Life Coach Liz Goodchild sitting on a chair.

A portrait image of life coach Liz Goodchild.

LIFE COACHING FOR PEOPLE

WHO GIVE A SHIT

Something’s off and you can’t quite name it. Or you can, but you don’t know what to do about it.

Either way, that’s where we start.

You might be stuck in the same loops.
Overthinking everything.
Second-guessing decisions.
Knowing something needs to change, but not shifting.

We slow it down, make sense of it and figure out what’s actually going on.

I’m Liz, a certified Senior Practitioner Life Coach. I provide honest, grounded coaching for people who are ready to find a way forward.

Book your free intro call

Join the September Group Programme

Are you going round in circles with the same thoughts, decisions or patterns?
You can see it clearly—but nothing’s really shifting.
> Coaching for Change

Do you feel stuck, but can’t quite see what’s keeping you there?
You’ve tried to think your way out of it, but it just isn’t working.
> Feeling Stuck

Are you trying to make decisions in a world that feels uncertain?
Everything feels louder, less stable, harder to trust.
> Living with Uncertainty

Have you hit a burnout wall you can’t just power through anymore?
Not just busy, but overwhelmed, stretched, and slightly untethered.
> Burnout and Overwhelm Coaching

Is the invisible shift of perimenopause making you wonder where you’ve gone?
You’re not losing it, you’re just changing.
> Coaching in Perimenopause

Does your neurodivergent brain feel out of step with the world?
You’re constantly having to adjust yourself to make things fit.
> Neurodivergent Coaching

Since 2013, hundreds of men, women and gender diverse people from all walks of life have sat across from me feeling stuck, lost, or just quietly fed up. And left with a clearer sense of who they are and what they actually want. This experience forms the foundation of my approach: I’m honest and say it as it is. With kindness and a dash of kick-up-the-ass.

I’ve been a certified Senior Practitioner Life Coach for many years, but I’ve learned just as much from life as I have from my training. Whether it was surviving a corporate career that felt like a dead end or moving abroad with a 4-month-old baby in tow, I’ve been in the trenches. I don’t just teach theory; I teach the resilience and bravery I’ve had to find for myself.

I provide coaching in Macclesfield and Cheshire as well as online sessions throughout the rest of the UK and worldwide. We can work together via Zoom. So, if you’re looking for a life coach near you or online life coaching, we can connect from wherever you are.

MORE ABOUT ME

WHAT PEOPLE SAY

I wanted a straight talker, someone who wouldn’t feed me BS. The direct but kind nature of Liz first attracted me. Our sessions taught me that just being me is enough. The burden has been freed from my mind immeasurably.

Hemant, Middlesex (UK)

I got more out of life coaching with Liz than I did in two years of psychotherapy. She is completely engaged, warm, and doesn’t shy away from offering guidance. Her work is nothing short of exceptional.

Nina, London (UK)

I met Liz during a career crossroads. Conflicted over a momentous decision, she helped me navigate my anxieties. Through our work, I found a new role that perfectly fits my life purpose. She leads with compassion and directness, and I am forever grateful.

Anthony, Brooklyn (USA)

If I were to describe Liz in one sentence, I’d say she’s a question goddess. Her poignant, clever, and insightful questions uncover the finest ‘Aha!’ moments. Liz makes you speak your own truth.

Hanne, Denmark

FEATURED IN

Senior Practitioner Coach Liz Goodchild - Life Coach featured on BBC Radio 5

Senior Practitioner Coach Liz Goodchild - Life Coach featured in Psychologies Magazine.

Senior Practitioner Coach Liz Goodchild - Life Coach featured in Metro newspaper

Senior Practitioner Coach Liz Goodchild - Life Coach featured in Women's Running magazine

Senior Practitioner Coach Liz Goodchild - Life Coach featured on Tiny Buddha

Senior Practitioner Coach Liz Goodchild - Life Coach featured on BuzzFeed

Hello, pals. How is everyone’s summer going?

Are you enjoying the sunshine while also wondering whether it is normal for the temperature to resemble the inside of an air fryer?

I am trying to hold both things at once. The lovely summer feeling, the garden, eating outside, the warm evenings. And also the creeping awareness that the planet is (quite literally) on fire. I have given myself the rule of only reading the news once a day. Any more than that, and I start to spiral and feel utterly hopeless.

Nowt livens up a summer gathering quite like me bringing up the planet’s future. I am SO much fun at parties!

Anyway, I’ve been spending way less time on social media recently. There was no grand, intentional decision or big reason. I have just become a bit bored with it all, and mildly existential about the algorithms, the increasing amount of AI content and the relentless pace of my feed.

