Tag: Aboutme
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Setbacks and identity
I confess my recent humbling attempts to start upper body exercise again have had me questioning some fundamentals of my identity. Joy and pride in getting stronger has been a really important part of my fitness journey, and something that has motivated me to start building up my skills to offer personal training. These last…
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Change
Looking back, I see I’ve written a lot about change, and I came up with three reasons why. Firstly because coaching is about making changes. Our goals generally don’t drop in our laps – we need to do something, however small, to make them come to life. At its best, coaching is about the inner…
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Choosing change
A meaningful career change will often affect vital components of our lives. At best it is an exploration of who we are, and a journey towards a more lively expression of ourselves – living up to our values and spending time on what energises and interests us. This is often what inspires us to change.…
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The right sort of hesitation
When facing a big choice, it’s natural to be scared. Meaningful changes bring real risks. Recently I have been holding back from committing to leaving my current job, and I have been asking myself, is this healthy caution or putting off the inevitable? As a change manger and coach, one of the tools I use…
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Looking back
To move forward, it’s important to look back. Not in a navel-gazing “tell me about your childhood” sort of way. But a very practical opportunity to reflect on what we’ve done and why. It can be surprising to reflect on how far we’ve come. Not the big goals we’re still hoping to achieve, but the…
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Little steps
My fitness journey didn’t start with a marathon. It started one evening in lockdown, in a park in the dusk with a battered old pair of trainers. Feeling how my mind and body were struggling with so little movement in my daily life. And having a playful experiment to find a way of running that…
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Be smartly stubborn
I’ve had a few tough weeks with a frozen shoulder which is really getting in the way of my marathon training. It’s a weird but painful condition that comes out of nowhere and takes its own time to go away. I’ve tried to keep going as best I can, really wanting to keep my goal…
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New shoes
Today I got new running shoes. I’d been putting it off because my old shoes were comfortable. Maybe a bit battered, but still functional. And it seemed an unjustified extravagance to get yet another pair of running shoes! So I kept putting it off. But over time those old shoes had broken down, and weren’t…
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Why does coaching help?
Why does coaching make a difference? I was reflecting on that after a coaching session with Rachel Lee today. https://www.borntobebold.co.uk/ Everyone is different, but for me it comes down to saying two things out loud: – what I really want to achieve – what I’m prepared to do to make it happen And in theory…
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Today is a good day
I passed my gym instructor qualification, so I’m now one step closer to my goal of adding fitness and personal training to my coaching portfolio. There’s lots more to learn on my personal trainer journey (advanced anatomy and physiology is up next and that’s a tough one!) But today there’s no doubt in my mind,…
Jessica Smith - Life, work and fitness coaching 