Shine Coaching - Sally Chapman

18/07/2024

05/07/2024

That’s it for me until 15 July! I’m signing off later today for a bit of R&R although it looks like the sunbeds have already been nabbed by Nell and Kevin!

Not that I will have any chance to lie on them anyway – I think it’s going to rain cats & dogs!!!

And we have more DIY jobs to do than we can physically fit into a week!

Happy holidays to me – see you all soon 🧡

03/07/2024

How on earth did I miss this milestone? Shine Coaching was 3 on 1 July 2024! Let’s just say I was having so much fun, I didn’t have a chance to notice this momentous occasion!

So I’ve done it!

3 years in and I’m still standing! And shining! ✨

Well, I am more than standing I reckon.

I’m doing okay.

In fact, I am doing more than okay!

Because this running your business lark is bloody tough.

There have been times when I didn’t think I would make 1 year, 2 years, let alone 3 years!

So, if you are running your own business, or just starting out – hats off to you.

I’m with you. I’m here for you. I see you.

We need to support each other in this rollercoaster 🎢 of a ride.

There is not just one recipe for success, everyone is different but here are a few of the things that have helped me along the way…

🧡 Connection is everything – build your network, find your tribe, people you like and trust, lean on them, support them, learn from each other

🧡 Be creative – this is your business; you get to choose what it looks like so let your creative juices run wild

🧡 Test and learn – if you have an idea, then go for it! Test it out. It doesn’t have to be perfect; nothing ever is. Have the fun and embrace the learning

🧡 Comparison is the thief of joy – no one really has their s**t together, even if it looks like they have! So just be the best version of you because you are unique, you are great (and everyone else is taken!)

🧡 Look after yourself – if you aren’t 100%, no one is going to step in and pick up the slack. And if you aren’t looking after yourself, it will soon feel like you are wading through treacle – so self-care, time for you is essential.

🧡 Put in boundaries – part of the self-care bit really but sooooooo important if you are running your business from home, things can get pretty blurred very quickly. So again, this is your business, you get to set the rules, so make them work for you!

Finally, and most importantly, I want to thank everyone for supporting me in getting this far – my LinkedIn friends, my clients, my family, my pets (I sound like I am at the Oscars!!!) but I mean it, because without you lot, there would be no Shine Coaching!

02/07/2024

When our teammate or team mates mess up, they rarely do it intentionally. It is often because of something else – perhaps a lack of communication or change in routine. That was the case with Nell yesterday when I came home from my morning walk to find this!

The thing is, up until the weekend, Nell had had a fairly consistent routine.

She would have her breakfast, some playtime, time in the garden, time with me and Paul.

Then we would put her in her 'room' and Paul would go to work and I would go for an hour’s walk, to get some exercise and listen to podcasts – my morning set up before starting work.

This weekend all that went out the window as we spent the much of the time socialising her.

Out for walks, now she is all vaccinated, spending time with family and friends, taking her to the pub (very important!).

We didn’t leave her on her own all weekend.

So when Monday morning came round again, and OUR routine was back in place, it obviously came as quite a surprise to Nell!

Give Nell her due, she did look very sheepish!

But it wasn’t her fault.

We can’t communicate to Nell that weekends are different to Monday to Fridays; she’s clever but still a dog after all!

And this is just the same with people, the people in your team, that you lead, who you work with.

If there is a change of routine, structure or process, it is so important to communicate that with them.

Whether you like change or not, you still want to know it’s happening don’t you?

Thankfully, this morning, we were back on track with Nell.

No chewed shoes or tissue paper!

These are Paul's new work shoes. Not even worn yet! The tissue paper keeping them in shape had obviously been too much of a temptation.

And to be fair, this is the first thing that Nell has chewed.

And we have had this bundle of fun for 5 weeks now so I don't think its too bad.

So it’s been a good reminder for me to consider others when making changes to routine and communicate where possible.

How about you?

Is this a priority for you when you make a change in your business or in your team?

28/06/2024

What are you celebrating this week? The last of my Nell photos for a while but I couldn't help sharing this breakthrough with you...

Nell has finally learned not to sit on, or bite the heads off, my plants!

Well, some of the time and with the help of a bit of temporary fencing!

It's a little win but definitely worth a celebration as I love my garden and it has been rather decimated since Nell's arrival!

But the plants will grow again next year.

And sometimes a good prune is good for growth.

So do you take time at the end of your week or day to celebrate?

