Pivoting

Sometimes we all need to pivot, be that making a change in our environment, career, or habits. 2021 was another huge year for me; moved house, got married, became a dual citizen, and saw my family for the first time in 2 years. All this change can be intimidating and scary (no joke there were times when I felt sick to my stomach).

Pivoting does not have to be massive shifts all the time to create a significant change in our lives. It is often said that if you throw a rock and create a ripple in one place it becomes a wave on the other side of the ocean. For my 2022 I want it to feel more like a sailing trip around the Mediterranean rather than riding the high seas like the last couple of years has been. This does not mean that I have abandoned big goals, there are plenty of those but ones where the focus is more on foundational stability and grounding.

In 2022 one of those shifts for me is to move my business focus from solely trauma related to helping people create lightness and feel more grounded in 2022. That does not mean abandoning trauma work altogether just shifting the primary focus from trauma to stability and grounding. With so much change in our lives at the moment I find more and more people wanting to feel some sense of control and not all over the place.

There are two reasons for making the shift in my business.

First, is a personal one, I want to serve more people and help people feel more grounded – who couldn’t do with a bit more of that in their lives? Also, being focused primarily on trauma means I often work with fewer people at a time as I find fewer people are ready to do trauma work at the moment, not to mention at times I am working on my own trauma and it would not be appropriate for me to work with lots of clients when I cannot be fully present for each and every one of them.

Second, I feel a lot of people, whilst aware of their traumas and acknowledging that they will inevitably need to do more trauma work, are also not ready to do that just yet, especially as we enter a third year of living with Covid restrictions and uncertainty. I know for myself constant uncertainty and shifts in restrictions has left me wanting more grounding in my own life and I continue to work with my own coach on that.

Over the next few weeks and months you will see more content focused around feeling grounded and having stronger foundations. The website is going to get a bit of an overhaul too.

If you are in need of some grounding and strength building please do get in touch. Details of where to find me are below.

Connect with me

Website: https://philiphickscoaching.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/pshicks

Email: philiphickscoaching@outlook.com

Why do some people never chase their dreams?

It would easy to assume people who never do anything towards achieving their dreams or goals are lazy or scared of failure. While for some that might be true, many are also fearful of the opposite, achieving their goal/dream.

Sounds a little illogical, right? When you step back and think about it, it actually makes a lot of sense. Many people define themselves by their journey they are on, myself recently included. I am a British immigrant living in Canada and up until a month ago the journey was centred around becoming a citizen. A month ago that was achieved.

I admit, my initial reaction was jubilation at having achieved my dream, followed by a little despondent because now I’d achieved my dream, what comes next?

That sense of helplessness is what leads a lot of people who are chasing, and achieve, their dreams to end up feeling depressed or sometimes worse once they have what they wanted. They’ve been so focused on and defined by the goal and the journey that they forget there are so many more things to experience outside of that dream and that once their initial dream has been achieved they can, and will, have others they can focus on.

Many people who achieve their goals don’t have someone to help find a new focus once their dream has become true. Fortunately, I am not in that category, I have a wonderful coach who I talked to about this somewhat lost feeling I felt shortly after getting my citizenship.

After some pondering and exploring some practical ideas I found something that sparked many of the same excitements as my journey to become a dual citizen, something that would use my knowledge and understanding of that process, as well as my desire to help others. It also is a longer term project that I can sink my teeth into. My next big journey is to train to be an immigration consultant. What’s even more exciting is it’s a great time to be looking into that line of work as the government is about to implement a huge shake-up in the industry due to a historical lack of central regulation. I’d forgotten it was something I had looked into years ago after going through my permanent residency application. I completed that myself but had a good friend who hired a consultant who was utterly useless. My friend said I was more help than her consultant and suggested maybe looking into that line of work. I did, and found I was left thoroughly confused about how to go about doing it and it was probably best to wait until I had my citizenship. Fast forward 4 years and now I have it so perhaps it’s time to rekindle that goal and see where it goes?

How can my experience help you find your next big dream?

I hope by sharing my experience if you have previously achieved a dream only to feel despondent and lost afterwards, that you take some comfort that the next dream may not been all that far away from you. It took me a single session with my coach and some bouncing of different ideas and pondering before I got the same spark I had when I first ventured down the path to emigrate to Canada. Now it’s still early doors and who knows my next dream might morph into something else but finding a spark is the most important part to starting exploring your next project because without a spark somewhere in the beginning you’ll quickly fizzle out when things get a little complicated or uncertain.

What if you’ve never had a dream before?

