This is episode 211. If you’ve ever felt stuck, overwhelmed or unsure how to move forward with your goals and maybe a bit frustrated about them not happening, then this episode is for you. Because I’ve got a story that’s kind of about tiles and plumbing, but not really. It’s about way more than that. This is about fixing the flush or fixing your future and betting big on yourself. Let’s do it.

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.

Hi everyone. It is fabulous to have you here with me today because I have got a story to tell you. It’s one that I think is going to really, well first of all I think you’ll find it quite amusing, but I think it’s going to help you in how you approach decisions and challenges in your life.

Because today I am sharing with you the story of my bathroom renovation. So we had this bathroom, it was tiny, it was moldy, it was like the room in the house that I loathe the most. I hated being in it. But I made some bold decisions to do with the bathroom that led to even bigger breakthroughs in my business and in my life.

But what I couldn’t believe is as I was prepping the notes for this episode, I was in the coffee shop where I like to do work and someone came in and sat down next to me and I just got chatting to them and then I introduced myself and they’d heard me before on podcasts. When she told me what podcast she’d heard me on, or what I’d been talking about, I had been talking about my bathroom renovation and choosing to delay doing it. I was like, oh no way, I’m actually about to record an episode all about that.

So, this is a good one. I feel like this is a story about who I was years ago and how I was really stepping into my future self, particularly at that moment in time. And then now I’m living in the result of that and experiencing like the payout that’s happened as a result of it.

So here’s the story. We moved into our house seven years ago, eight years ago, something like that. We knocked down a wall to open up the living room and our kitchen consisted of, well originally it was these three small, oddly configured rooms.

We were able to open up those into one large room and we replaced the three small windows with one large one in the kitchen. We just had to make it work with what we had. My brother generously paid for central heating to be installed before we moved in, which was obviously a total game changer. But that was all we could afford to do. So our kitchen consisted of these two base units that didn’t have any doors on them or any drawers inside them. So we just had one surface to put things on, well we had the countertop and then one shelf, not even the shelf, the bottom of the unit inside. And then we had this bookshelf that we’d put plates on and pasta and tins and stuff like that.

We laid this “temporary” floor made of chipboard or something like that and it’s actually still there. We’re going to get around to the kitchen this year. 2025 is the year of the kitchen, but I’ve got to tell you about the bathroom today. I’m just going to get into it. You’re going to get what it’s about as I go.

So the bathroom was tiny and it was awkward, and it had two layers of tiles that had been put on top of each other. It had these awful light blue walls. You know how some colours, you’re like, yeah whatever, light blue, but there’s particular shades of colours that you’re like, oh no, that is not the one. And so there was just this overall vibe that really screamed, this isn’t our house. But we didn’t have the money to fix it. And it just felt like a reflection of things that weren’t working in our lives. It was the physical representation of stuff that needed to be addressed. It just sat there, nagging at us every day.

One day, when Nelson was about 18 months old, Paul went up to London to record his radio show for NTS. He used to stay over with someone the night before so that he could also take the time to go to his barber’s in Peckham for when they open first thing in the morning so he wouldn’t have to queue for hours because you can’t get a decent fade in Margate. So knowing that he would be gone for 36 hours or so, I spontaneously decided to paint the bathroom and try and upgrade it a bit with what was available to me in terms of money and time, which is basically just go and buy some white paint and try and paint as much as you can before Paul gets back. I didn’t tell him I was going to be doing this.

So I painted it whilst Nelson napped, and whilst he slept at night, I got some friends to take him off for a few hours so I could get some more done. I painted the tiles, which in hindsight I wish I hadn’t done, but I just wanted to get rid of the weird ones. But you know, it was a small room, I got it done and I was just very motivated to make a change of some kind. So I just made it happen.

And it definitely wasn’t perfect, okay? Because I didn’t have quite enough time to finish painting the woodwork. So, when Paul got back, there were a few bits of blue picture rail left and a bit of skirting board, I think, as well, that was this darker blue. Also, not a nice shade of blue, but it was better than it was and Paul was blown away. He had no idea it was happening, couldn’t figure out how I’d managed to achieve this and it was just a great surprise.

