I love everything about this time of year. I especially love it when the clocks spring forward. I don’t mind missing an hour’s sleep, it’s worth it for the lighter evenings.

Even though I love this time of year I still ensure that I’m intentional so that I don’t let it pass me by unnoticed. I’m trying to get out for a run a couple of times a week and I’m loving seeing the speed at which the nature reserve is greening up and the sounds of the birds singing.

I was 23 years old, three months out of university and in the job I imagined I’d have at the end of my career!

Success? It didn’t feel like it. I felt an utter fraud, there by default rather than any merit of my own. The talented, professional woman who had employed me had been made “redundant” and I was promoted into her position.

Instead of success I felt guilt and overwhelm and something else, something that I just couldn’t put my finger on. This inability to name what was wrong and to deal with it led first to physical illness and then to severe anxiety and depression.

I’ve experienced both sides of being brave and failing to be brave and I believe that we need to be brave. We must act with courage and take risks sometimes. I’m not talking about being reckless, instead a calculated risk.

The idea that we get an extra day every fourth year fascinated me as a child. The tradition that women could propose marriage on 29th February did little to interest me, but I always wondered what would happen if your birthday was 29th February. When would you celebrate on the years without a 29th? 28th or 1st March? Important questions to a seven-year-old. Now though, the question that keeps springing to mind is “what leap will you make this year?”

There are often common themes with the women I work with. One that comes up time and again is the importance of me-time and the difficulty in carving it out. We hear a lot about work-life balance but I have an issue with that. It always conjures up the image of a playground seesaw with work at one end and the rest of my life on the other. For me that looks and feels so out of balance before we even start as it implies a 50-50 spit. The idea that work takes up half of life and everything else has to be fitted into the other half.

How often do you fail even to begin because you’re so scared of failing? As children we know that failing is a normal part of growing and learning. You're learning to ride a bike, you fall off, you get right back on again. You're learning to swim - you keep going until you can finally manage that width without a float or armbands. Or in my case you do it because as a seven-year-old you're too scared of the swimming instructor to disobey! 
 

In the latter part of last year, I really began to notice how often my clients were telling me that they felt guilty. Guilty for taking time for themselves. Guilty that their husband had to do bath time as they were on the coaching call. Guilty that they hadn't cooked the evening meal even though they'd worked shorter hours than their partner that day. Guilty that they'd had to take time off work. Guilty that they'd spent an hour reading a book rather than catching up on the laundry. There was an awful lot of guilt about.

As regular readers will know I have seasonal affective disorder. I manage it in a variety of ways, one of which is to have an intentional list of the things I can enjoy and look forward to over winter. This list includes fully embracing the idea of hygge.

A month ago I wrote about choosing my word for the year. I loved hearing what words you had chosen to shape your year. Among them were trust, nourish, focus, connection, acceptance, discipline, transformation and surrender. I love them all. The word I opted for in the end was adventure. That really surprised me as I don’t consider myself the adventurous type at all.

I combine the power of coaching with the pragmatism of the Cycle of Discernment with my clients. It's a pretty magic combination which is why I think describing myself as a life coach doesn't cover what I do for my clients nearly as well as telling you that I'm an inner wisdom whisperer. An important part of the Cycle of Discernment is holding your decisions lightly. This doesn't mean not caring or not giving them the attention they deserve. Instead it means being willing to accept that things could and probably will change.

I know I'm not alone, not by any means, in admitting that there have been times in my life when I've looked around and asked myself, "Is this it?". Times when I've had everything I wanted and everything I'd worked so hard to get and yet felt unfulfilled and unhappy. It's not a nice feeling and we can end up feeling guilty for wanting more. For admitting that this isn't enough. At this time of year when we've had the Christmas break from work to reflect, and especially at the beginning of a new decade, so many of us have big plans of how "things are going to be different this year".

One of my core beliefs that has got me through so many things is my belief that I can "make it work". When faced with lack of funds, shortage of time or something new my attitude is one of "I can make this work." I believe wholeheartedly that I'll find a way.

I’m writing this in those days between Christmas and New Year that have an almost otherworldly quality to them for those of us on holiday from work. No one is quite sure of what day of the week it really is. Every day feels like Sunday. There's something about these in between days that give permission to stop and just be.

It’s also the week when I give thought to what my word for the year is going to be. I don’t do New Year resolutions anymore. Not because I have anything against them. In fact, I’m pretty good at keeping them when I do set them. No, it’s because I’d rather set an intention for the whole year. A word to guide, remind and inspire me.