Maria Gray - Get the most out of life

Maria Gray - Get the most out of life I help executives and enterpreneurs to get the most out of life. Executive Coach and Supervisor

I had an interesting conversation recently about how the fear of becoming irrelevant shapes our behaviour.It can surface...
01/03/2026

I had an interesting conversation recently about how the fear of becoming irrelevant shapes our behaviour.

It can surface around impending retirement, losing a role, being less busy than we’re used to, or sensing that the spotlight is shifting elsewhere.

When relevance feels threatened, we might:

– Re-assert our importance, leaning heavily on past achievements or former roles
– Double down on visibility, highlighting new wins to signal “I’m still doing well”
– Try to control who gets to speak, “who are they to share their views here?”
– Become increasingly critical of emerging voices or new ideas
– Slip into comparison, competitiveness, or cynicism disguised as wisdom
– Or, at the other extreme, spiral into circular self-doubt and quiet withdrawal

Some of these are more familiar to me than I might like to admit.

All very human.

Often this reaction is less about insecurity and more about care - having built something meaningful and carrying years of experience and hard-earned wisdom that still longs to contribute.

Sometimes it’s the ache of abundance, and the deeply human desire to still matter.

The question is not whether this shows up.
The question is whether we notice it and what we choose to do next.

Social media is crowded with stories of successful resolutions.The new chapter announced.The old self neatly outgrown.Li...
13/12/2025

Social media is crowded with stories of successful resolutions.
The new chapter announced.
The old self neatly outgrown.
Life tied up with a bow.

Being here, I notice the pressure to tell a story like that too.

But what if some things never really get resolved?
What if the work is learning how to live with them -
accepting that some days things feel as though they’re falling apart, and other days we’re managing… even without resolution.

That can sound bleak.

And yet I wonder whether we make ourselves more despondent by believing that resolution is always possible -
promised by an army of people who seem to have figured it all out - rather than learning to live in peace with some poignant truths that are simply worth admitting to.

We tend to get attached to our familiar ways of thinking, and then look for external events to confirm we’re right.Until...
02/12/2025

We tend to get attached to our familiar ways of thinking, and then look for external events to confirm we’re right.

Until something shifts.

A quiet unease.
A sense that even if everything looks fine on the surface, something underneath is asking: What’s next?

That’s the rare gift of liminal time — the in-between phase where the old no longer quite fits, and the new hasn’t fully emerged.
Uncomfortable, yes — but also where our patterns become most visible (if we’re willing to do the work of noticing).

If you’re wondering what comes next in your career or leadership:
• Which habits or assumptions have helped me get here, and which might now be out of date?

If you’re stepping back, shifting pace, or exploring a new direction:
• Which parts of me still feel sharp, alive, and curious — even if they haven’t had space for a while?
• What aspects of myself have I set aside, and might they be ready to be reclaimed?

As one client recently reflected:
“Perhaps the question isn’t how fast I can set the lap record, but what impact I can have while I’m in the field.”

If any of this resonates — if you’re noticing that quiet drift, or sensing it might be time to look at things differently — coaching can be a helpful place to explore.

If you’re in a similar space and want to talk things through, send me a message.

“Do we really need to push for achievement to feel worthy?”I was mid-recording, speaking to a group of high achievers, w...
26/11/2025

“Do we really need to push for achievement to feel worthy?”

I was mid-recording, speaking to a group of high achievers, when my youngest walked in just as I asked the question.

Without hesitation, and with a look of surprise, he replied:
“Of course we do, mum.”

I laughed, and felt a little relieved, for when it comes to our kids… I must admit, I don’t always practice what I preach.

And perhaps that’s okay - some constructs should shift over time. What was helpful when we were starting our careers isn’t necessarily what serves us after decades of driving outcomes, holding high standards and being relied upon.

Many of us have lived inside a system of either-or thinking:
• I either achieve, or I’m a failure.
• I’m either strong (don’t show vulnerability), or I’m a flake.
• I’m either busy and productive, or I’m simply being, coasting.
• I either own the room, or I fade out.
• I’m either holding everything up, or I’m irrelevant.
• I either stay in control, or I’m at risk.