I could have waited until I had the perfect paint or some help or a full day that was free or enough energy and childcare to finish every last detail. Maybe even the money to pay someone else, which at that point just didn’t feel like that was ever going to be possible. But I didn’t. I just started and it really was not perfect. It was 100% messy progress, but it was enough to shift how I felt about the space.

So I want you to think about what’s one thing that you’ve been putting off because you’re waiting for more resources to be available to you or for there to be a perfect time. Okay, I’m going to give you some reflective questions as I’m telling this story. So what are you putting off because you think it needs to be done perfectly? And could you just make a messy start instead? And if you did, what could that look like? And don’t hold yourself back here. Just imagine.

No one’s saying you have to do it, but just start to get a picture of what a messy start would look like. Progress does not have to be perfect to be meaningful. There’s a time later on in the story where wanting to do it really well and it be an excellent bathroom comes into play. But that was so far away from where we were at this point in time, that it was more important to do something and it make a bit of a difference and that be meaningful.

Okay. So maybe you’ve been holding off on launching a project or applying for a job, starting a difficult conversation because like you’re just waiting for the stars to align somehow. But what if you just began? Okay, what could you do now with the resources available to you that is going to move you forward somehow? Okay, because progress, especially I think when we embrace messy progress, that builds some momentum and that gets us results.

So what’s your version of painting the bathroom? Even if you didn’t finish the woodwork and ultimately it’s not your end point, but it’s not nothing. Okay. So I did that and never got around by the way to finishing off those bits of blue woodwork.

So a couple of years passed and the bathroom continued to deteriorate. The mould crept in, the window frame started rotting the wood and eventually the flush on the toilet broke. Now you may have heard me speak about this before because this really was a pivotal moment in my life.

So at this point in time my membership had been up and running for six months, maybe a little bit more, but it cost me more to run it than the amount of revenue coming in from it. I was taking money from book deals to pay for the membership to support it. I wasn’t paying myself anything from it. I was getting failed payments for the software to run it. It was very month to month with me trying to figure out how the hell can I get this plane to move down the runway and actually get enough propulsion to take off? That’s what it felt like within me, but I really believed that it was going to take off. That’s important.

So the flush on the toilet had broken, and we just didn’t have the money to get someone around to fix it or to get a new toilet. And I wouldn’t say like that was a lot of money, but we just didn’t have it readily available.

So during that time, we would fill our bucket up with water in the bath, like from the bath taps, and then pour it down the toilet. I would say this is kind of helpful and not helpful is my thought on this, but I have quite a high tolerance for stuff like this because I grew up on benefits and pretty used to stuff breaking and living with issues going on in your house. So, it wasn’t ideal, but that’s just the circumstances of life.

And then one day, a foreign rights deal for my book came through. So that’s when a publisher abroad buys the rights to publish your book in that country. So that came through and that was enough money for me to pay for some stuff in the business and to get a new toilet. Or I could invest in a coaching program.

So of course I chose the coaching program and you might think that’s nuts, right? Plenty of people would, but here’s the thing. I really believed in the membership and I also believed in myself. So fixing the toilet would have solved a short term problem, but investing in coaching was a step towards a much bigger result.

So I chose delayed gratification because I trusted my vision and I knew that the payoff would be worth it. It was a risk I was willing to take, but it kind of didn’t feel risky to me. I mean, I could see how other people would think that, but it didn’t feel that way to me.

You might also think that it was a tough decision for me to make, but it was simple and it was easy. It was an easy decision. Hey, I just stared at the numbers knowing we’d have to keep using a bucket to flush the toilet, you know, for what at the time I thought would be a few more weeks. But every part of me knew this was the right move.

And so it didn’t feel like I was gambling on coaching. I was just betting on myself and I just knew inside that that was what I needed to do. So I prioritized possibility over immediate comfort and I trusted my future self to make it worth it.

