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Learn to stop and recognise the fruits of your labours

Fruits of our labour at our allotment: fruit, vegetables and flowers.
Picking beans has to be one of my favourite allotment jobs. Firstly, you don’t have to bend down which is rare for allotment jobs, and secondly because of their incredible abundance. Hunting among the tangle of twisting stems and palm-sized leaves, you find the slim, silky pods hanging...

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Is it time to change job?

Woman sitting on a pebbly beach looking reflective, considering a job change.
It’s the time of year when our minds turn to holidays and our holidays turn into time to wonder if we’re in the right job now we’ve stepped away from it. Where holiday reflection can lead I was chatting with someone the other day whose partner did just...

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How confident are you talking about mental health?

Celia Clark, career development coach at Inspires Coaching, proudly wearing her Mental Health First Aider lanyard.
It’s June and the sun’s out so that can only mean one thing – it’s exam season! If your household is in the middle of exams, I hope they are going smoothly and the end is in sight. I’ve often thought how useful a GCSE in life skills would’ve been. Ya’...

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A question in service to others

Boy with a lightbulb idea among many questions, helping decide how can I best serve this person?
Was there a subject that seemed irrelevant at school but fascinates you now? For me, it’s history: the place to look for reasons behind many of today’s events. So I enjoyed watching the King’s Coronation last weekend and learning which parts of the service would have been...

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Why your why is so important

An adult and child on a woodland walk sharing why something is important to them.
Every week I get an email from the folks at the back strengthening programme I’m doing. Despite being super informative they tend to end up in my ‘read later’ folder (surely I’m not alone in this optimism?) but one arrived recently that I read straight away. It was a...

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How focusing on just one thing makes a difference

A woman bumping into a lamppost in the street because she is trying to do more than just one thing.
I did something radical this week: I went for a walk without my phonešŸ˜². I was inspired by Michael Mosley’s Just One Thing podcast, digestible 14 minute episodes about improving your wellbeing with inviting, easy-sounding titles like ‘sing’, ‘read’ and...

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The perfect listener when you need to talk?

Woman writing in a journal
As I write this, it’s Time to Talk day run by Mind and Rethink Mental Illness. The Time to Talk campaign was launched in 2014 to encourage more open and honest conversations between friends, family and colleagues about things they’re struggling with. How easy do you find it to...

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The word that sums up my intention this year

Celia Clark, career development coach, wearing comedy glasses saying naughty, as a suggestion of a word you could choose to set your intention for the year.
Happy New Year ! I hope you’ve had a good start to 2023. Did you get chance to do the review of last year in the previous post? The last note I received before Christmas was a thank you from someone who’d treated themselves to a rare pause in a cafĆ© to reflect on their year. It was...

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Give yourself the gift of reflection

Whilst brushing my teeth the other day, my gaze flicked to the poem Desiderata hanging on our bathroom wall. It has so much wisdom in it but the phrase that jumped out at me this time was “enjoy your achievements as well as your plans”.  Now, I’m a...

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A back story to inspire you to action

Working at a laptop and keyboard on a standing desk can strengthen your back and help ease back pain.
One of the reasons I do what I do – coaching people about their wellbeing, performance and career development – is because I want people to have a healthy relationship with their work. It saddens me to see people damaged by toxic cultures, difficult relationships, unsustainable...

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