A couple of weeks ago I celebrated my two-year anniversary of working out of Harley Street, and this July will see me reach eight years of working as a Cognitive Hypnotherapist.

My work has changed enormously over that time, mainly so that I could accommodate my growing family – I found out I was pregnant with my eldest daughter just a month after graduating from my training course with The Quest Institute, at the grand old age of 23.  Six months after she was born I started seeing clients part time – juggling two jobs and motherhood as well as doing therapy on the side.  Since then I’ve been on maternity leave two more times and combined working from home with working out of a tiny room at the back of a local health food shop.

After five and a half years of trying to figure how to out take my business forwards and getting caught up in the fear of multiple ‘what if’s’ (all negative ones!) I took a deep breath and a huge leap of faith and launched my practice at Harley Street.

Taking that action has propelled my business forwards beyond what I ever used to think was possible.  I now do full time hours but am flexible around my girls and can be there for all the important things.  It works.  And I know I’m still capable of more – there is no way that this is my limit.  There are too many other avenues I want to explore.

Looking back I can see that I needed that five and a half years to do important personal and professional learning and growth work – to let go of old limiting beliefs that were still lingering, to gain experience at working with a variety of clients, and to discover within which area my skills lie.  At the time it all felt very random, but now I can see how all of the dots have connected to get me to where I am now.  I could never have predicted that I would end up here.

I also know that where I am now is just the next step in my journey and I’m gradually getting more comfortable with not really knowing where that journey is going to take me yet.

If you’re anything like me, anniversaries have a way of making me reflect on the time gone by.  Looking back at the two years that I’ve been at Harley Street has got me thinking about what it was EXACTLY that made me take that leap of faith in the first place.

What was the difference that made the difference?

There were so many unknowns!  I had no idea whether I could sustain it, I didn’t know whether I’d get enough clients, and I didn’t know whether I’d be able to balance the demands of commuting to London (I leave the house at 6am and return home at 9pm, with a 2 and a 1/2 hour commute each way, and that’s if there are no delays on the trains!) with running a home and raising a young family.  I guess the biggest unknown was whether I’d be good enough at what I do to help people in London and earn the right to associate Harley Street with my name.

It turns out that the thing that got me to take that leap of faith – the difference that made the difference – was making the decision to try in the first place.  To be brave enough to give it a shot.

We’ve all heard of the fight or flight response.  There’s one in the middle too that is less well known – freeze.  I do that.  I’ve always found it difficult to make decisions, to-ing and fro-ing backwards and forwards, weighing up all the different options and not being able to make up my mind.  So I usually ended up doing nothing.  Freezing.  Getting myself stuck and not even wanting to try either option because I was being driven by fear and protection rather than growth and love.

But despite that tendency to freeze I’m starting to recognise that I have always been able to make a decision when it’s mattered most.

I guess the first important decision I made was deciding to get better from anorexia.  It took a while to fully act on it, but once the decision was made I knew there was no going back.  Deciding to go travelling to Australia and New Zealand instead of going to university – that journey taught me so much about myself and the world and left me with the travel bug that still hasn’t fully gone away.

Deciding to say yes when my now-husband first asked me out over a decade ago, even though I wasn’t looking for a relationship at the time.

Deciding to move to Stafford enabled us to get on the housing ladder, which would never have been possible had we stayed in London.  Deciding to train as a Cognitive Hypnotherapist – that decision helped me find my ‘tribe’ and a career I love.  Deciding to go ahead with starting a family when we were surprised by a positive pregnancy test has brought us our three incredibly awesome daughters.

Deciding to get married has deepened our relationship and cemented our commitment to each other (and meant that my Dad could walk me down the aisle.  Little did I know that it would be the last time I saw him before he died.).

Not everyone has agreed with my decisions.  Many have expressed concerns.  A few have outright disagreed with me.  It used to wobble me and I’d second-guess myself and start to doubt whether I’d done the right thing or not, which only resulted in my spending my days in perpetual indecision and anxiety.

I’m learning now that there is no ‘right thing’.  There’s only ever the ‘right thing for me’ (or ‘us’ if we’re talking about a decision that affects us as a family).  I do take on board other people’s opinions and advice and guidance of course – they love me and want what’s best for me.  I also listen carefully to my head and my heart.  Then I tune into my gut.  And then my soul.  Because I’ve found over time that although those voices are quieter than the others, they tend to know best because they can’t be swayed by external influences.

I’m so thankful that I was brave enough to decide to give Harley Street a go.  I’ve grown immensely as a therapist as a result of that decision and I’ve had the privilege of working with some truly inspirational and awe-inspiring clients.

Now feels like the time might be right to begin to take it up a notch.  My little family and I are facing quite a few decisions about different things at the moment – some little ones, some pretty big and potentially life-changing.

As a result I’m working on setting some intentions for my business, our life as a family and also my life as just me.  I’m making the distinction here between intentions and goals because ‘intentions’ feels like it leaves more room for possibility and exploring different opportunities as they arise, and that seems important at the moment.  Things have changed a lot personally for me over the last few months and I’m redefining what’s important to me and what’s not.  I have no idea where these intentions are going to take me – I’m keeping an open mind about that.

These are some of the questions I’m asking myself to help me set my intentions:

~  What’s working?  What’s not working?

~  What needs to change?  What needs to stay the same?

~  What do I want less of?  What do I want more of?

~  What fills me with energy?  What drains me of energy?

~  What will I gain if I fulfil these intentions?  What will I lose if I fulfil these intentions?

I’ve not fully finished working on these yet, but when I have I’ll be posting them on my blog, so stayed tuned for future posts.

Please do feel free to apply these questions to yourself – whether with regards to your work/business, your personal life, a relationship, or even just an ongoing situation that you happen to be involved in.  Leave your answers as a comment below – I’d love to hear from you.  And remember that publically announcing your intentions is a great way to give you a kick start towards turning them into a reality.

Thanks for reading.

Chloe 🙂