal sunny day here for me right now. I hope it stays that way for the weekend ahead – eldest has his final athletics competition of the year in Lincolnshire, and it’s always a nicer weekend without the rain!

It’s been a strange start to September for me, with some clients moving away from needing support, (which is always fantastic to see), new ones asking for help, and some projects going live. It’s exciting and scary all at once. I’ve had the opportunity to explore new opportunities, and open my mind to my creativity, which is fascinating. Do you open your mind to creating new things each week? (new recipe, new idea, new textile, new exercise?) I highly recommend it. It’s very freeing.

Listen to yourself you have your best interests at heartI’ve delivered a Listening course this week as well, in a volunteer role for the One2One Listening project in Preston, Lancashire. Training takes so much out of you, as you try and share everything you know in such a way that others understand and can use that information in their own lives. This week we were focusing on listening to ourself, which can often be quite challenging. We often keep our ‘real’ selves hidden, especially from our clients or customers, which means we shy away from our self in every day life. We think it’s not important. But I’ve learnt over the last few years that spending time listening to myself has been the most important part of my personal and business development. This listening has helped me move away from the things (and people) who’ve hurt me, and allowed me to find my confidence to do the things I love – loving my family and supporting others.

This week, I finished the book “Start with Why” by Simon Sinek. You may well know it very well. If so, why didn’t you tell me about it before? I’ll let you read my review rather than talk more about it here. However, I think that’s what I’m going to really focus on now – my Why. Everything I do will fit with my Why from now on. I may have seemed focused up until now, but it’s only these last few weeks that I’ve had my own lightbulb moment which is now helping me move forward with my own goals.

And then this came through this morning – http://mybook.to/bloggingbook The ebook of the 30 day blogging challenge. Today it’s FREE so go grab your copy. You can use the information in this book for all sorts of writing for yourself and/or your business. There’s support and information about how to make your blog/website better & if you want it, there’s a free support group to help you become a better writer/blogger/business owner. I’ve done the challenge a few times, and it’s always helped me move forward – personally and in my businesses. Whatever you want to achieve in your business, and your life, there’ll be some nuggets of advice in this book to help you along the way.

I hope you’ve had a positive start to the new school year, and are excited about the next few months for yourself and your business. I’d love to hear your plans, and what you’re creating with all your skills and talents. Let me know if you’re starting to write publicly for yourself or your business, and I’ll share your work with others.

Have a great weekend. I hope the sun shines on you and your family,

Who listens to young people

Whilst it’s lovely to hear how schools, colleges and universities are supporting our young people, does this really address what support young people would choose for themselves? Are young people really being listened to? Do we as parents always listen well?

who can your children talk to to get things off their chest. ListenI had a fascinating chat today with an organisation looking to set up a Listening service in schools, as it’s “what the schools are asking for”. Personally, I think that listening services are needed in all communities, as not everyone has someone they can off-load to, or talk to, about what’s on their mind. You know that when you “get something off your chest” you feel better, but not everyone has the opportunity to tell someone else. This can build up over time, until a crisis happens, or, quite often, it affects a person’s mental health.

It got me thinking though. I trust our teachers and education experts. I trust youth workers, and researchers. However, if a listening service, (or something similar) is set up in a school, will the young people want to use it, and just because leadership teams think it’s a good idea, is this the type of support young people want in school?

Schools and colleges have a whole raft of support systems and services, both in school and from external partners to support young people. I personally know some counsellors who work in schools. There are learning mentors. There’s youth workers. Careers advisers, achievement specialists, and whole raft of other support available. Is a listening service really needed?

From the outside, and looking at this logically, to me, listening allows the young person to use that listening ‘space’ to talk about anything they want. A lot of the other services are quite focused and may be looking helping the young person move from x to y.

But do young people understand what ‘listening’ is? Have many of our children experienced really good listening, so would say, “yes! I would benefit from that!”. Or, is this a service that may sound good when we’re discussing it, but when we put it into practice it may not be quite what’s needed? Have we got a lot of educating to do with young people, (and parents and teachers), for this to really benefit them in the way we know it helps adults who access listening services?

I can see it from all sides. But I’m not a young person, so I can’t see it from their point of view.

What’s your view? What support do young people want? Is having someone to listen to them (or to talk to about anything they like), a good idea?

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How do you listen

How do you listen

I’ve had a wonderful day, delivering an Effective Listening Course, as part of my volunteering with One2One Listening Service in Preston. The course was written by Acorn, who I’ve trained with to deliver this training.

We had fun, we shared stories about being listened to well, and when we weren’t listened to. Everyone, even the two trainers who led the session, developed their listening skills during the day.

One of the most powerful sessions, today, was the session, called, “How do I listen?”. This section is starting to get people to think about themselves, and the effect they have on others. The trainer reads the following words, so as you read this, hear the words in your head, as if you were listening to them:

When I ask you to listen and you start giving me advice, you have not done what I asked. When I ask you to listen to me and you begin to tell me why I shouldn’t feel that way, you are trampling on my feelings. When I ask you to listen to me and you feel you have to do something to solve my problems, you have failed me – strange as that may seem.

Listen! All I ask of you is that you listen, not talk or do, just hear me. Advice is cheap.

When you do something for me that I can and need to do, for myself, you contributed to my fear and inadequacy; but when you accept as a simple fact that I do feel what I feel no matter how irrational, then I can stop trying to convince you and get down to the business of understanding what’s behind them. And when that’s clear, the answers are obvious and I don’t need advice. Perhaps that’s why prayer is so important for some people – God listens and stays with us but doesn’t give advice all the time or try to fix things. God listens and gives us the power to work things through for ourselves, but I need you to be with me too. So please, just listen. If you want to talk, wait a few minutes for your turn and I’ll listen to you.

Anonymous writer

What are you immediate reactions when you ‘hear’ this? Do you think you could listen better tomorrow?


Acorn runs training and events for the facilitation of personal and community well-being for individuals and organisations, at their retreat centre in Bordon, Hampshire, and across the country.

Effective Listening Practice, is module 1 in a Listening Pathway to train professional Listeners to support those who need to be heard in their communities.

Listening is a recognised talking therapy, recognised by healthcare professionals.