Still not yet?

Okay so here is something I have noticed about myself and approximately everyone I have ever met, which is that we are all, to varying degrees, sitting in a waiting room of our own making, waiting for things to feel more under control before we get on with the actual business of our lives. And the waiting is always very reasonable: When things are less busy. When the children are a bit more independent. When we’ve dealt with the thing at work. When we feel less overwhelmed. When we’ve had a proper holiday and can think clearly again.

But things never really feel under control. Or they do, for a couple of weeks here and there, and then something else happens, because something else always happens and it always will.

For many years of my life I waited to feel more in control. For the chaos to settle, for the overwhelm to lift, for things to feel steady enough that I could finally look up and attend to what actually mattered. And what I can tell you, having spent considerable time in that waiting room, is that it’s not comfortable. It just feels safer than the alternative, which is actually doing the thing.

The fact that the adults appear to have left the building and someone has let the toddlers near the controls of actual governments, and that the world has generally gone a bit mad, is just the latest reason to wait. And it is a good one, I’ll give it that. The world has very kindly supplied us with an enormous, objectively valid excuse not to get on with things. But I think if we’re honest, the world being a lot is also covering something quieter and more personal. The fact that looking at what we actually want is frightening in a way that’s much harder to explain than geopolitics.

Here is what I want you to know: the waiting room has a cost. It is not something you’d necessarily notice on any given Tuesday. It will not announce itself. It’s just the quiet accumulation of days where you were almost ready, almost beginning, almost there. And one day you look up and realise you’ve been almost starting for a very long time.

The thing is, you probably already know what you’ve been putting off. You don’t need the world to calm down to look at it. You just need to decide that now, as it is, is enough to start from.

In fact I’d argue this is exactly the time. Not because the world is a mess. But because you already know you’ve been waiting long enough.

If you’d like to think it through with someone who understands this particular kind of waiting from the inside, that’s exactly what I’m here for. You can book a free introductory call here, it’s just a conversation, no pressure, and we’ll work out together whether coaching with me feels like a good fit for you.