Up until recently, I had been writing out my little wins on a Friday as well as my challenges.

I've done this since January and been sharing them with a wonderful group of women in a mastermind group.

It really helped me to focus on my achievements and my challenges.

And now looking back over the past 6 months, it is seeing the challenges that I have overcome that as given me the most satisfaction, made me really rather proud of myself!

The wins are great too for measuring progress but it's getting over those bumps in the road that often signify the most progress.

So I'm going to keep up this great little habit, taking time to recognise the wins but also take note of the challenges I'm facing.

So how about you?

Do you want to share one of your wins or perhaps a challenge in the comments and we can celebrate with you and/or perhaps be able to offer some support or advice on your challenge?

Have a fabulous weekend everyone, Nell is all vaccinated now so we have been out exploring together - more adventures for us this weekend 🧡

27/06/2024

Thursday, nearly the end of the week, so how are you? Is your battery a bit low? Have you run out of energy like Nell here? She’s too tired even to get up to eat and drink, bless! Here’s another quick coaching tip to check your battery…

My battery was definitely low last Thursday!

I had been in London the day before, at the International Social Prescribing conference with the awesome Helen which was fabulous but a long old day!

6 hours sitting on a train and 7 hours sitting in a variety of uncomfortable conference chairs!

Which meant my sleep went out the window!

You’d think that being shattered from a long old day, I would sleep like a baby.

But no, my legs, my right one in particular, wasn’t having any of it!

I get what I call ‘fuzzy legs’. I think the technical name is restless legs but I prefer fuzzy!

The thing is if I don’t have any exercise in a day, my body just isn’t tired.

I need to work both my body and mind to get some sleep.

So after a long old day, and about 4 hours sleep, my battery was definitely on the low side.

I was feeling a bit ‘meh’, so last Thursday, I decided I was going to be kind to myself.

I only had one client that morning which I had already prepped for then I had an afternoon of puppy playing in the garden in the sunshine.

So how about you this Thursday?

How are you currently feeling?

🔋Feeling great!
What you are doing is working so brilliant, keep doing what your doing - meeting your needs and practicing self-care.

🔋Feeling good!
You’re topped up! So how can you maintain the levels you’re currently at?

🔋Feeling okay.
Mmm. You surely want to feel more than just okay? How can you make your day a tiny bit better?

🪫Meh.
Ohh, not so good. How can you love yourself today? Be extra kind to yourself.

🪫Struggling.
Oh, sorry to hear this. Practice a bit of self triage. What area of your life is suffering the most right now? Focus on that one area today.

🪫I’m empty.
Crikey. Time for some gentle action. Pinpoint what’s draining you and try to create a boundary around this. Then do one thing that can start to top you back up.

Ps, this little video clip of Nell was taken the other Saturday, after she spent the afternoon meeting my sisters and their two dogs which she found sooooo exciting but rather exhausting. Today, you’ll be glad to hear, her battery is topped right up to Duracell bunny level!!

26/06/2024

Has your ‘get up and go’ gone? Are you feeling rather exhausted but not sure why? Young Nell here is only shattered because she’s been running me ragged, but for us humans, we want to make sure we are full of vitality too, so we can make the most of every day. Here’s another quick exercise from my coaching toolbox ...

In order to thrive and live well, we need to have strong foundations.

Just like a football team needs a strong defence.

Or a house needs good solid foundations.

And when we are thriving, we are more confident, we are more resilient, we are generally happier, healthier humans!

We can look at our foundations as pillars and I’ve found the following 6 pillars so helpful in keeping me thriving, that I share this exercise regularly with my clients.

The 6 pillars are:

😴 Sleep
🚶‍♀️ Exercise
🥪 Food & drink
⏱️ Routine (with some flexibility)
😊 Emotional wellbeing
🤝 Connection

Start by drawing 6 tall pillars on a page of A4.

Now score each of these out of 10 as to where you currently are.

The idea is to have 6 reasonably high scoring (above 7) and level pillars so you can use them as your strong foundations in order to flourish.

If one or two of your pillars are too low, or too high even, then it’s going to wobble your foundations as a whole.

It’s worth spending a bit of time working out what makes up each pillar (that’s a longer exercise!) but to give you an idea on the blocks that could make up your pillars, here’s an example…

For my sleep pillar, here are a few things that make my pillar strong: no caffeine or sugar, have done some exercise, no alcohol, have read before sleep, no devices for an hour before bed, felt a sense of achievement. You get my drift hopefully!