I’ve been spending so much more time reading books, tending to my vegetable garden and generally enjoying doing things without feeling the need to post about them.

I am popping up now though because @bernadettedancy_stresscoach I are hosting a small, informal Zoom hangout for our @in.this.together.pod listeners next week.

There's no big agenda, and it is DEFINITELY not a webinar. We just thought it would be lovely to spend some time with the people who listen to the podcast, answer any questions you have, hear what you thought about previous episodes and find out what you would like us to talk about in series three.

We’re keeping it small so that we can have an actual conversation with everyone, rather than a Zoom screen filled with 100 tiny silent faces.

Tuesday 18th August
7pm BST (UK time, basically)
On Zoom

IMPORTANT: If you would like to join us, you need to DM me for the sign-up link. Once I send it to you, you will need to register in advance to receive the Zoom link.

Come and have a chat with us. We’d love to see you!

I'm home again in Germany. I feel like I'm not British enough to properly belong in Britain any more, and I'm not German enough to properly belong here yet either. I've stopped trying to make sense of that and just decided both places count.

My son and I got back yesterday, my wife has stayed in the UK for a festival. We flew instead of driving this trip, which meant a 5am check in, one flight, several train connections, and roughly four hundred questions about how everything worked, from what happens to a suitcase to why the queue was so long at security to why our ears go funny in the sky. Then he asked what happens if the plane crashes. I don't like lying to him, so I told him the truth, that crashes are incredibly rare and planes are checked and flown by people whose job is to keep everyone safe. I also made sure he knew he was safe with me, right there. He seemed happy with that and then enquired about a sandwich I had promised to buy him from Pret. By the time we finally got back to our sleepy little village in the late afternoon, my brain was fairly cooked, but his was still going strong. That's the deal with a curious kid, it's exhausting, but he comes away knowing so much more about the world than he did yesterday.

This morning has been an intentionally slow one. Lots of coffee, hugging the dog over and over, checking on the veggies my mother in law has carefully tended to (the pumpkins are massive!) And going to say hello to the ponies. Their summer coats always surprise me - they look like completely different animals to the shaggy little things I said goodbye to in early spring.

I also came home to the news that Glen Hansard had died. He was the reason I ever had the confidence to sing. In the early days of meeting my wife, she taught me how to harmonise on Falling Slowly. Fifteen years later, I'm in a band. It's strange, isn't it, how one song and one evening can end up shaping so much of what comes after.

I don't really have a neat line to finish this post on. I'm home, there's ponies, there's pumpkins and there's a big gratitude for a very talented man and a song he wrote that changed things more than I realised at the time x

Good morning, pals!

Right, I'm going to ask you the most annoying question ever and I need you to not throw your phone across the room. It might piss you off and, erm, probably improve your life in lots of very helpful ways:

How are you complicit in creating the conditions you say you don't want?

I KNOW. I know. I said the same thing when a version of this got asked to me. My reply? "Oh absolutely not, this is not about me, thank you."

Reader, it was absolutely about me.

For those of you sat scratching your heads and wondering what this question actually means, let me explain: Creating the conditions you say you don't want is agreeing to host Christmas again this year, then spending November furious you're hosting Christmas again this year. It's staying quiet in the meeting and then later ranting for 40 minutes in the car about nobody asking your opinion. It's being stressed about everything, all the time, but never quite getting round to asking why, because that might mean changing something.

None of this makes you a terrible human. It's just you, doing what most of us do, quietly building the exact situation you'll later complain about, brick by brick, mostly out of habit.

We are all BRILLIANT at spotting everyone else's nonsense, aren't we? But much less brilliant at our own bit. The yes we gave when we meant no. The huge conversation rehearsed in the shower 20 times we never actually has. The job we hate, but somehow always have a good reason not to leave.

I've done this one myself, in various forms. One version was years of resenting people for not noticing what I needed, without once telling them what that was. My part was staying silent, hoping to be magically understood. Nobody's part was reading my mind. That was on me. Ugh.

So, sit with this very annoying question. Feel the discomfort. Feel the urge to close this app and go back to complaining, because that's easier and doesn't ask much of you.

Or, come and join my new coaching group, starting 5th September on Zoom. For women and non-binary folks who are knackered from all of it, and ready to finally do something about it.

Link in my bio!

x

Here's what I know. I have spent years, actual years of my one and only life, waiting to become a more capable version of myself before I let myself do the things I wanted to do.

Waiting until the house was sorted, the inbox was empty, the diary looked less full-on. There's always been a much tidier, more together woman permanently hovering just out of reach and quite honestly, she's had to wait. I'm getting on with my life without her.

