I wasn’t expecting this ‘freelance’ business to be quite so freeing.
It’s a completely different angle on what good work-life balance actually is. I’m finding myself less interested in keeping divisions between things, and more interested in creating a whole life I enjoy.
A mind, body and heart that are good places to live in, and to live out of.
Just one glance at the photos, and you’ll see immediately what gorgeous people I’ve been working with lately.
Coaching has really taken off – I still haven’t advertised, so it’s been mainly word of mouth, but I’ve worked with 12 clients during this 6 months, with another about to start.
I love this work. There’s an infinite amount to learn about helping people live awake to conscious choice, and true to what they value most.
In contrast, it was extraordinary to meet up in China with ex-students from Yulin, and hear how much we still value and remember our time together back in the southernmost tip of the Gobi, at the beginning of my working life.
And I’ve worked with and for some excellent colleagues too- I’m thriving on the balance of sparky teamwork and flying solo.
My coachees are spread from here to Novosibirsk – cool, eh?
My own travels have been very satisfying; Save the Children Philippines, Management Excellence workshops in Scotland, Northern Ireland and various parts of England, planning days in Vienna, and the indisputable highlight:
The Ignatian Leadership Programme in Manresa, near Barcelona.
It’s the highest quality piece of work I have ever had the privilege to deliver on, with an über-talented team. We have delegates from 22 countries- watching them relish and utilise the diversity is inspiring.
And it runs over two years, so there’s lots more to come, and I can’t WAIT. Vienna next, in July.
Completing the full Coaches Training Institute curriculum was a watershed. I’m clocking up post-qualification hours now towards my International Coaching Federation accreditation- I’m well over halfway there, which is a pleasant surprise.
But the largest proportion of my work has been training- about half, with coaching, consultancy, facilitation and retreat guiding combined making up the other half. I worked a lot less days than last year!
But it takes some getting used to, always being at the front, and nearly always needing to function at 100% attentiveness and performance. A working day of this is not equivalent to my old day job (it feels a bit like being a stand-up comedian, teacher, leader and therapist all at once), and I need to plan sensibly for that.
The balance of paid / lo bono / pro bono has been much healthier in the second half of this year.
I have said a couple of good No’s recently, but I still need to strengthen my Saying No muscles. And you might be surprised how many charities expect you to work for nothing.
The charity sector is blessed with coaches and trainers from the corporate world doing their week of ethical pro bono, but I need to live on this, so I can’t and shouldn’t be working for nothing.
Going freelance has been empowering, stretching, startling, responsible, intense, challenging and thrilling. I have changed more as a person in this one year than in any other. I may be working less days, but I can see how easy it would be never to switch off entirely.
So spending last month in China (waving my husband off on the Clipper sailing race across the Pacific) has been great because I’ve been very thoroughly out of it. No Google, Gmail, Facebook, Twitter… quite refreshing (albeit not very practical long-term!).
So for the next three months I will be in the USA, doing some epic cycling (Monterey coast), road trips (North-west coastline and California), trains (San Francisco to New York via EVERYWHERE on the iconic California Zephyr), and husband-spoiling (when the Clipper fleet reaches Seattle and then New York). Oh, and I’ll be doing a bit of coaching and a few days each month of desk-based consultancy.
And then it’s back to ‘normal’; Vienna for leadership training, London for talks and training courses, Wales and Sussex to guide on retreats, and lots of coaching.
I’m in the process of joining RedR, one of the world’s great humanitarian training organisations (last year they trained 5,224 humanitarians in 32 countries), beginning with a fascinating (and gruelling) 2-hour Skype interview from El Salvador & Scotland, and followed by doing their Certificate in Humanitarian Practice in July. I will enjoy being a trainee for a change!
Very excitingly, I am also leading on the design of an offshoot Ignatian leadership programme for four North-European countries (UK, Ireland, the Netherlands and Belgium), the planning for which will start in July or September.
And another big next step is to start creating my own workshops to sell to organisations- ‘creating a coaching environment’, ‘leading with all of yourself’, ‘management bootcamp for small NGOs’- who knows?
By the next newsletter I will have more to tell you on that. Perhaps I will even have got my website and publicity organised, as I promised last time…
But what strikes me as I collect all this information together is that it’s all been about people.
And so will the next year, and the year after that.
And that gives me the strongest sense of being in the right life, (to quote my friend and colleague Simon) ‘doing the right things, in the right place, at the right time, with the right people’. That’s a joy.