Now, a few questions to ask yourself about your pillars…

❓ Which of your pillars needs the most attention?
❓ Which pillar is the easiest to maintain?
❓ What are your pillars telling you?
❓ What and/or who derails/knocks down your pillars?
❓ What boundaries will protect your pillars?

More coaching tips from me and Nell tomorrow…

25/06/2024

Does life feel a little bit empty at the moment? Are you not that satisfied with what's on your plate (or in your bowl, like young Nell here!)? This week I'm sharing a few coaching tools, with the help of my new workmate...

When people come to coaching, they don't always know what they want to change or work out.

But what they do know is that something doesn't feel quite right, it's as if something is missing.

So a good place to start is to get a holistic view of your life and all the areas that are important to you in it.

For that we use a helpful little coaching tool called the Wheel of Life 🎡

It's helpful because it will give you a chance to:

🎡 Build clarity
🎡 Review everything before drilling down to specific goals
🎡 Stimulate your thinking
🎡 Encourage you to find new perspective and insight

which in turn can help you gain clarity on setting their goals.

All you need to do is grab a piece of paper, draw a big circle and then draw lines as if you are slicing up a pizza or a cake, until you have 8 segments.

Then label each segment. You can choose what 8 ‘labels’ are important to you.

Here are a few examples: career, health, hobbies, family, friendships, financial security, travel, home environment

You don’t have to choose all 8.

Score each one out of 10, a ‘felt sense’ of how they feel, try not to over think it.

Draw up the dots/lines.

Then have a look at the shape of your wheel.

Are things even or bumpy?

What has this revealed to you?
What else do you notice?
How is the shape of your wheel impacting on you?

The object is not to get everything to a ‘10’.

Depending on how you score, anything below a ‘6’ might indicate an area you would like to work on. If you just moved it a couple points, it is likely to make a significant different.

And are there any inter-connections between areas?

For example, if Travel is 4 and Financial Security is 9, could you spend and invest more in travelling?

Or if Career is ‘8’ and Love is ‘3’, are you spending a lot of time investing in your career which might be impacting on your relationship?

Here's a few more questions to consider asking yourself:

❓ Which areas are below a ‘6’ for you, or lower than you would like to see?
❓ How is this influencing you?
❓ What would need to happen for you to score it as an ‘8’, move up 2 points?
❓ If you could achieve that, what impact would that have right now?
❓ What’s stopping you from being able to score it an 8/9/10?
❓ What areas are a priority for you?
❓ What goals are important for you right now?

I'd love to know if you found this exercise useful. Any questions, do get in touch 🧡

More from me and Nell tomorrow...

24/06/2024

Are you feeling a bit stuck this Monday morning? Like Nell? Stuck in a rut (or cat bed which is way too small!) With the help of my new workmate, I thought I'd share some coaching tools and techniques this week...

Often when we are feeling stuck, there is a gap.

And people often come to coaching because they feel stuck.

Because coaching unsticks.

It helps you to find that gap.

In fact Fred Kofman, who is the vice president of executive development and leadership at LinkedIn, said, "no gap, no coaching"

The gap is the difference between your current state, in Nell's case stuck in a cat bed, and your ideal future state.

I'm imagining Nell would ideally like to fully get in the bed and her head out the front, instead of her bottom, or perhaps just free herself so she can distract me even further!

For us, there are often things that get in the way of us becoming unstuck; a bit like blockers. They could be beliefs you're holding on to, or a lack of knowledge.

So here are a few coaching questions to help you work through your gap...

Working out what your current state is now:
• How would you describe your life at the moment?
• What’s working well?
• What could be improved?

Exploring what you'd like the future to look like:
• What would you like to have happen?
• What would you like to accomplish?
• What would you really like?
• How could things be even better?

The Gap; where are you stuck:
• What are the obstacles?
• What would enable you to achieve your ideal future state?
• What is the learning you need?
• What will make this easy?
• What are they key milestones?
• How will you know you are there?

Deepen ‘The Gap’:
• What is your motivation for you change? What will it give you?
• What type of gap is this e.g. skill, mindset, knowledge, behaviour?
• What is the gap a symptom of?

Has this helped you identify your gap? I'd love to know 🧡

14/06/2024

Meet Nell, my new workmate. Paul thought she would be a good distraction! Let me share how that distraction is going…

I wasn’t ready for a new pup, but Paul could see how sad I was after losing one of my dear friends and my little dog, Walter.