When we are younger, these constructs can offer clarity, direction and even safety. They become our way of understanding ourselves in the world. In George Kelly’s theory of personal constructs, we use these frameworks to predict, to orient and succeed.

However, as leadership matures and identity evolves, some constructs stop serving us - not because they were wrong, but because we’ve outgrown them.

It’s not achievement or presence.
It’s recognising the moment when quality of presence matters more than the list of accomplishments.

It’s not strong or vulnerable.
Sometimes, it’s strength expressed through vulnerability.

It’s not push or listen.
It’s pushing when it matters, and listening deeply enough to know when it does.

The real work, for many of us, isn’t about choosing sides, but about exploring the shades of grey - where either–or makes room for both-and, where old constructs soften to allow new identity to emerge.

Perhaps tomorrow my son will surprise himself again?

For those of us pondering identity and belonging…and secretly thinking Groucho may have been onto something 😉
22/11/2025

For those of us pondering identity and belonging…
and secretly thinking Groucho may have been onto something 😉

20/11/2025

What do you turn to when things feel wobbly?

For anyone navigating a shift, there may be something for you in these slides.
18/11/2025

For anyone navigating a shift, there may be something for you in these slides.

“So what, Maria?”A colleague said this after reading my reflections on transitions and identity.“As much as I enjoyed yo...
13/11/2025

“So what, Maria?”
A colleague said this after reading my reflections on transitions and identity.

“As much as I enjoyed your existential musings, I couldn’t help wondering - so what?”

A fair, and grounding, question.
Here’s the “so what.”

When we find ourselves in that messy in-between - no longer and not yet - here’s what can help us navigate transitions:

1. Don’t rush the dark night of the soul. Before leaping ahead, pause to honour what has been - the meaning, the contribution, the identity we’ve inhabited. We often skip that step.

2. Deconstruct and rebuild. Unlike public figures who sometimes lose their titles overnight - or a soldier whose sword is ceremonially broken as they lay down their old identity - most of us don’t wake up one day stripped of who we’ve been.
Ask yourself:
• What am I retaining? (wisdom, experience)
• What’s gone? (status, structure)
Then start shaping what’s next - remembering we are not our trappings.

3. Resist the urge to fill the void with “displacement activity”. The temptation is to stay busy, but some of the most fertile ground looks, at first, like emptiness.

4. Experiment your way forward.This isn’t about “going to seed” or stopping altogether. Stay curious. Try small things. Notice what restores you - then do more of that.

5. Stay connected while you recalibrate. Transitions can feel disorienting and isolating. We may want to withdraw until we “figure it out,” but sharing the process, even imperfectly, keeps us grounded and seen.

You don’t have to do this work alone.
That’s where I come in - helping make the void fertile, not futile - so you can move forward with clarity, insight, and integrity.
Six focused sessions are often enough to cut through the noise and get to the heart of it.

I often encourage clients to say to themselves:“This is how things are… for now.”Many find that simple sentence surprisi...
08/11/2025

I often encourage clients to say to themselves:
“This is how things are… for now.”

Many find that simple sentence surprisingly liberating.

It’s especially powerful for those with a strong “Be perfect” drive - people used to competence, control, and clarity -
who find themselves in the middle of difficult transitions.

When the familiar markers of success blur,
the instinct is often to push harder, to get back to “normal.”

But “for now” gives permission to soften the grip.

Today we’re expected to move through transitions privately, efficiently, and with gratitude. We rebrand our endings as ...
05/11/2025

Today we’re expected to move through transitions privately, efficiently, and with gratitude.
We rebrand our endings as “new beginnings” and call grief “growth.”
We feel pressure to add a positive twist - to be resilient, grateful, high-functioning through it all.

The middle-aged leader who senses that the story that once animated them has gone flat, and is quietly questioning who they are beyond “leader” or “the one who always holds it together.”
The retiree who feels like a thoroughbred racehorse being put out to pasture, looking for a new place for their wisdom and energy to land.
The emigrant who leaves home, hasn’t yet found belonging elsewhere, and still hopes that one day things will be back to how they used to be.