It’s like you just have that awareness at that moment in time of knowing that this is a moment where everything changes. And that’s the shift because when you’re clear on your goals choosing long-term growth over short-term fixes becomes very easy, okay? There are definitely consequences to those decisions that you will have to manage your mind about, of course, but when it’s your decision and you’re committed to that decision, it’s so much easier. It’s when you say that you’ve decided but you haven’t really and you’re kind of in but not fully, that’s when it’s hard.

So where in your life are you prioritizing short term fixes over long term growth? Really answer this question. Think of the different aspects of your life. What’s your version of the broken toilet and what bold move could you make that is going to be an investment in your future where you are in relationship with your future self betting on them?

So the next phase of this, so I made the decision, I invested in a coaching program, immediately started getting results from that, which is something I always tell myself, whenever I invest in coaching, I always just decide I’m going to get immediate results from doing this. Since the first investment I made in coaching, which I also used my overdraft for back in, I don’t know, the 2000s at some point, it immediately paid off. That’s just a thought that I love to use with coaching and I always prove that thought to be true. That’s always the case.

I invested in the coaching program, immediately getting results. As a result of that, I then made some more money. But we couldn’t get the toilet fixed at that point because it was right at the beginning of the pandemic and the first lockdown had come into effect and nobody could enter the house. So we ended up being stuck with that toilet for who knows how long. I actually can’t remember. My brain’s just moved on so much from it. But eventually, we got a new toilet. Someone was able to come in and install it.

So then, of course, I’m just doing things to do with the membership, was writing my second and third books, them coming out, running my business. And by this point in time, I’m paying myself an actual salary and have the financial means to renovate our bathroom and do it properly. But as I said, I was also writing books, running my business, and to be honest with you, the idea of managing a renovation at the same time felt overwhelming. In the same way that I trusted myself to invest in coaching and that I’d be able to do the bathroom, renovate the whole thing at some point, I also had that sense and trusted that I didn’t have the cognitive bandwidth to be making decisions about all the things that would be involved in doing the bathroom and the inevitable disruption. I just wasn’t up for that whilst all these other important things were happening.

They were happening sequentially as well. It was just like writing a book, doing something in the business, editing the book, doing something in the business, the book coming out, publicizing the book, doing something in the business. I was kind of in that cycle for all three books, really.

We’re going to need to wait until there is enough space in my schedule and no major project happening so that I have the bandwidth to do this. And this is a really important lesson. And I will say it’s one that I’m continually learning because even though I know this, I still learned this lesson, I would say, pretty hard in the autumn of last year because our brains do that thing of like, oh no, I can do that now. I’m like, not so much.

So the important lesson here is that self-leadership does also mean recognising our limits. And just because we can do something doesn’t mean that we should be doing it all at once. So, pacing yourself and focusing on what matters most and really prioritising. Priority, I can’t remember the origin of the word, but it’s about one thing, not like two or three things, which is, I think, what we like to tell ourselves. I certainly do anyway.

So, operating with constraints and focusing on what matters most is how we create space for sustainable growth. But that whole decision was also largely based on the belief that because the room was so small and the configuration was so awkward, that we actually needed to extend the bathroom into another room and gain a few square meters.

We really thought, me particularly, that that’s what we needed to do in order to have a decent bathroom. But that would mean not just moving the wall and extending into a bedroom. It would also mean removing a chimney or the remnants of a chimney breast in that room in order to do so, and putting in structural support in the roof and also removing the chimney breast in the kitchen.

Which to me, I’m still like, my brother used to be a builder, my dad’s a carpenter. I’m kind of a bit like, oh that’s no big deal. But what ended up happening is I had a much slower year in 2024. After Powerful, my third book came out. Paul and I sat down and started to get serious about our renovation plans and started making decisions about what we wanted. Then we had the process of trying to find a builder, or at least even get a quote from them. You know, that’d be helpful.

But eventually, Manny, who is our amazing plasterer, oh my God, if you are in Margate or the surrounding area and you need a fantastic plasterer, