Welcome to The Unencumbered You (New Year? New View! Week 6)
Alright calm down, I know it’s taken me a bit longer to get this last part of the New Year, New View series finished but good things take time you know!
I WAS also busy sitting my ICF ACC coaching exam (which I passed, hurrah!) and also completing the paperwork for a Coaching and Mentoring course with BECTU/ILM/Cult Cymru (which I got in on time, up top!).
And I really wanted to make sure Week 6 was useful and not just a summary of the previous weeks. So, yes, this final week is a chance to summarise your learning from the previous weeks but it also gives you space to develop your “how” further with expanded explorations and reflections. The idea is to move to action now.
It’s been a journey (TM)
If you’ve been following along with the New Year, New View series and working through the workbooks, I hope you’ve found something useful in the process so far.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve looked at awareness, understanding, acceptance, what matters to you and some of the practical realities of trying to move forwards when it feels like your brain, energy, life circumstances or environments don’t necessarily make that straightforward.
The point of this series has never been to “fix” you or to help you become more productive, more disciplined, more organised, or somehow better at being a person. It’s been about understanding yourself more honestly so you can build a life that works better for you.
But with better understanding comes great responsibility
(Probably should have mentioned that in week one!) Because thinking and reflecting absolutely have their place but at some point, something has to happen with what you now know if you want something to be different.
Understanding yourself doesn’t automatically create momentum- it might actually do the opposite. Sometimes receiving a diagnosis or arriving at a self realisation can feel validating and empowering straightaway but sometimes it can feel completely destabilising.
You might suddenly be looking back at your life through a totally different lens. Feeling grief, anger, relief, confusion, resentment, sadness- sometimes all at once. You may even find that whatever was holding things together before suddenly doesn’t seem to work anymore, because now you can see what it was costing you- in masking, focus, energy and attention.
Needing to take time to process doesn’t mean you’ve gone backward, it just means awareness changes things. But if you’ve realised life doesn’t feel how you want it to feel, then when you’re able, the next question becomes:
Alright, what now? and…
What do I actually need?
What support would make this easier?
What can I stop pretending works for me?
What would help me move forward as I am, rather than as some imaginary ideal version of myself?
Sometimes we get stuck in the ideating stage:
Thinking
Researching
Planning
Reflecting
Learning
Processing
And while these all have their place, moving to action gives us a chance to test some of these ideas against reality- which can be daunting to commit to but sometimes we learn best when we think AND do.
It doesn’t mean we have to become action people overnight setting massively ambitious goals. It’s about recognising who we are, what we want, what we've got as resources and what’s the best way for us to get to where we want to be.
So how do you design a more sustainable life that allows you to feel more like yourself?
It might mean changing expectations
Putting support in place
Creating structure that actually suits your lifestyle
Letting go of ideas that no longer fit you
Trying a different approach
Asking for help
Doing one small thing instead of waiting until you feel ready to do everything
So the end of this process is really just the beginning- a chance to build on what you already knew about yourself, to incorporate new things, to acknowledge your strengths and all the adaptations you already made for yourself, to know you’re not alone and to empower you with ways to move forward when you’re ready.
You can download week 6 below and if you want to know more about coaching with me or joining my accountability membership The AMP Club get in touch!
