An 8am coaching session this week turned into one of those conversations I knew I had to share with you.
It wasn't meant to be that session. We'd rescheduled a few times - life got in the way, as it does - and by the time we finally met, something had shifted for my client.
In the weeks between, work had quietened down a little. Not because she'd planned a retreat or made any grand declarations about slowing down. Just because life had offered her a bit of breathing room, and for once she hadn't immediately filled it.
And in that space, she noticed something.
She felt restless.
At first she thought it was boredom - that familiar discomfort that comes when you're so used to running at full speed that stillness feels wrong. But the more she sat with it, the more she realised it was something else entirely.
It's like all the joy has been stripped out of everything
She described reading to her children while mentally composing tomorrow's to-do list. Walking the dog but not really being there. Cooking dinner because it needed doing. Sitting down with her family and treating it like another thing to get through.
She hadn't stopped loving her life. She'd just stopped experiencing it.
THE THING NOBODY TALKS ABOUT
We practise the life we say we want to leave behind
Here's what made this conversation so interesting.
She'd already made the commitment to change. She wanted to cook because she loved cooking. To read for pleasure. To walk without a podcast on, without the invisible pressure to make the time productive. These weren't big ambitions. The things she wanted were already right in front of her.
And yet she'd slipped straight back into the old patterns.
When we started exploring why, it became clear this wasn't about time. She had time. It wasn't even about motivation - she genuinely wanted to change.
What she'd actually done, over years, was practise a completely different way of being. She'd practised checking emails at the gym. Listening to business podcasts on walks. Crawling into bed exhausted and feeling proud of it, because somewhere along the line exhaustion had become evidence of a good day.
We say we want balance. We say we want to slow down. And then we answer one more email, squeeze one more thing in, fill every last gap.
We're almost rehearsing the life we're trying to leave.
THE HARDER TRUTH
Waiting for permission
She also said something else that I hear more than you might think.
That she'd sometimes found herself wishing something significant would happen. Nothing catastrophic - just enough to give her a legitimate reason to stop. A proper excuse to slow down. Permission from the outside, because changing by choice felt harder.
Permission from redundancy. From burnout. From a health scare. From someone else making the decision for them.
This is more common than we like to admit. And it makes complete sense - because if life forces the change, we're off the hook. We don't have to justify it. We don't have to face the discomfort of choosing differently when nothing's 'wrong.'
But that's exactly where the real work is.
THE QUESTION I AM LEAVING YOU WITH
How are you complicit in the conditions you complain about?
It's not a comfortable question. I don't enjoy asking it, and my client didn't enjoy hearing it. But it's one of the most powerful questions I've come across in coaching, because it shifts the focus from everything out there - the workload, the boss, the school run, the endless emails - back to where real change is possible.
Where are you telling yourself you'll rest once you've finished one more thing?
Where are you convincing yourself you have to earn a quiet afternoon?
Where have you tied your worth to how much you achieve?
None of this is easy. These patterns are deep-rooted and they've been reinforced over years, sometimes decades. But unless you look at them - really look at them - you'll carry them straight into your next chapter. New role, same patterns. New pace, same pressure.
So if you're listening to this, or reading this, and something in you went oh - take that as your permission slip. From you, to you.
I'd love to know what came up for you reading this. This one tends to land - drop me a message on Instagram or LinkedIn. I genuinely love hearing from you.
And if this is the kind of work you're ready to do properly, Reset & Rise is where we go deeper. This is exactly what we unpick together - the beliefs, the patterns, the quiet ways we keep ourselves stuck.
Speak soon,
Sal x
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