Hey everyone, before we dive into today’s episode, I have something super exciting to share with you. I’m hosting a free three day event from January 18th to the 20th called Elevate and Expand. So if you feel like you could do with elevating and expanding who you are and what’s coming up for you this year, then I really want you to be a part of it because it’s going to catapult you into a year that will be like no other.

A year where your fears don’t run the show, where your doubts take a back seat, a year where you stop worrying about what other people think about you. Like, really think about what a difference that would make to your life, okay? Think about what it would be like for your insecurities to stop holding you back, okay?

This is the year where you make things happen and where you’re propelled forward by who you are becoming. So, here’s how it’s going to work. Throughout the event, you are going to be getting clarity on where you’re at in your life right now, you’ll uncover your next best steps, and shine a light on those hidden barriers that have been holding you back, okay?

Because it’s time to shatter them. And move forward with confidence and clarity, okay? But this is not just about insights, alright? What’s the point in reflecting and understanding and having insights if we don’t then take action? So this is also about shifting from hesitation to action. So you’ll make choices that deeply align with your desires and your goals, the vision that you have for your life, and creating a concrete plan that’s going to move you forward.

It’s going to propel you forward. So, if you struggle, and I suspect that you are this because pretty much all of us do this, all of my clients, all of my listeners, you’ve all mentioned this to me in all sorts of ways over the years, okay? But if you struggle to embrace your true potential and you tend to hold yourself back, right?

And that can be down to fear of failure, fear of success, fear about what other people think of you. Then please, please, please make sure that you come, okay, because we’re going to break through those self imposed limits and open up a whole new world of possibilities, alright? This is about fully stepping into your power, not some watered down version of you or the version of you that plays it small and plays it safe, okay?

I really want this for you and it’s going to be a lot of fun. It always is. Those of you who’ve been to events of mine in the past will know that I always over deliver and I really put a lot into it because I want you to experience huge shifts and transformation just from coming. Okay, so all you need to do is just sign up and let us know that you are coming and then just get ready to transform your year.

Okay, so to do that, just head to maisiehill.com/events. We’ll also put the link in the show notes and it will be in my Instagram profile as well. I cannot wait to see you there. It’s going to be so much fun. Okay, now let’s get into today’s episode.

If you want to do things differently but need some help making it happen then tune in for your weekly dose of coaching from me, Maisie Hill, Master Life Coach and author of Period Power. Welcome to The Maisie Hill Experience.

Welcome back and Happy New Year if you’re listening when it’s New Year. If it’s later on in January or any time after that, please ignore that. I’m really not a fan of saying Happy New Year after the first day or two. I have quite a strict cut off for that.

I have had a busier December than I expected, several trips up to London. We went up to London for my birthday. Paul took me to see Shabaka Hutchings, which was just incredible. Shabaka is a jazz musician, and it was his last ever gig on the saxophone and he played an interpretation of John Coltrane’s, A Love Supreme. And it was just so, so good. And he had four drummers playing, I mean, just no words. But the downside was I caught yet another cold whilst I was there and my voice went very hoarse and squeaky, and I couldn’t really say all that much for a week so that was really fun.

But whilst I was resting my voice and recovering, I did get to proofread book number three. I’m bursting to share the details with you. They will be coming up, I promise. Those of you in the membership already know because you’ve all been such an integral part of it. But I will be talking more about it on the podcast, hopefully soon.

There was also the horse show, the International Horse Show in London, and I went up with some friends to see the dressage. That’s the horse dancing, my friend calls it, to music. And then we went up again to see, and I’m never quite sure how to pronounce this word, puissance, which is just so thrilling to watch. It’s basically the horse-riding version of high jump. There’s one regular fence for the horses to jump and then after that they jump a huge wall that is made of foam bricks.

And the starting height for that wall is one metre 80 which is as tall as me. And then each round it gets higher, and people get knocked out. And I can’t remember what the final height was exactly, but I think it was around two metres 20. It’s very high. And literally every single time you watch a horse and their rider approach the wall, it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. It just looks like there’s no way that this is going to be possible and they somehow clear it, not all of them do.

But it was just so thrilling and exciting to watch and a really good lesson in kind of observing how something seems impossible and yet happens. I could do a whole episode about that.

And then it was winter solstice, so we had our workshop in the membership. I taught for 90 minutes and covered topics I’ve touched on in the past. But I really wanted to use the winter workshop to go much deeper and talk about being in the unknown, being in liminal spaces and really increasing your capacity for uncertainty and being able to be in that place. So with that, that meant that I also spoke about responses to fear and how to have a great relationship with fear.