Most of us are waiting for permission that is never, ever coming. Nobody rings you up one day to say you're allowed to sing badly with the window down. Nobody confirms you can wear the loud jumper, or put your hand up in the meeting, or start the thing before you've fully worked out what you're doing. That permission, quite frankly, you just have to grant yourself.

What I've come to understand, both personally and with the people I work with, is that when we're not doing the thing, we tell ourselves, and anyone who'll listen, that we just need more preparation, more clarity, a better moment. But underneath it's the same belief every time, that we're not quite allowed yet, that someone or something else needs to confirm we're ready before we can start. There's rarely anything left to prepare. The readiness is already there. We're just bloody scared.

So whatever you're waiting to be allowed to do, say it now, in your head. The career change. The relationship conversation. The book you want to write. The photo you won't post because you don't look the way you'd like to. The class you haven't signed up for because you might be the worst one there. Nobody is coming to tell you it's your turn. Nobody is coming to say you've done enough waiting now, off you go. Nobody's coming to say yes, pals. You're going to have to say yes to yourself, and see what happens x

I was at a psychotherapy conference this weekend, and someone told a lovely little anecdote that had absolutely nothing to do with the actual training, but right in the middle of it was this line: who are you when you don't get what you want?

I'll be honest, I'm not naturally brilliant at not getting what I want, even though it's something I've worked on a lot in my own self development. I wish I could tell you I meet disappointment with some lovely, settled calm, but what actually happens is I go quiet, I busy myself with something small like making a cup of tea, and underneath it there's a much noisier feeling trying to get my attention (which I do my best to ignore, until I flip out about something daft).

There's an idea from Buddhist philosophy that I've been noodling on all day, about something called The Second Arrow. The first arrow is the disappointment itself, the thing just not happening. That one you don't get a say in. The second arrow is what we do afterwards, the story we build on top of it, turning one small no into proof of our whole worth. That's the one that actually does the damage, and the encouraging bit is we've got a bit more say over that one, even if it doesn't feel like it at the time.

I try, now, to notice the small gap between the first arrow and the second, and to stay there a little longer before rushing to make sense of it. I give myself a moment before deciding what the disappointment says about me, or other people, because usually, once I slow down enough to look, it says a lot less than I first thought.

I think who you are when you don't get what you want is simply whoever's left once you've gently put the second arrow down. Some days that's someone a little tender who needs a moment. Some days it's someone surprisingly okay. Either way, it tends to be smaller and softer than the story that shows up first trying to convince you it's the whole truth. Learning to notice the difference feels, to me, like most of the real work x

September has always been one of my favourite months.

The mornings are a bit crisper, the jumpers come back out (BIG fan of knitwear over here), and everyone seems just a tiny bit more ready to think about what's next.

It feels like the perfect month to invite a group of people to spend six Saturday mornings understanding themselves a little better.

I'd love for you to join us.

All the details in my bio link x

When life feels hard, when we're overwhelmed, anxious, flat, irritable, or just not quite ourselves, most of us go straight to the question: "What's wrong with me?"

We're so good at analysing ourselves. Reading the books. Listening to the podcasts. Wondering why everyone else seems to cope better than we do.

One of the questions I often ask clients instead is: "What might you be missing?"

When someone sits opposite me convinced they're lazy, failing, or somehow getting life wrong, I'm not actually wondering what's wrong with them. I'm usually wondering what life has looked like for them lately.

Humans are funny buggers. We spend so much time looking for faults in ourselves that we rarely stop to ask whether we've simply been trying to live without some of the things that help us feel... well, human.

Maybe we've spent months looking after everyone else without an hour to ourselves. Maybe work has become one long list of deadlines. Maybe we've stopped seeing the friends who make us laugh. Maybe we've become so busy functioning that we've forgotten what brings us joy.

I've yet to meet anyone who thrives without feeling connected, useful, safe, understood, and like they have some say over their own life. We need to feel that what we do matters. We need moments where nobody needs anything from us. We need someone in our corner. We need to laugh. We need somewhere we don't have to pretend and where we feel we belong.

Not all the time, obviously. That would be impossible. But when a few of those things have been missing for a while, it makes sense that life starts to feel harder.

And because we don't tend to think in terms of what's missing, we assume the problem must be us.

Sometimes there is something deeper going on, of course. Life is messy, and I would never want to oversimplify that. But every now and then, I think it's worth asking yourself a different question:

What have I been missing lately?

I've found this question opens up a completely different conversation. A gentler one, too. And goodness knows most of us could do with speaking to ourselves a little more gently. x

Loading the next set of instagram posts...

Load More FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM

LIFE COACHING FOR PEOPLE

WHO GIVE A SHIT

WHAT PEOPLE SAY

FEATURED IN

SPEAKING AND INTERVIEWS