Take Time to Think

I don't remember who game me this nor when. It's been stuck inside a cupboard door out of sight - and out of mind. Time to remind myself to think about how I'm using my time.

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Reorienting from ELT to Coaching

Fear arises from thinking we shan't be able to cope with what life throws at us, according to Susan Jeffers, author of "Feel the fear and do it anyway."

Towards the end of last year I made a potentially scary decision. After a number of years of procrastination, I have finally decided to break away from teaching. Although it is a profession I stumbled into with little fore thought or planning, I have become a proficient and successful teacher. It is an industry within which I feel at home, and where I have gained recognition as well as a good living.

Having overcome the fear of making the decision, I now face the bottom of a new learning curve. The world of coaching is, fortunately, not completely new to me but I am - to all intents and purposes - new to it. Coming from a place of confidence, recognition and success I am now in bright, shiny, new territory. And I have an incomplete map.

What helps me deal with the "bottom-of-the-learning-curve" insecurity is the knowledge that I've been here before. That curve straightened out for me then. It will again. The teaching map I have developed over the last 13 years must be re-written but there are a good number of routes which I can re-use. There are skills and experiences laid down in the contours and signposts of my map which will be reassuring markers I can use when I feel dis-oriented in the new territory.

The unknown inherent in new adventures is certainly scary. For me, knowing what I already know, I am excited and apprehensive in equal measures about what awaits in my new adventure.

If you are feeling fearful about a decision you need to make, take a deep breath, look back over your map, see how many roads you've already travelled and landmarks you are familiar with. You created that map, what's to say you can't create another one? You survived the roads you've already travelled, chances are you'll equally survive the ones you haven't yet travelled.