And the lessons that you can learn from water’s qualities because water is the element of winter. It was a very cool workshop for me to teach and it really resonated with my clients. And I know that the concepts we touched on are going to continue to emerge on our coaching calls and in the community. And I love coaching. I never know what I’m going to be coaching my clients on, which I love. I feel very comfortable with not knowing what I’m going to be coaching on.

And the way things work on our group calls in the membership is that I coach multiple people over the course of a call. So people just raise their hands for coaching, and I say, “Hey, so and so, what are we coaching on?” And then they’ll say, “Well, I’m having this issue with my friendship group.” And I’ll coach them on that thing.

And then when that coaching feels complete, we go on to the next person. That might be about them wanting to go down to a four-day work week, or maybe it’s been approved already, but they’re worried about actually doing it and making sure that they don’t end up doing more work and defeating the whole purpose. And then the next person might be trying to decide if they want to stay in their relationship or end it. Then it could be about someone’s tendency to override their desire to do something and prioritise what others want or expect of them.

So you can literally get coached on anything and everything either on our group calls or through the unlimited individual written coaching where you can go back and forth getting coached. But within all of the various topics, there are common themes that come up like people pleasing, boundaries, perfectionism, procrastination, being honest with yourself and with others, confidence and self-trust.

But today I want to focus on one common theme, and that’s making decisions. So I coach on decisions a lot. And it’s a really valuable area to receive coaching on because decisions touch on all of the other things that I’ve just mentioned. They bring up fear of failure, fear of success, worry about what other people will think of you, how they’ll react. And the temptation to go along with the opinions of others and to dismiss your inner whispers to do something else.

So decisions really show us where we want to stick with what’s known and familiar rather than venture into the unknown. They bring up issues around self-trust and confidence. I mean, you can see why I love coaching on decision making. And today I want to talk about a particular area of decision making and I want to give you a technique that you can use when you’re making decisions and a question that you can use as well.

So what I’d love for you to do as you’re listening to this is just to think of a decision that you haven’t made yet or maybe you have, but you feel a bit unsure about actually following through with it. It can be anything, but it needs to be something that’s a bit uncomfortable for you or a lot uncomfortable for you. Something that you’re unsure of. Something that’s maybe taking you back to past experiences or apprehension about the future in a way that’s related to the decision that you’re trying to make or that you have made but you feel uncomfortable about.

So now that you’ve got a decision in mind, one that’s sitting in that uncomfortable space, ask yourself this question. Who will I become as a result of making this decision? I love asking this question because it has nothing to do with the outcome of the decision. It isn’t about what happens as a result of the decision and if things work out as you hoped or not. It’s a gateway to deeper understanding and clarity.

It shifts your focus from the immediate consequences of the decision to the long-term impact on your personal growth and development regardless of outcomes. So let’s explore this together. Picture yourself having made the decision and living in the decision, it’s done. Now, who are you on the other side of that? How has making this decision shaped you? Are you more confident, more aligned with your values? Perhaps you’ve become someone who trusts herself more deeply or someone who’s learned the art of saying no when it matters most.

This question is about more than just the practical outcomes of a decision. It’s about your evolution as a person and stepping into a version of yourself that’s grown from the experiences and choices that you’ve made. So let’s say you’re contemplating a career change. There’s uncertainty, fear of the unknown, but ask yourself, who will I become as a result of making this decision? Maybe you’ll become someone who embraces new challenges, who’s not afraid to step out of their comfort zone.

Or you’ll become someone who’s living more authentically, pursuing a path that truly resonates with your interests, your passions, your skills. Maybe you’re becoming someone who stops living their life according to the expectations that their parents have of them or other people, someone who embraces adventure and trusts their capacity for change. How cool is that? See what I mean about the potential that is available just from making a decision as long as you’re being intentional and really seeing it.

We gloss over this all the time and just make the decision all about the outcome that’s going to happen or not. You could also consider a personal relationship decision of some kind. It could be about setting boundaries or even ending a relationship. Who will you become through this decision? You’re becoming someone who values their own wellbeing, someone who’s learnt the power of honest, respectful communication and finding safety in that for themselves.

So each decision that you face is an opportunity to grow, to learn, to evolve. And this question, who will I become as a result of making this decision helps you connect with that growth potential. It helps you to see beyond the immediate discomfort or fear and into a future where there is the future version of you. You’ve grown stronger, wiser, you’re more aligned with who you truly are, your most powerful self. But I want to give you some other potential answers to this question just to kind of get the juices going.