Each stands on the same threshold, the liminal territory, between identities - and is expected to pass through this difficult geography alone.

Anthropologist Arnold van Gennep noticed that for millennia, across cultures, people created rituals for these in-between states - ceremonies for pregnancy and childbirth, for entering adolescence, for marriage, mourning, initiation.
These rites recognised that transitions are hard, that transformation requires both community and time.

Today, we rarely have those rituals.
Yet the psyche still follows the same choreography:
Separation → Liminality (the space of “no longer” and “not yet”) → Reincorporation.

And when we try to skip the middle stage - the unsteady, uncertain “in-between” - we pay for it with exhaustion, anxiety, and a sense of being unmoored.

The in-between was never meant to be a solo act.
Without witnesses or shared language, passage can become paralysis or trauma.
We risk becoming frozen in waiting.

And yet, history shows that this in-between space can also be astonishingly generative - and one of the key ingredients is not putting yourself under pressure to “just get on with it.”

If you find yourself stuck in the hope that things will return to how they used to be - I certainly often find myself in...
03/11/2025

If you find yourself stuck in the hope that things will return to how they used to be - I certainly often find myself in that mental state - you might find this reflection useful.

There’s a particular ache that comes with remembering how things were.
But what if that ache isn’t something to fix? What if it’s a signal that you’re in a liminal space?

Liminality is the in-between state that sits between what was and what will be - the threshold where the old identity has dissolved but the new one hasn’t yet taken shape. It’s the space of “no longer” and “not yet.”

Anthropologist Arnold van Gennep noticed that for millennia, across cultures, people have created rituals for in-betweenness: ceremonies for pregnancy and childbirth, for entering adolescence, for marriage, mourning, initiation. These rites recognised that transitions are hard, that transformation requires both community and time.

Today, most of us move through them alone.
The emigrant who leaves home, hasn’t yet found belonging elsewhere, and hopes that one day things will be back to how they used to be.
The retiree whose diary has emptied, and who now wakes to a formless day.
The middle-aged leader who senses the story that once animated them has gone flat and must reimagine what leadership might now mean.
The ageing woman who feels newly awake to her own depth, no longer at home in the body or role that once defined her.

It’s not just nostalgia for a place or time. It’s nostalgia for a self that no longer exists.
Each stands in that same archetypal space: the threshold between identities.

And yet, history shows that this in-between space can also be astonishingly generative.

Type “Continue” below if you’d like me to share more on this topic and explore how to make this space fertile rather than frightening.

Recently, in one of my groups, a male participant described his experience of transition as “ennui” (emotional flatness)...
25/10/2025

Recently, in one of my groups, a male participant described his experience of transition as “ennui” (emotional flatness).

“Perhaps it morphs into meaning in connection, which I struggle with, and continue to rely on professional connection. In my case, I live with someone whose main connection is with her women friends, leaving me feeling somewhat alone. I wonder if that is a common experience of men?”

Many of the men I work with say there are few places outside work where connection feels natural.
And if you’re not into sports… well, the options shrink fast.

Work isn’t just what they do - it’s where belonging lives.

Transitions test the stories we’ve lived by and force us to ask: if I am no longer what I did, who am I now?

As another group participant observed:
“I keep seeing successful leaders, normally men in their 50s or 60s, increasingly reflective in their messages (‘in my day…’) and almost implying that doing the same will guarantee the same success.”

Perhaps it is ego that keeps those leaders more invested in legacy?

For women, transitions often collide with visible thresholds - motherhood and caregiving, returning to work, children leaving home, menopause, the fading currency of youth.
All of these, on top of career transitions, make the experience particularly hard.

For men, the fracture is quieter, less acknowledged - but perhaps no less disorienting.

It shows up in the struggle to find meaning in connection.

And it’s not just anecdotal.
A 2021 Survey Center on American Life report found that nearly 1 in 5 men reported having no close friends at all.
Women, by contrast, tend to maintain higher levels of emotionally supportive friendships.

Curious to hear your thoughts.

Do transitions - and the loss of professional identity - hit men differently?

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