And when you love someone, you want to make things better.

So along comes Nell.

And isn’t she adorable?

Was it the right time for me to have a new pup? 🐶

No, certainly not.

But is there ever a right time?

There are always going to be things we put in our way to move forward.

But the thing with distractions, however damn cute they are, they are a bit of a, well, distraction!

This cute distraction has blown my routine and wellbeing out the window!

My sleep plummeted again, and it was starting from a pretty low place!

My routine has been shot to pieces, and I love a routine, it keeps me grounded and focused.

And without my routine, my exercise has suffered – I just haven’t had the time to get out and active.

And this of course has an impact on my business – it’s hard to focus with a pup chewing at your ankles!

And I miss my dear Walter – he was a constant wise companion, a great listener (well, he was deaf but I could pretend he was listening!), a solid support in this rollercoaster ride we are all on.

And Nell, what can I say?

I love her dearly. I can’t imagine life without her, and I know we will be best friends and workmates.

But in the meantime, the early mornings (5am sometimes), the mess, the ‘all or nothing’ in terms of energy and trying to plan a work day with clients around - this is a challenge!

I’ve realised I am not as patient as I thought I was. The tiredness doesn’t help.

I feel I am at that ‘new mum’ phase, at the age of 55!, when you don’t feel you’re getting anything right, or giving anything your best shot!

But there’s certainly joy in new life, seeing the world through a new pup’s eyes, so watch this space…there’s going to be more of mine and Nell’s adventures to come 🧡

21/05/2024

There’s lots of things I do that bring me happiness and joy but running is where I feel most ‘fully alive’.

I haven’t been running for about 2 years as an old knee injury and surgery had started niggling again and I didn’t want to aggravate it further.

I had persuaded myself that walking quickly was just as good – and indeed, it is very good for both my mental and physical fitness, but it wasn’t until I started asking clients, friends and family the question:

“𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐝𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥 𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞?”

That I realised my answer to the question was running.

That feeling of freedom, my body and mind working in tandem, there is a lightness that I feel, as if anything is possible.

So I made a promise to myself to go running again.

And I went running yesterday evening.

The photo of me is when I returned home.

No, I hadn’t run 10k.

It was more like 1.5k but it was a start.

Did I feel fully alive?

A little bit but lack of running fitness and a body that’s 2 years older didn’t help much!

Although it’s frustrating, I know I can build my fitness back up.

I used to think nothing of running 10k 4 or 5 times a week.

This little notice hanging from my mouth was gifted to me as a Secret Santa present about 5 or 6 years ago because everyone at the place I worked knew I loved to run.

I’d run in my lunch hour, before or after work, and even started up a running club at work.

𝐒𝐨, 𝐥𝐞𝐭 𝐦𝐞 𝐚𝐬𝐤 𝐲𝐨𝐮, 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐝𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥 𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐝𝐢𝐝?

I’d love to hear all the things you do to feel fully alive…

17/05/2024

There is no point asking people for feedback and then ignoring it, getting offended by it, not doing anything with it, or indeed, not learning from it. Yesterday, I spent the morning with one of the people who attended my Be Alive workshop last month, specifically to pick her brain and learn from all the wonderful feedback (the good, the bad & the ugly!) she was kind enough to give me.

I purposefully delivered my first Be Alive workshop with the intention of learning from it.

Getting lots of feedback and making it even better.

And I got lots of feedback.

Most of it was blooming marvellous! Which was amazing to receive 😊

But do you know what was most valuable?

The feedback that I could learn from.

Where I could make things a bit clearer perhaps.

Or switch the order in which I do things.

Or spend some more. or less, time on a topic.

So what’s the result of me asking for feedback and acting upon it?

𝐌𝐲 𝐁𝐞 𝐀𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐩 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞!

The thing is, when we spend so much of our time investing our blood, sweat & tears into creating something magical, we get quite attached to it.

We can’t see how it would work just a little bit better.

So, we need that feedback.

We need to be open to it.

Feedback is a gift; a generous, valuable gift – thank you, Katherine, for your honesty, time and generosity 🙏

𝐒𝐨, 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐝𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐚𝐬𝐤 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐝𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐝𝐨 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐢𝐭?

I’d love to get even better at asking for feedback so please share your experiences and ideas with me.

And if you want to bag one of the limited spaces of my EVEN BETTER Be Alive workshop on 21 June 2024, then drop me a message and I’ll send you the details. Or check my comment below with links for more info 🧡