You could be choosing a path and by doing that, choosing that path, you become someone who believes in their abilities and potential. This one is a game changer. I mean, they all are, but this particularly. It’s the difference between doubting every step and moving forward with confidence or perhaps experiencing the doubt anyway and just continuing. When you believe in yourself, when you trust in yourself, you actually spend less time agonising over decisions and worrying about the outcomes.

And your tolerance for failure increases, so does your tolerance for success, when you get good at making decisions and that doesn’t mean making the right decision and all that other nonsense that our brains like to offer us. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m just talking about you are able to make decisions in an efficient way. You save yourself time. You save yourself all that mental bandwidth and you stop living in a future where everything’s going wrong.

And you’re more interested in just, well, what decisions am I making about my future? And you just decide how things are going to be and you move forwards. Or imagine that as a result of making this decision, you become someone who trusts their instincts and judgement, and that self-trust means you’re less swayed by external opinions and more guided by your inner compass. Again, that’s going to be helpful in making other decisions. And then there’s congruence in who you are, your values and the actions that you take.

What about becoming your own biggest supporter, being your own cheerleader instead of a critic? Having your own back in every situation, especially the tough ones is incredibly empowering. Imagine failing and loving and respecting yourself through that failure without making it mean anything about you. That’s available as an option, I promise. It might not feel like it from where you are now, but it 100% is available.

Maybe you become someone who invests in themself. This could be about investing time, money, education or training. A huge one for me was when I hired my first assistant, Beck, who is now my director of operations. That was a huge thing for me. And it wasn’t like I had a surplus of money to do that. Hiring her and for that matter, making a whole load of other investments in my business meant not paying myself for a while but it created time. It gave me time and space to do things that created revenue in the business.

So that one decision meant I became someone who was willing to bet on herself. I kind of think I was already like that anyway because I’ve been doing this for so long. But I became someone who valued her time. I became someone who wasn’t self-employed but was a business owner. That was the beginning of me stepping into being a CEO. It was a huge level up for me and for my clients.

Over the years we’ve also heard time and time again what a big deal it is for some of our members to sign up to join The Flow Collective, that they’ve never invested in themselves like that before. Another huge transformation that’s available to you just through the act of making a decision, especially ones that aren’t easy, is that you become someone who’s learning to embrace discomfort. The discomfort of what others might think, what they might say or what they might do. Or at least what your brain thinks they’ll say and do, because we have no idea even if that’s true.

The discomfort of opting for what’s unknown over what’s familiar. You become someone who is willing to do something uncomfortable in the short term for long term benefit. I love, love, love watching how my clients’ lives change when they do this, which is why we’re going to be focusing on it in the next few months in the membership. So if you want help with this, now is a great time to be joining. Make sure you’re on my email list so the next time we open the doors you can join.

Or perhaps as a result of making this decision, you become someone who creates space for fun, who prioritises fun and pleasure in their life. Someone who says yes, even when it feels a bit scary. Someone who says no even when it feels a bit scary or hard in some way. You become someone who recognises and tends to their boundaries, someone who cares more about their own opinion over concerns about the opinion of others.

So when you are faced with a decision, any kind of decision, but especially the ones where you feel like you’re on the brink of something and it’s a bit like, I don’t know if I want to do this. I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know if it’s okay to do this. What if this or that happens? When you are in that place, I want you to think about who you will become as a result of this decision. Connect with your future self, the version of you who’s on the other side of this decision, the person you will become as a result of making it.

Imagine yourself in the future, picture where you are, what you’re doing and most importantly, how you’re feeling. Notice the confidence in your posture, the wisdom in your eyes, the sense of accomplishment that is radiating from within you. This is a version of you who has embraced growth, who has navigated the challenges and emerged stronger, more self-assured. Feel that pride and peace that comes with knowing you’ve made choices that align with your deepest values and aspirations.

Really soak in this experience of connecting with your future self. What advice does this future version of you have for you today as you make this decision? What wisdom can they share? This future self is still you. It’s just you with the benefit of experience and growth which actually you have in you now anyway. And by connecting with them you’re tapping into that wisdom from within you, your own inner wisdom, your own inner strength that already exists within you. So listen closely, let their guidance illuminate your path forward, make the decision. I believe in you.

Alright, my lovelies, that’s it for this week, I will catch you next time.

Hey, if you love listening to this podcast then come and check out my membership, The Flow Collective, where you get my best resources and all the coaching you need to transform your inner and outer life. Sign up to the waitlist at theflowcollective.co/join, and I’ll see you in the community.