I come across this more often than you’d think. Some people go through life kind of feeling their way around without actually finding anything that gives them a spark of excitement or joy. I often find those people are people who have had some earlier trauma, which is one reason trauma work fascinates me so much. We have all had dreams as kids, sometimes even up to early adulthood but unfortunately much of our education system and life experiences can lead us to believing that dreams only exist in fairy tales.

I have worked with numerous clients where that has been the case. More often than not they had that dream part of their brain interrupted, perhaps by an innocuous comment not to be so stupid or foolish as a child, or by some major life altering event like the loss of a loved one or personal trial. I love helping people get back to a place where dreams start to happen again. It can be very exciting for a client and scary at the same time. Having the support and help of someone on that journey can be very helpful and it’s amazing to witnesses the changes in people as they start to follow through on doing things that help them materialize their dreams.

How to contact me if you’re stuck on dreams and achieving your goals:

Website: https://philiphickscoaching.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/pshicks

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/philip.s.hicks

Instagram: @philip_hicks_coaching https://www.instagram.com/philip_hicks_coaching/?hl=en

Email: philiphickscoaching@outlook.com

Are you able to unplug and switch off?

For the last week I have been off of work because I finally got to take my honeymoon with my wife, who I married in March 2021, in the midst of the pandemic. Our wedding was live-streamed so our families and friends could watch from around the globe and our wedding party consisted of us, my in-laws who live nearby, and a friend each. It was an unusual celebration to have with so few friends and family there. After our wedding we had a photo shoot and then the evening was spent together. We didn’t plan any honeymoon because we could barely travel outside of our health district, never mind into other parts of the province.

This week we were finally able to get away to Vancouver Island for a few nights. I decided I would take the whole week off work because I hadn’t used any of my holiday leave since joining the company I work for back in November 2020. There wasn’t much point taking time off as I couldn’t go far and I wanted to save my annual leave until I could go on my honeymoon and for travelling back to the UK to see family, hopefully over Christmas and New Year this year.

One thing I like about taking time off work is how easily I manage to switch off from work and completely forget about it for however long I am off. In the past I have had jobs where I would be checking my emails constantly or wondering what was happening in my absence. I had a serious case of FOMO! what broke this habit was actually getting fired from a job 7 years ago. In the space of a few minutes I went from working at a company to being an alumni. No, I didn’t do anything horrendous to get fired, just my stats were poor despite doing everything I could to try and make them better. I poured myself into my work and was miserable.

That day I got fired I learned several important lessons. One, there is no job worth compromising your mental health for. Two, do not stay in a job or work for a company that makes you feel miserable, even if the pay is higher. Three, I am resourceful and resilient. I walked out of that office with my head held high, a smile on my face and determination to never let myself get in that position again. Instead of moping and feeling sorry for myself I put the wheels into motion to follow through on emigrating to Canada and a few short months later I landed in Vancouver where I have called home for the last almost 6 years.

When I go on vacation now I always fully switch off. I turn on my out of office which clearly tells people I am on holiday and will not be checking my emails, I put a contact for someone to contact for anything that is time sensitive, then I shut down my emails, log out of my laptop and put my work stuff away. And that’s where it stays until I am due back to work. I don’t log on a day early just to check, I don’t sneak a cheeky peak at what might be waiting, I just focus on me and my needs. I take time to read, relax without technology and enjoy the company of whoever I am with.

The last week on my honeymoon has been fantastic. My wife and I have never had a holiday away together before because Covid landed only 7 months into when we started dating so travel wasn’t really an option. We had a great time away this week. We talked, we laughed, we cried, we dreamt, we enjoyed new adventures and creating memories together. It was a magical time and tomorrow when I go back to work, I look forward to seeing what I have missed, putting out any fires that might have sprung up, and relax knowing that whatever might have happened in my absence it won’t take much to sort it out.

I know numerous people who cannot/will not do what I do and switch off. They are constantly worrying about what they are missing, what messes there might be to clean up upon their return and feel like they don’t deserve time off. Does that sound familiar to you? Are you a worrying Wendy or panicking Peter? Are you sick and tired of always coming back off of holiday feeling like you need another holiday to get over it or never feeling rested because when you are not working you can’t do anything but think about what’s happening without you?

If you’re sick and tired of this old hamster wheel habit, let me know. It might just be that you need some accountability to switch off, permission to know it’s ok take a break, and support to understand why this habit exists in the first place. I am here to help you help yourself, to support whatever goals you have and to help you decide on actionable steps to get there.

Connect with me

Website: https://philiphickscoaching.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/pshicks

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/philip.s.hicks

Instagram: @philip_hicks_coaching https://www.instagram.com/philip_hicks_coaching/?hl=en

Email: philiphickscoaching@outlook.com