The Buddhists have a great saying: if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him. This is not a gratuitous invitation to violence but a reminder that we owe it to ourselves to be intelligently skeptical and humbly self-reliant. I am right there with them. >>> read more

I have already said that I considered 'energy management' - which I prefer to call Personal Ecology because I am not that fond of management speak - to be a crucial part of coaching. This is all very well but HOW can I actually DO it? 

I started by being slightly conflicted about it because I held two apparently opposed ideas: >>> read more

There is a lot of talk these days about Work-Life Balance, and so there should be. I think this is a very important area of coaching. >>> read more

I will never forget the day I looked at my goals sheet in my office and tore it to pieces. I had not achieved (nor was I ever likely to achieve) a single one of my short, medium and longer term goals. After three years of illness, I had simply run out of time. It took me weeks to 'process' the pain, the anger and the disappointment I felt as a result. >>> read more

One of the most challenging aspects of my recovery has been, and continues to be, allowing myself to experience what I experience. My great fear has always been to give in because I used to equate it with giving up.

The way I started dealing with depression was by fighting against it with all my strength. As it got deeper, I fought more and more until I eventually ran out of steam. I am now aware that I exhausted myself as much as depression exhausted me. >>> read more

Throughout my coaching career, I lost count of the number of times I said that we were Human Beings and not Human Doings. I was right of course but I was missing a big point. >>> read more

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My top Core Value is Spirituality so words like soul and soulful are part of my every day vocabulary. The most horrendous time in my illness was when I felt I had lost my connection to God (whatever that word may mean to you). >>> read more

Oh dear... I am about to debunk one of coaching's sacred cows - i.e. that coaching is about the present and the future, not about the past. Yeeesssss....

That's like saying a tree is about its trunk and its branches, not about its roots.  >>> read more

In my previous tip, I stated that my feeling bad was very often the necessary starting point towards real positive thinking for me. I am now going a step further: feeling bad is actually good for me.

I know what you are thinking - she's definitely lost it! But please bear with me....  >>> read more