Patrick Hickman Coaching

05/06/2026

The past year didn't quite go to plan. But I've laced up again and I'm going. New blog post up: a run, an old Queen song, and a couple of things that stopped me in my tracks along the way.

Last year around this time I wrote about getting back into my fitness. Well, the past year didn’t quite go to plan. I’d written about taking it easier, recognising I’m getting old…

29/05/2026

One more thing…

My coach Greg put up a post the other day about an episode of his Coach2Coach podcast where he’d interviewed another coach, Julie Brown. At one point he asked her what her one message to listeners would be. She said: “Every obstacle is an opportunity.” The timing could not been better - that was exactly what I needed to hear that day....

My coach Greg put up a post the other day about an episode of his Coach2Coach podcast where he’d interviewed another coach, Julie Brown. At one point he asked her what her one message to listeners …

10/05/2026

Trusting Their Wings

So my daughter and a group of friends decided to take a quick trip to Barcelona. The slow - although somehow still very quick - unfurling of the wings. Testing how far they can take her. It’s been both testing and reassuring in equal measure. I’ve grown used to being right there when needed. Close by. Available. And now life seems to be doing what life does - we nurture, guide, support from close range for a while, and then, slowly, they begin to discover their own wings....

So my daughter and a group of friends decided to take a quick trip to Barcelona. The slow – although somehow still very quick – unfurling of the wings. Testing how far they can take her…

09/05/2026

Playing the Advantage

We’ve all seen them - the “top button brigade”. It’s that way of doing things where compliance quietly becomes the main thing. The only thing, sometimes. In classrooms, it shows up in small but oddly loaded ways. A dress code where “smart” stops being about how someone looks overall and becomes about a single detail - a top button done up, even when the shirt doesn’t quite fit right, even when everything else looks fine....

We’ve all seen them – the “top button brigade”. It’s that way of doing things where compliance quietly becomes the main thing. The only thing, sometimes. In classrooms, it shows up in small b…

08/05/2026

Sometimes the biggest changes aren’t the dramatic ones. They’re the moments where you notice you didn’t react the way you once would have.

Over the past few weeks life has been full - rugby festivals, awards nights, camping trips, work, water fights and all the noise in between. I wondered whether I’d hit writer’s block.

But maybe I was just busy living.

This week I found myself reflecting on a moment that, in the past, would probably have sent me into a spin… and yet this time I stayed calm and moved on surprisingly quickly.

That felt worth paying attention to.

Back to Centre: a few thoughts on the quiet shifts we sometimes only notice afterwards.

20/04/2026

The Distance Between You and the Outcome

I was listening to an interview between Jamie Smart and Steve Chandler the other day. Steve was talking about outcome goals and process goals and it got me thinking about how often we lean heavily on the outcome. It’s a familiar pattern. We sit down, often at the end of the year or when something in life nudges us, and we think about what we want to be, do or have at some point in the future....

I was listening to an interview between Jamie Smart and Steve Chandler the other day. Steve was talking about outcome goals and process goals and it got me thinking about how often we lean heavily …

02/04/2026

Just out of sight

Out for a walk the other morning on a path I know well, I found myself stopping as an image came to mind. At the halfway point, I turned around and looked back up the hill I’d just come down. The path curved gently away around a bend, disappearing from view. I took my phone out and captured it, though I’m not sure the photo quite held what I’d seen....

Out for a walk the other morning on a path I know well, I found myself stopping as an image came to mind. At the halfway point, I turned around and looked back up the hill I’d just come down. The p…

27/03/2026

I've been reflecting on this a bit more over the last few days.

I pulled it together properly in my latest blog.

If you’ve felt a bit off, or like things have drifted slightly without really noticing, this might resonate.

No big answers in it, just a few thoughts that helped me reset a little.

As we reach the end of the first quarter, I’ve found myself taking stock. Not in a dramatic, tear-it-all-up-and-start-again kind of way… just a quiet check-in. And if I’m honest, I noticed somethin…

20/03/2026

I heard this line recently:
“Inspiration is for amateurs.”

It stuck with me, probably because I recognised myself in the opposite of it.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking things through before starting. Letting ideas sit, shaping them in my head, waiting until they felt ready.

It always felt like I was getting somewhere. But looking back, not much actually moved.

What I’m seeing more clearly now is how much changes once you begin.

You put something down on paper and it either works or it doesn’t, but at least you can see it.

You’ve got something real to respond to.

That’s the bit that’s easy to miss when everything stays in your head.

There’s a quote from Jamie Smart that sums it up far better than I can:
“There are things you can discover by taking action that you're never going to discover in the privacy of your own head.”

That’s been the shift for me.

Not waiting for it to feel right. Just starting, and seeing where it goes.

I saw a clip of Jimmy Carr saying that on stage and almost without thinking I wrote it down. Not because I had anything clear to say about it at the time. It just felt worth keeping.A line like tha…

16/03/2026

The Things the Scoreboard Doesn’t Show

What Are We Really Coaching For? Yesterday morning I was standing on the touchline at a rugby festival, watching my youngest play. Cold hands wrapped around a coffee, sideline chatter drifting in and out and a blur of jerseys moving across the pitch. Youth rugby festivals have a particular feel about them. Lots of energy. Lots of noise. Proud parents. Nervous players....

What Are We Really Coaching For? Yesterday morning I was standing on the touchline at a rugby festival, watching my youngest play. Cold hands wrapped around a coffee, sideline chatter drifting in a…