Hurrying was easy. Carrying everything, slightly too fast and on my own, was straightforward. 

I could congratulate myself for surviving.

For multitasking. 

For keeping the wheels on.

For putting the fires out.

The biggest surprise in my psychotherapy and coaching journey, almost ten years later, remains my relationship with time. I didn’t really know I had one. A race? Possibly. Not a relationship.

This tin lives on the bookcase behind my desk:

As with any writing and confidence habit, we have to want it first. The clearer our picture of what we want, the clearer our plan can be for making it happen. The more connected we feel to the ‘reps’ that take us closer.

The thing I want to never say again – as I said to all my friends and all my potential writing time ten, fifteen years ago, even if I didn’t phrase it like this – is “I don’t have time.” 

When the truth will always be, “Actually, it’s all we have.”

I’ve got better about creating time since I’ve got better at looking myself in the eye and asking the two questions beneath everything else:

‘What do you want?’ and ‘What do you fear?’ 

One of the big answers for me has always been “time to write”. I’ve made steps in that direction since (and because) I acknowledged how important an objective this was for me. When I put boundaries around my time so when I’m off work, I’m off work, and when I’m seeing clients I’m seeing clients, and when I’m writing I’m writing, each ‘rep’ is more muscle memory. I’m getting used to lifting those weights.

Fifteen years ago, a seven-day working week was worse than normal: it was a point of pride. Okay, on Sundays I “only” taught one hour down the road from where I lived. But there was not a single day my mind spent out of work-mode and my creativity suffered for it. Not just on how (little) I wrote but how (little) I valued my own time, skills and potential as a result. I thought – no, it was far more automatic than that; assumed – that not stopping to think or feel showed I was good at what I did. Now, the opposite is true. I know you get a better quality of Rachel when I’m as present in my moment with you – whether we’re in a coaching relationship, a writing workshop or a coffee shop. Everyone in my life benefits when I remind myself the only person who can make time to go deeper in my experiences is me.

But none of this is the reason I love having this tin in my sightline when I approach my desk in the morning, or feeling it behind me as I move through my day. It reminds me of something even deeper, however fast I’m moving:

I don’t need to get this ‘right’ first time. Possibly, there is no ‘right’ at all. 

What I do need, is to give myself time. To take time. To take one authentic step at a time, in the directions that matter to me.

And there will be time. 

Find out more about writing and confidence coaching, along with the full Writers’ Gym weekly programme, on the website.

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