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6 tips to transition from consistent, unexciting work

July 30, 2021

I shared a Wholehearted Q&A chat on Instagram live recently and asked for questions about the book, transition and self-leadership.

This fabulous question came in from Esther via Instagram:

What advice would you give to someone too scared to leave the consistency of working for the government but knowing they are no longer excited or challenged by the work anymore?

Such an excellent question! Thank you Esther. It went straight to my heart. I worked in government as a teacher and leader in the vocational education sector for 30 plus years, so I know intimately the feeling you are expressing. And I am sure it is something many women ponder as they contemplate the tension between ‘safe’ and consistent work and not feeling fulfilled by unexciting work. It certainly brings up fear and trepidation!

You can watch my live as I answer the question here (video also below at the end of this post) or read my response below. Or both! And I welcome your comments or questions too if you have experienced this situation or are experiencing it now.

I’m hearing in this question the desire for change, but also valuing the security and ongoing employment offered. It’s a very real tension and one that can keep us stuck as we work out the best way to move. But if we can make a plan to move on to better things, it can make all the difference to our mindset!

Here are 6 tips for changing from consistent but unexciting work!

1. Look at your why

A starting point would be to look at WHY you are no longer challenged or excited in the organisation or role you are in.

Journal about this to see what comes up. Is it because, for example:

  • you are no longer aligned to the organisation. 
  • it’s boring and not stretching you in the role you are in.
  • you wish to be doing something completely different.
  • you have long-held creative yearnings that you want to fill.
  • something else?

This will help you with the next step of looking at options.

2. Look at your options

If no longer challenged or excited by your work role now, brainstorm and make a list of options open to you. Self-leadership is all about exploring options and choices. Then actively pursuing what you feel is right for you with intention. Some of your options might be:

  • seeking new opportunities within the organisation you work for.
  • seeking opportunities like secondment in another government organisation or a project role where you can feel more excitement and challenge.
  • starting a consultancy on the side or another sort of side-hustle around a passion or something you’ve always wanted to do.
  • seek opportunities for space to consider options, for example: working part time, job-sharing, taking leave, working four days a week or a nine-day fortnight.
  • look at the skills you have, your body of work over time and where this might take you next.

Often we see our situations and options as binary and either/or, but there are frequently many choices. The transition to what you desire might involve a series of choices that take you there, one step at a time. It might not be one gigantic leap even though that may feel like the most desirable option. Deep transition takes time and is often incremental.

3. Get a vision of what life might be like

To get a vision of what life might look like in the future, write about what your ideal day might look like in a few years’ time. This simple but powerful activity helps to get to what is in your heart and what would help you feel fulfilled and happy. Often it’s simpler than we think and this activity helps us to see where we are already on the way.

A vision board or collage is another way to do this if you are more visual. You could start a Pinterest Board and gather images of what your new life might look like to see what themes emerge and what you are seeking through change. This process helps us to tap into what is beneath the surface of our consciousness, trying to break through.

vision board

4. Take inventory

When you want change or are not happy where you are, it is easy to dwell on what you don’t have. It’s helpful and grounding therefore to look at what you have and see how you can deploy these resources more effectively.

Areas to take stock of include:

  • skills you have, your body of work
  • skills you want to develop
  • resources, including financial resources
  • financial options
  • potential income sources
  • superannuation
  • leave
  • investment strategies
  • where you could cut back

Part of the fear of leaving a government job (and often other employment) is letting go of the security, the regular pay and the conditions. They are familiar and regular and it is not a decision to be made lightly. If you wish to leave, look at what you have to help you make a shift and how you might supplement or replace the income. Look at living differently, having fewer expenses, making income creatively.

unexciting work

5. Check your mindset – look at the fears

It’s very natural to feel fear as we make change, even if it is a change we deeply want.

An important distinction is this.

CHANGE is external – what happens to us, also what we choose to change or start.

TRANSITION is internal – how we plan, adjust, prepare, ground ourselves and our mindset as we do this.

The inner work of transition, even from unexciting work, includes looking at the fears, self-limiting beliefs and self-doubt that typically arise in times of change. Managing the internal aspects of transition strengthens our ability to negotiate change positively with self-knowledge.

If feeling scared, have a good look at your fears. Make a list of what scares you. Get it down on paper. Identify the false, overstated or imagined fears, then identify the ones that are genuine concerns. Once you have these identified, use all the tips here to work out how to address these fears in practical terms. 

6. Get support

Significant transition takes time. It feels like your very identity is in the mix even if the unexciting work is making you unhappy. Often you feel alone, lost and uncertain at such times. You need support! Get a coach – I would love to support you if you are going through transition times in a 1:1 capacity as your coach. Working with a coach helped me immensely as I went through my transition journey, and I still work with coaches all the time to keep growing and focused. A group coaching program like the Sacred Creative Collective can also be an option if you want support and connection with others while going through change.

Head to Work with me to learn how you can work with me as your coach. First step is a free Self-leadership Discovery Call so we can connect and have a conversation about your challenges and desires and where I might help. You can book that free, no obligation call HERE.

So summing up, here are my 6 tips for transitioning from consistent but unexciting work:

  1. Look at your why – so you can get some context and a starting point.
  2. Look at options – so you can widen your scope of action.
  3. Get a vision of what life might be like – see what you might really want.
  4. Take inventory – look at the resources you have for a new life.
  5. Check your mindset – look at fears and interrogate them.
  6. Get support – via a coach and community to help you negotiate the changes positively.

Watch the video here to review:

Knowing it’s time to make a plan for a transition

If you know in your heart you’ve had enough of this unexciting work and need to move on. Or there’s been a turning point event in your life that has clearly said, ‘I no longer belong here’, then making a transition plan using the above tips is helpful.

Another resource for you is to strengthen your self-leadership skills is my book, Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition. It is full of practical strategies to help you with self-leadership if you are going through change or wanting something different. Plus the experience of reading the book and working through the workbook is a deep self-leadership and self-coaching experience.

You can pre-order Wholehearted and the Companion Workbook now to help you navigate times of transition. The books will be with you on 6 September. In the meantime, I’ll send you a free pdf of Chapter 1 so you can start reading now.

Plus, if you purchase 2 books, Wholehearted and/or the Companion Workbook, you can join me for a live Masterclass on ‘15 Wholehearted Self-leadership Skill to Change your Life’ where I’ll walk you through these strategies and answer questions.

So click below to find out more about the books. All the links to pre-order the paperback and ebook versions worldwide via different booksellers are there.

Learn more about Wholehearted
Wholehearted Book

Read more:

How to tap into the power of emerging at midlife

Create Your Deeper Story 1 to 1 Coaching

Stories of Wholehearted Living

Sacred Creative Collective Group Coaching

Cora Pacheco – Sacred Creative Stories of Transition

Your body of work: the greatest gift for transition to a bright new life

Image credits:

Feature image: Photo by Siddharth Bhogra on Unsplash 

Vision board image: Photo by Andy Art on Unsplash 

Laptop image: Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash 

inspiration & influence transition

A year for appreciating what matters

May 5, 2020

What have we been wasting our time doing?

Sherene Vismaya
Speaking of Jung Podcast
what matters

The year so far

In a year that memes have amusingly suggested was written by Stephen King, it has been one crisis after another. A series of emergencies in the form of destructive and damaging bushfires and floods ravaged Australia from late 2019. All fires in NSW were finally contained by 13 February.

By that time we were beginning to deal with the unfolding news of Coronavirus impacts in China beginning to spread. Since then the COVID-19 pandemic has unleashed a wave of unimaginable suffering and fear. To remain safe, we are all indoors and limiting our interactions as much as possible. Life as we know it has radically changed. Loved ones are out of reach physically and the death and sickness toll reflects the extensive impact on both an individual and collective level.

How are you doing?

So how are you doing in this year of immense challenge?

It is easy to focus on the worrying and fearful side of life and disaster. Media reports come at us relentlessly. Each of our situations is different and will influence how we respond. Our personality also plays a significant part. Whether we are introverted or extraverted is a huge influence on how being confined to our home more plays out for us.

For some, it has been a welcome relief from the workplace, commuting and too much social interaction, a time for reflecting within. Extraverts are typically finding it difficult not interacting socially given it is an important form of recharge: “Low-energy. I’m finding I don’t pandemic well.” Some personalities are more likely to thrive in isolation but all of us can find meaning in this time. I shared about what this time of COVID-19 and social distancing has been like for me as a person with INTJ preferences in this guest post.

what matters

Appreciating what matters

For me, this has been a year for appreciating what matters. Right from the get-go. Here are some of the ways that appreciating what matters has expressed itself in day to day life. I hope these thoughts inspire you too to tune into what matters.

Fresh air and sunshine

Those early weeks of 2020 were a stark reminder of the value of fresh air and sunshine. We experienced days of thick smoke with hazardous air quality levels but were fortunate to escape bushfires directly where I live.

As an asthmatic, I didn’t go out for weeks if I could avoid it. Summer in Australia is a time of outdoor living, sun, beach days and clear open skies. But not this year. We stayed inside most of the time at the height of our usually beautiful summers.

When we could finally get out into the fresh air and sunshine, it was with a new appreciation of its value. We could walk, swim, sit on the deck, look up at the open-hearted sky and relax.

In Australia while under COVID-19 conditions we have enjoyed mostly good weather and our level of restriction allows us to go out for exercise. We know from the 1918 Influenza epidemic that fresh air and sun can be a healing agent and natural disinfectant against disease. The value of being outdoors and in sunshine is so appreciated in new ways this year.

what matters

Home and community

In a brilliant podcast on the astrology and spirituality of the COVID-19 crisis, Jungian analyst Sherene Vismaya, tells that her spiritual teacher Amma told her followers in advance that something was going to happen in 2020. And they should all get to where they needed to be to hunker down.

The importance of where we are and a sense of home have become pivotal this year. I have so appreciated having a comfortable and stable home in a place that I love.

So many lost their homes in the bushfires. In recent times, many have had to travel in difficult circumstances to get home. Others have had to leave places that have been home for them while others have not been able to get home as they would like. It’s been a year for appreciating what matters about home, having a stable base and thinking about what home and community looks and feels like.

Friends and family

Family too has taken on new meaning as we have been contained to our smaller family bubble. It’s been wonderful to connect with family via Zoom and in other ways as we all spend more time isolated. In some ways, there has been more regular communication which is welcome. Missing loved ones and not being able to travel to see them or hug them is highlighted. I think we will come out of this time with a new appreciation for what matters in our family and relationship contexts.

Likewise, friends and community have been so supportive as we share our experiences and support each other. I have always valued my online friends and community. This time has bought that meaning to the fore.

Many of us gathered around Susannah Conway’s April Love 2020 hashtag challenge and continue in various challenges in May. I deeply appreciate my friends and community, whether the connection is mostly in person or online. This time has helped us to remember that it is connection that matters, however it is formed and shaped. Oh and I so appreciate anew those special times I have caught up with Quiet Writing friends overseas.




  • Meeting Lynn Hanford-Day in London



  • Meeting Emmy in Glastonbury



  • Meeting Julia Barnickle in London
  • joy + travel



    Meeting Kerstin Pilz in Frankfurt (+ Sydney and Hoi An!)



  • Meeting Claire and Tori in Manchester



  • Meeting Jennifer Cockcroft in London

Animals

Witnessing the terrible destruction of so many animals in Australia during the bushfires was so upsetting. Our beautiful native animals – koalas, kangaroos, wombats, and so many others – unable to move fast enough and killed in great numbers. We often take it for granted that these animals will always be there. But the bushfire emergency highlighted that wide-scale death and destruction can mean species may become extinct. Additional funding started to flow, publicly and privately, to the work of native animal rescue and rehabilitation. There was so much more appreciation for their work in keeping these sacred animals alive.

It’s also been lovely to witness the role of companion animals in these crises. Being at home more and in our bubble, the animals we share our space with have taken on even more value and significance. New bonds have been forming with new animals finding forever homes to share a life with. And just the opportunity to cuddle up close is so comforting.

what matters
Azzie cuddling up close with me

Beach, bush, yoga, walking and swimming

I live in an isolated area surrounded by beach and bush. These past months have highlighted the preciousness of both. Many of us have sought solace in wooded sanctuaries and parks nearby. The open space of the beach and the rhythm of the sea have been restorative energies.

I have used this time to sharpen my Personal Success Routines and ensure exercise is enshrined in my days. When we experienced the bushfires, I couldn’t get out to do what I loved most – to swim and walk. Even yoga classes were difficult with the poor air quality during the bushfires. It was safer to stay home. So when we could exercise outside eventually, they were like holy times and totally newly appreciated.

In this time of COVID-19, I started off hunkering down more than I needed to as I shared in my guest post on self-isolation recently. Eventually, I started going out more and getting back to walk and swim as I used to. Again, I missed yoga classes as they stopped due to social distancing. But I helped my yoga teacher get onto Zoom and offer her classes online. So in a wonderful win/win, I now can enjoy my yoga classes in my own home.

My new Personal Success Routine has been an opportunity to really up my commitment to what makes a difference with these new realisations of what matters. I have always been terrible at yoga home practice. But now I start the day with 30 minutes of yoga, a 45-minute walk on the beach and then an hour of Morning Pages, Tarot and Creative/Spiritual reading. I’ll share more on this soon. But it’s an embodiment in practice of appreciating what matters. And it is making ALL the difference.

what matters

Nourishing local organic food

Along with these new practices, I have found locals are working hard to source and help us access organic food locally. In my village, we are now able to source organic fruit and vegetables and more recently, organic meat and wild-caught fish. I was unaware of these options before this time. So now I am enjoying the freshest of produce that last for a long time and only driving 3 minutes up the road to get it.

I am so thankful for those seeking local organic alternatives and helping others to enjoy them too. We swap recipes on our Facebook group and share a joy of what matters when it comes to eating in healthy ways.

what matters

Reading and personality type

Hasn’t reading come into its own in these times? Always an avid reader, I have savoured it all the more as I have had to stay inside more. I have chosen novels for most of this time, enjoying historical fiction, especially by Australian women authors. You can always check in with what I am reading here over at Goodreads.

Finding it hard to concentrate initially in this time of bushfire and pandemic, I am enjoying catching up more now on my consolidating reads and personality reference material as I shape up some new offerings and material. Personality type insights have been a key tool in negotiating this time and my reactions. I have shared personality insights online, via this guest post and via 1:1 and group coaching.

Quiet Writing and working from home

And of course, it’s been a time for quiet writing, for going deeper in my business, my coaching, offerings and writing. I deeply appreciated that over time I have built an online business coaching, writing and working from home. Pursuing multiple streams of income through a combination of property investment and development, coaching, online courses and writing books, it’s been an affirmative time for knowing this is the right strategy. It’s been a time of digging deep to work out how to share with others how they can work on what matters in their lives.

How are you appreciating what matters at this time?

So that is my thoughts on appreciating what matters at this time. It took me ages to write this post as I reflected deeply on these past months and what they have taught me. I would love to hear what you are appreciating as mattering and making a difference for you now.

What are you appreciating more deeply?

What matters for you – what realisations have you had?

What have you missed?

What new practices would you love to cultivate?

What transitions are you seeking?

Transition Coaching

I am a transition coach and work with women seeking deeper meaning and purpose and change in their lives. If you would like support working with the energies and challenges that this time has brought to the surface, I’d love to work with you.

Coaching with me can help you navigate these times so you can make the most of what matters.

Head over to my Work with me page for more information:

Work With Me

Or head straight over to book a Discovery Call – love to talk with you and support your stepping into this time more positively!

Book a Discovery Call
what matters
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inspiration & influence love, loss & longing

Joy and grief: the paradox and wisdom of finding joy alongside grief

December 19, 2018

This post explores joy and grief: how I have been able to find joy alongside deep grief, the challenges and what it has it taught me.

joy and grief

When you see joy beside the agony, you have the keen vision of a Soul warrior.

Danielle LaPorte

Joy and grief in 2018

Joy is my word of the year for 2018. I shared the beginning of my story of working with ‘joy’ here. It certainly wasn’t what I expected. Though I knew it was never going to be an easy or straightforward journey. Reflecting on this past year, I’ve found the journey of exploring joy falls into themes or stages around the quarters of the year of finding joy…

  1. alongside deep grief
  2. and resilience in challenge
  3. in travel and being away from home
  4. in creative work and my calling

This post explores finding joy alongside deep grief and how the two can co-exist. A focus of the first quarter of 2018, this theme and learning has continued through-out this year in different ways. It’s been an undercurrent that I continue to work with even now.

The challenge of choosing joy

Choosing joy as my word was always going to be full of challenge. The end of 2016 and all of 2017 were very challenging as I supported my beautiful mother after her diagnosis with metastatic breast cancer in September 2016. After a very tough year, my mother passed away on Christmas Day last year and her funeral was in the first week of 2018.  So as you can imagine, joy was not a feature of life through that time. 

But I chose the word joy because I wanted more of it in my life. It’s a word often associated with Christmas and that time highlighted just how far I felt from feeling joy. Even the concept of ‘enJOYing’ life in any way can seem challenging when you are caring for another with a terminal illness and then supporting them in the final stages of life. A friend described this time as an “agonising privilege” and it is this exactly. So putting in a claim for a year around joy in 2018 always felt somewhat audacious and optimistic. I wondered what it would bring.

joy and greif

Finding joy alongside deep grief

Balancing even the thought of joy with grief was hard in practice especially at the start of the year. I attended the Priestess Business Workshop,  part of The Goddess Roadtrip led by Julie Parker and Sora Surya No in early January. It was the day before my mother’s funeral and being amongst powerful, supportive allies and female energy felt like the best place to be. The wonderful Jade McKenzie ran a session at the workshop on being seen and what we unapologetically wanted to be. We stood up one by one to say this and be witnessed by the room and women there. 

The statement I wrote down, in line with my word of the year, was: “I am unapologetically joyful.” When it came to my turn to stand up, I just froze. I couldn’t get the words out. The tears came and the room, full of female coaches and healers of all kinds, was silent and encouraging. All the women there held powerful, silent space for me as I gathered my strength and dealt with the tsunami of emotions barrelling through me.

Eventually, through tears, I was able to say the words, “I am unapologetically joyful“. I felt immediately stronger claiming joy, if also very fragile. It demonstrated the enormous tension that lies in the juxtaposition of grief and joy. I began to have a deeper sense that day of how challenging this paradox of grief and joy might be.

It’s like we are drawn into a binary view of the world, not allowing ourselves to feel joy in any way when we are in deep sadness and pain. I realised finding joy, playfulness, fun, laughter and happiness again against a backdrop of deep grief was not going to be easy. But it felt central to this year’s journey.

joy and grief

The paradox of joy and grief

A big learning this year is that it’s okay to feel the joy of everyday things at the same time as we feel immense pain. We tend to make it an either/or, saying to ourselves either I feel grief or I feel joy. I cannot feel both. It can feel like a terrible tension and betrayal of our pain if we feel good in any way. And feeling joy or lighter feelings can somehow feel like a betrayal of a particular person and their memory. It as if we feel we need to stay in a certain emotional space to honour that person. In this, we can deny ourselves positive feelings and experiences that can help us move through the grief and loss. Over time, this can set in and become habitual and the mindset of how we live.

Danielle LaPorte in her book White Hot Truth has much to say about the wisdom of paradox and courage to change your beliefs. She deals with a number of paradoxes such as: 

Lead with your heart and… Your head.

Be open-hearted and… Have clear, strong boundaries.

Trust and… Do the work.

From Rock Your Paradoxes 

For me, joy and grief is a kind of paradox and polarity we can work with, one that does rock our beliefs but brings wisdom in its wake.

Difference between joy and happiness

Danielle has something to say about that too in her piece, The difference between joy and happiness. And why it helps to know.

Herein lies the heart of the matter. The key thing is it is not about a mutually exclusive choice between feeling grief or joy. It’s not about the more fleeting feelings of happiness either. Learning to navigate the paradox of feeling joy and grief at the same time is a journey of wisdom. It’s one I’ve spent much of the year on. Danielle’s piece provides powerful insights. Here are a few perspectives that distil my experiential learning about joy and grief:

Consciousness is not an either/or equation. It’s about bothness.
The capacity to expand into bothness — the awareness of your joy in all circumstances — is so much of what it means to evolve…

Happiness is like rising bubbles — delightful and inevitably fleeting. Joy is the oxygen — ever present….

Joy is the fibre of your Soul….

This means that it’s possible to grieve with your whole heart, and still sense your joy. You can feel rage, and be aware of joy waiting patiently for you to return, and take deep comfort in that.

Danielle LaPorte 

 

Lessons from joy and grief

So this year has been full of heart-felt lessons about joy and grief.

It’s been full of learning to live in paradox and seeing joy as a kind of oxygen. This learning set the tone of the first quarter of the year as I moved through the deep grief of losing my mother. As people who have been there will know, it’s a defining moment of your life. At the same time, I also experienced my job being deleted and becoming redundant in February. So there were layers of different kinds of grief I was working through all at the same time.

I learnt it was okay to feel joy – celebrating the joy of my mother’s beautiful life, the strength that lives on in me, my female ancestry and lineage, her loving kindness and knowing she was cheering me on as always as I moved into a new phase of life. All of these qualities and the simple pleasures of water, light, tea, sun, reading, swimming, friends and family helped me navigate much at this time.

Grief and joy can co-exist. By weaving one with the other, the passage through is deeply felt but somehow more sure-footed and grounded. Being able to smile and embrace the full gamut of emotions simultaneously is a wholehearted learning joy has taught me.

This first part of the year set the tone. It taught me that joy is often found in the smallest moments that we allow ourselves to feel even as we feel great sorrow. The light of joy can shine gently into the shadows of our sadness helping us find pockets of positive reflections to sustain us and move us forward.

I learnt more on this on the way through the year – and share further in the next posts to come.

Shared with much love and in memory of my mother, the most truly beautiful person, who taught me how to feel joy alongside deep grief in the most selfless of ways. 

joy and grief

More information: Word of the Year resources

Working on a Word of the Year is a powerful process. Susannah Conway has a fabulous free Word of the Year ecourse available each year that I often dive into. It works really well alongside the Unravel Your Year process and free workbook that Susannah also creates and generously shares each year. I’ve been working through both processes to review my year and plan for the next one since 2014.

I credit these practices with contributing to deep realisations about where I was stuck and needed to make change. In 2016, I started doing things differently and began to make my transition and now at the end of 2018, I am two years in to my change journey and life is very different. It’s much more in line with the dreams and visions I had way back in 2014!

Amy Palko also offers My Word Goddess Readings with suggestions for your word for the year linked to a Goddess of the Year. Also a practice I have invested in for a few years now, it provides valuable intuitive insights and suggestions for words that might help drive your year’s energy positively.  

You might also enjoy:

Finding JOY in the everyday – reflections on my Word of the Year for 2018

Joy – 18 inspiring quotes on enjoying what you do and love

Grief and pain can be our most important teachers – a wholehearted story

Never too old – finding courage and skill to empower your dreams

How I plan to manifest energy joy and intention to make the most of the coming year

Keep in touch + read the books that shaped my story

You might also find inspiration in my free 94-page ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’ – all about wholehearted self-leadership, reading as creative influence and books to inspire your own journey. Just pop your email address in the box below. 

You will receive the ebook straight away! Plus you’ll receive monthly Beach Notes with updates and inspiring resources from Quiet Writing. This includes writing, personality type, coaching, creativity, tarot, productivity and ways to express your unique voice in the world.

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community. Look forward to connecting with you and inspiring your wholehearted story!

coaching personality and story writing

I’m a Creativity & Self-leadership Coach, a Writer & more

October 2, 2018

creativity self-leadership coach

We round off our #quietwriting IG challenge journey by claiming who and what we are: I’m a Creativity + Self-leadership Coach and a Writer, skilled in Personality Type assessment. Read on to find out more about what this means – and what it might mean for you!

Use the #quietwriting hashtag across platforms as a way to create, connect and link us together on our ongoing journey to draft, process, create, make space for writing and other creativity and otherwise live a wholehearted creative life. Read on to discover more and connect with creative others about claiming who and what we are.

Claiming who and what we are

I’ve just received my beautiful new business cards developed with Stephey Baker of Marked by the Muse. You can see my Quiet Writing logo and essence phrase: ‘Journeying deep into wholehearted stories’ and my colour palette. I’ll be integrating my logo, colour palette and essence phrase into Quiet Writing and all its aspects over time. And I’ll share more with you on the process of developing this and what it means for my business and life soon.

In working on this, I had to work out what I stand for, what I am, in this new creative life I’ve carved out. I had to work out what to put on my business cards to communicate this. It’s taken many hours and days of learning and skill development. In fact, it’s taken years of creating and honing my body of work and then taking it forward in new ways. Sometimes we need to step forward and claim who and what we are, like on our business cards and via our websites.

Our ‘About me’ page, our logo, our essence phrase, stating who and what we are – these are some of the hardest pieces of work we can do as creative entrepreneurs.

So I’m a Creativity & Self-leadership Coach, a Writer and a Personality Type Practitioner skilled in Personality Type Assessment. Settling on this took a very long time. It involved many elements including:

  • becoming a life coach
  • being able to call myself a writer
  • skilling up and practising in Jung/Myers-Briggs personality type assessment
  • working out how to blend personality type with life coaching
  • working out my coaching niche as creativity and self-leadership for women in transition
  • encouraging wholehearted self-leadership in myself and others.

Here are some additional thoughts on each of the puzzle pieces and how they might help you.

creativity self-leadership coach

I’m a Creativity and Self-leadership Coach

Becoming a life coach was a critical piece in my transition journey – one of three key pillars. I chose to study with the Beautiful You Life Coaching Academy. As part of this journey, it was important to identify our niche and what makes us different from each other. I needed to work out who my ideal client is, what their needs are and how I can help them.

My main modus operandi personally and in my coaching is creativity. Creative is one of my five Core Desired Feelings. It’s what I choose to do each day across all of my life including coaching and writing. It was a core thread in my body of work over time too. I focused on creativity and innovation as a leader in the role I played in the government adult vocational education sector until recently.

Leadership is a key piece of my body of work too: being a leader and working on myself as a leader. I realised as I made this shift to being a coach that all of the leadership skills I developed over time apply equally to self-leadership. Leading yourself first is a critical foundation of leadership.

So taking my body of work in these areas forward, I am interested in helping women going through transition especially at mid-life with creativity and self-leadership. I love supporting women to connect with their creativity, get the creative works of their heart out in the world. And to have the self-leadership, self-understanding, confidence, skills and productivity tools to make it happen.

creativity self-leadership coach

I’m a writer

So just why is calling ourselves a writer so hard? Of all the titles I’m claiming in this piece, ‘writer’ has the most mystique and baggage attached to it. I am not sure why we put the role of writer on a pedestal but probably because it’s something we aspire to.

This piece, The Subtle Art of Not Writing, helped me move through that blockage. Writing it made me think through a whole raft of things: resistance, getting out of our own way, making things manageable, shifting our contexts, small tweaks, tricking ourselves, recognising our body of work over time and self-belief.

Claiming the title of writer has been an important step in this transition process. Getting into the habit of writing more consistently via blog, morning pages, book draft, NaNoWriMo. going on a writing retreat in Vietnam and embracing writing as my authentic heart has been so empowering. I’ve seen my work out in the world in many ways now, here on Quiet Writing and via my featured writing elsewhere.

A combination of keeping in practice, honing my voice and crafting pieces for publication means claiming the role of writer is much easier than it has been in the past. Though truth be told, I’ve always been a writer. Embracing the writing life has made it feel a title I am more comfortable with claiming. Here I am writing at the beautiful An Villa embracing the writing life on retreat recently. This picture by Nigel Rowles and used with permission and thanks.

creativity self-leadership coach

I’m a Personality Type Practitioner

A key piece in my transition pillars was becoming a Jung/Myers-Briggs Personality Type Practitioner. This is because understanding my INTJ personality made all the difference in my life. I’ve learnt to understand and work my introversion, my intuition, my thinking and my judging skills. And to appreciate how the mix of these preferences is something to honour and value in my life. I’ve learnt to embrace my Introverted Intuition as a dominant preference and gift. I understand Extraverted Sensing is my least preferred way of operating. By working on the least preferred, I can get more balance and be more wholehearted.

I see knowing your personality type and preferences as a key part of self-leadership and self-understanding. So I skilled up over time in personality type assessment and integrate it with life coaching. My offerings and writing in this space focus on helping you truly know and understand your personality type. Through a deep process of personality type assessment, an ecourse and coaching debrief with me, you can achieve insights for to guide your wholehearted journey. We also look at aspects like coaching style, entrepreneurship, creativity, stress and resilience through the lens of personality type. It’s such a powerful tool.

Understanding your personality type

If you’d like to work more on understanding your personality type, I’ll be rolling out my offerings in the personality space in mid October. It’s not just about introvert and extrovert aspects though these are important. You learn about your preferences around sensing and intuition; thinking and feeling; and perceiving and judging as well.

The Personality Stories package includes:

  • personality type assessment online
  • an online course on personality preferences so you can understand your type
  • a coaching package to work on deep-diving into the wholehearted story of your personality.
  • a Quiet Writing personality type summary, and
  • email support for two weeks after.

Personality Stories coaching package

Here’s the detail of the coaching package. You receive:

  1. Personality assessment online: Complete the Majors Personality Type Inventory (Majors PTI™) online assessment. This helps you to begin to identify your Jung/Myers-Briggs 4-letter personality type.
  2. Self-paced online course on personality type: Working through the self-paced Personality Stories ecourse. It takes about 3 hours (max) to complete this short online course. I hope you will find it fascinating learning about Carl Jung, his followers and their rich work on personality type.
  3. Coaching debrief to work through your results: Once you complete the ecourse, we have a 90 minute 1:1 face to face coaching session via Zoom to debrief your results. You receive your Majors Personality Type assessment report, and the four letter code arrived at, in this session. The coaching debrief focuses on checking that your assessment result is your true or best-fit Type and discussing your results. We work through any questions and set inspiring goals and actions to take this knowledge forward and embed it in your life.
  4. Quiet Writing summary: Once your true personality type is confirmed from the coaching session, you will receive a Quiet Writing summary of the key aspects of your personality type to take forward. This includes links to further reading, tarot connections and suggestions for managing stress and fostering creativity in your life.
  5. Email contact for 2 weeks after to follow up on any questions and learnings.

The investment for this package is $350AU as a special ‘first release’ price. Just let me know via email at terri@quietwriting.com if you are interested in being included in the first limited October enrolment.

I’m grateful for connections via #quietwriting

So I welcome your comments here or on social media. I look forward to seeing #quietwriting images that share thoughts and open up dialogue on quiet in your life. Just share an image on Instagram using the tag #quietwriting. Here are the prompts we worked through for the challenge in September to give you an idea.

#quietwriting

And the #quietwriting hashtag continues beyond the week of the challenge, so use it anytime to create and connect. You can learn more here about #quietwriting

Just a reminder of the key points:

  • Quiet Writing is about the strength that comes from working steadily and without fanfare in writing and other spheres to create, coalesce, influence and connect.
  • Hashtags are such a fabulous way to gather, finding our creative kindred souls and inspiration online.
  • On Instagram, you can now follow hashtags as well as individual profiles. So follow #quietwriting now and into the future to connect around creativity and your quiet work, writing and making art.
  • You can head on over to the #quietwriting hashtag on Instagram or Facebook or other social media anytime and see what’s popping up. 
  • You could also post on your own profile on Facebook as well using the hashtag.
  • Often we write quietly, behind closed doors or in busy cafes, privately. Let’s shine a light behind the scenes and capture the process of writing and creativity in action, wherever we are.

Get on board with #quietwriting!

These are just some ideas and they will evolve as we all contribute. It doesn’t have to be all about writing – it can be any form of creativity. Nor do you need to be an introvert; we all need quiet writing time to get creative work done.

Ongoing, I’ll feature my favourite images from the tag here and on Instagram and Facebook so share your images for the chance to be featured!

So join the #quietwriting party and let us know what you are up to! Who knows what creative connections you might make to support you on your journey or inspire your next creation?

Welcome your comments and images to inspire and connect our creativity online as we progress our works in progress!

work in progress

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

You can work with me to help reset your creativity and wholehearted self-leadership. Free 30-45 minute coaching consults chats are available so please get in touch at terri@quietwriting.com to talk further. I’d love to be a guide to help you create with spirit and heart in your own unique way. Consults available now for an October coaching start!

You can download my free 94-page ebook on the 36 Books that Shaped my Story – just sign up with your email address in the box to the right or below.  You will also receive updates from Quiet Writing and its passions. This includes personality type, coaching, creativity, writing, tarot and other connections to help express your unique voice in the world.

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community.

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

Personality, story and introverted intuition 

How knowing your authentic heart can make you shine

Your body of work: the greatest gift for transition to a bright new life

#quietwriting – growing creative community and connection

Practices and tools to support creative productivity, writing and mindset

Creative and connected – on the special value of self-leadership

The Journey to Write Here: My Wholehearted Story

Puzzle image via pexels.com

creativity writing

Work in progress – being one and creating one

September 28, 2018

work in progress

As part of the #quietwriting hashtag and Instagram Challenge, we shift now to looking at work in progress – being one and creating one.

Use the #quietwriting hashtag across platforms – for the challenge and beyond – as a way to create, connect and link us together on our ongoing journey to draft, process, create, make space for writing and other creativity and otherwise live a wholehearted creative life. Read on to discover more and connect with creative others about being a work in progress.

Being a work in progress

Work in progress is a key theme for me on many levels. Firstly, I am a work in progress. I’ve shifted over the past two years from a career as a leader, formerly teacher, in the government adult vocational education sector to being a life coach and writer.

These two years have been a time of immense personal growth and a deep journey into self-leadership at a time of transition. I’ve had to pretty well rewrite my whole identity: what defines me, how I spend my days, how I earn  income, the work I do.

I listen to many podcasts and I often hear women talk of feeling old in their early 30’s in this age of creative entrepreneurship. They often seem to compare themselves with younger women and their journey; something I know is easy to do. I’ve found myself thinking, “I wish I’d started this journey 20 years earlier instead of at age 55”.

But the truth is you couldn’t have done this work in this way 20 years ago. The technology just wasn’t available in the way that it is now. Work as I do it now as an online life coach and personality type practitioner was not possible in this form. Further, all the lessons I’ve learnt over time and my body of work brings me to where I am now, with my unique learning, passions, skills and experience. There’s simply no benefit in focusing on age or lost opportunities, only on the future.

So I accept myself as a work in progress now, a creative entrepreneur, a solopreneur, moving through a major life transition, learning and sharing the self-leadership skills I have gathered over this time.

work in progress

Wholehearted – my work in progress

As I have moved through this time, my focus has been on the twin goals of writing and life coaching. Underpinning these two main goals are the skills of becoming a personality type practitioner and a tarot reader. These are the pieces that have held my self-leadership journey together over the past two years. Each day, I’ve worked on one or the other, or all of them, in a kind of mosaic, piecing myself together through this time.

As I’ve moved through this time, I’ve documented the journey and my reflections. In November 2017, I focused via NaNoWriMo on getting a significant chunk of work done (50,000 words in one month) on my book draft. I recently finished the first draft. It is around 84,000 words about my journey, part-memoir and part self-leadership experiences, to share with others in transition to guide their journey.

Having just finished the first draft, I printed it off to be able to see it and review it. I read Joanna Penn’s How to Write Non-fiction for support as I move through this ‘work in progress’ process. A recent writing and yoga retreat in Hoi An, Vietnam with Kerstin Pilz helped me connect with my writing voice and story again. The manuscript is still resting in a process that seems necessary before I move back to edit it.

work in progress

Being a work in progress

The process of reviewing my progress on my two year transition journey and also working on my manuscript have all helped me feel like a work in progress. All that work expended into this draft and version of me and my emerging book. My body of work there in the pages and days of my life and the process of editing and reviewing to finetune words, decisions, pathways, in process as always.

How about you?

  • Are you feeling like a work in progress right now?
  • Have you been through major life transitions and how have you felt about that?
  • What works in progress are you in the middle of creating?
  • What have they taught you about your skills, knowledge and experience?
  • If you’d like to be more in progress, what would you like to be creating?
  • What shape does it look like?
  • What difference would it make in your life to create this work?
  • How does creative work interact with you and your own feeling of being in process?

Love to hear your thoughts and see any images via Instagram – just use the hashtag #quietwriting for the challenge or anytime so we can connect with you. Or share your thoughts in the comments here or on Facebook.

Quiet connections via #quietwriting

So I welcome your comments here or on social media. I look forward to seeing #quietwriting images that share thoughts and open up dialogue on quiet in your life. Just share an image on Instagram using the tag #quietwriting and follow the prompts each day for ideas. Here are the prompts:

#quietwriting

And the #quietwriting hashtag will continue beyond the week of the challenge, so use it anytime to create and connect. You can learn more here about #quietwriting

Just a reminder of the key points:

  • Quiet Writing is about the strength that comes from working steadily and without fanfare in writing and other spheres to create, coalesce, influence and connect.
  • Hashtags are such a fabulous way to gather, finding our creative kindred souls and inspiration online.
  • On Instagram, you can now follow hashtags as well as individual profiles. So follow #quietwriting now and into the future to connect around creativity and your quiet work, writing and making art.
  • You can head on over to the #quietwriting hashtag on Instagram or Facebook or other social media anytime and see what’s popping up. 
  • You could also post on your own profile on Facebook as well using the hashtag.
  • Often we write quietly, behind closed doors or in busy cafes, privately. Let’s shine a light behind the scenes and capture the process of writing and creativity in action, wherever we are.

Get on board with #quietwriting + the hashtag challenge!

These are just some ideas and they will evolve as we all contribute. It doesn’t have to be all about writing – it can be any form of creativity. Nor do you need to be an introvert; all of us need quiet writing time to get creative work done.

I’ll feature my favourite images from the tag here and on Instagram and Facebook so share your images for the chance to be featured!

So join the #quietwriting party and let us know what you are up to! Who knows what creative connections you might make to support you on your journey or inspire your next creation?

Welcome your comments and images to inspire and connect our creativity online as we progress our works in progress!

work in progress

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

You can work with me to help reset your creativity and wholehearted self-leadership. Free 30-45 minute coaching consults chats are available so please get in touch at terri@quietwriting.com to talk further. I’d love to be a guide to help you create with spirit and heart in your own unique way. Consults available now for an October coaching start!

You can download my free 94-page ebook on the 36 Books that Shaped my Story – just sign up with your email address in the box to the right or below.  You will also receive updates from Quiet Writing and its passions. This includes personality type, coaching, creativity, writing, tarot and other connections to help express your unique voice in the world.

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community.

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

How knowing your authentic heart can make you shine

Your body of work: the greatest gift for transition to a bright new life

#quietwriting – growing creative community and connection

Practices and tools to support creative productivity, writing and mindset

Creative and connected – on the special value of self-leadership

creativity transcending

Opening your heart to inspiration of a different kind

May 7, 2018

In each loss, there is a gain as in every gain there is a loss. And with each ending comes a new beginning.

Shao Lin via The Art of Life Tarot – Eight of Cups

opening your heart

A Quiet Writing deep-dive Tarot Narrative each Monday to share intuitive guidance, wisdom and insights from aligned books – for the week and anytime…

This week: opening your heart to inspiration of a different kind

Theme for the week beginning 7 May

The underlying theme for this week to guide our overall focus is from Lisa McLoughlin’s Life Design Cards deck – #19 Design from patterns to details

opening your heart

We’ve hard this card before not so long ago! Last time it reminded us of the value of strategy and the higher order of connections. This week the message is similar but with a particular focus on moving through and not letting details get the better of us. We are reminded to look at ideas, patterns and getting our ideas and feelings out without getting stuck.

Advice from the Life Design Cards Guidebook is:

Are you concentrating too much on the details whilst missing the bigger picture, or vice versa?

Today’s narrative, led by this theme card, encourages us to step back a little and see the whole. Looking at patterns rather than flaws or minor issues will serve us well at this time.

It’s about being positive and macro focused rather than micro. We are encouraged to reflect on how working at a higher order of life design can serve us and others well now.

Tarot Narrative for the week beginning 7 May

opening your heart

Tarot Narrative: 

Moving on from the tyranny of details, you open your heart to inspiration of a different kind. You want to take your ideas forward but get stuck on the pieces which breaks your movement. So focus on higher order things: patterns and designing from a higher place. With spirit as your guide, work on manifesting your ideas in form and flow without obsessing about every small thing. It will all find its place.

Cards: Daughter (Page) of Swords and Eight of Cups from The Wild Unknown and #40 Co-create from Wisdom of the Oracle.

Book notes:

It is the same with our minds and hearts. For our very self is the one window we have into this life. And so often, we suffer the mood of a dirty window, believing the brilliant world gray.

Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening (for May 7)

opening our hearts

Mark Nepo reminds us for today’s reading in ‘The Book of Awakening’ of ‘The Ordinary Art’. This is about keeping our minds clear and not seeing life through a dirty lens. One way of keeping things murky is to get caught up on the detail – the one piece of dirt on an otherwise clear window, the one thing that is not right. So much can get lost in obsessing about detail before you even make a start or begin opening your heart.

Mark Nepo goes on to say:

Perhaps the purpose of authentic relationship is to help each other keep our minds and hearts clear. Perhaps inner work is the ordinary art of window washing, so that the day is fully the day.

Opening your heart 

The Page of Swords can often represent “a great idea with no outlet” according to Jessa Crispin in The Creative Tarot.  It can remind us that it’s “time to grow up and see a project through to completion for a change.”

Do you have a project that never seems to get going or even make it through to the draft stage? Do you close your heart down before you even start as the details cloud over you?

This reading starts with the Page of Swords as a weather report card telling us to get on with our work or relationships. Too much focus on the detail and the tyranny of perfection can stop us from even starting work or communicating.

One way of opening your heart is embracing the overall pattern of your work rather than obsessing with the details. Just as Mark Nepo reminds us, seeing our work or loved ones through a dirty lens is just not going to be helpful.

opening your heart

Inspiration of a different kind

The Eight of Cups reminds us to let go of what doesn’t serve us. It might be painful but letting go and leaving things behind can be positive. We might, for example, let go of an obsession with detail to finally get our work done. Walking on the beach, we might see the one stone or shell that speaks to us instead of being overwhelmed by many. We might let go of a way of thinking, a person, a job or an attitude that stops us achieving higher order goals like love, creativity or connection.

The Wisdom of the Oracle card Co-create also reinforces this message by encouraging us to see our life as art co-created with spirit:

Connections of the heart serve to inspire you, opening you up to new ideas you would never have had on your own.

This Tarot Narrative work I do is an example of that. I never know what these weekly posts will focus on until I do this intuitive work in partnership with spirit. It is a unique practice of mystery and manifestation that is larger than me. The tarot and oracle cards are tools for me to connect with my intuition. For this week and beyond, focusing on higher-order patterns and a clear view of my work and relationships will serve me well. And I share this in a spirit of co-creation with you.

Details, endings and beginnings

As the Art of Life Tarot Eight of Cups reminds us, endings and beginnings and losses and gains are often intertwined. Especially when big life transitions or events happen, it’s easy to lose the larger picture in the details. We feel hurt by small things that feel magnified. It’s easy to dwell on these upsets. We are encouraged to see the cyclical nature of life and to move beyond getting stuck through an obsession with detail.

Working with our intuition, seeing the bigger picture, working with patterns, choosing to see through a clean window can help us. It is as if we need to erase the details that can trip us up or hold us back. Defining ourselves or others by small events or a few words said can be limiting. Just as not developing the unique creative ideas that come to us because of a fear of not achieving our ideal will limit our productivity.

“Done is better than perfect” is a maxim I have embraced more this year. There is no point having such high expectations of ourselves or our work that nothing gets started. Or ever sees the light of day.

It’s a great week for opening our hearts to inspiration of a different kind.

  • How are we embracing our creative ideas rather than stifling them?
  • Where are we be generous in our relationships rather than fault-finding?
  • What have we learnt about the ways we stop ourselves from moving and how can we action this?
  • How can we find a higher order pattern to work from rather than getting stuck on details?
  • What can we do to invite inspiration in and take it through to completion?
  • Where can we work in partnership with intuition and spirit and the spirit of others to further our work and relationships?

Walking away from practices that no longer serve us can help us feel more inspired. Take some time to journal on how you can lift your eyes to see the positives without the details becoming a barrier this week.

opening your heart

Love to hear your thoughts!

I’d love to how you are working from design and a different kind of inspiration this week.

All best wishes for this week of seeing the big picture to guide us in moving forward.

May you find inspiration in opening your heart and seeing new beginnings. And let me know what you think of this post and this weekly Tarot Narrative!

opening your heart

Keep in touch & free ebook on the ’36 Books that Shaped my Story’

You can work with me to help tap into that inner wisdom and magic guidance. Free 30-45 minute coaching consults chats are available so please get in touch at terri@quietwriting.com to talk further. I’d love to be a guide alongside to help you conduct creativity and magic with spirit and heart in your own unique way.

You can download my free 94-page ebook on the 36 Books that Shaped my Story – just sign up with your email address in the box to the right or below.  You will also receive updates from Quiet Writing and its passions. This includes personality type, coaching, creativity, writing, tarot and other connections to help express your unique voice in the world.

Quiet Writing is on Facebook and Instagram – keep in touch and interact with the growing Quiet Writing community.

If you enjoyed this post, please share via your preferred social media channel – links are below.

You might also enjoy:

Finishing on a high note – closure, letting go and moving on

Gathering my lessons – a wholehearted story

Coaching goals and the value of being a healthy creative

Your body of work – the greatest gift for transition to a bright new life

Grief and pain can be our most important teachers

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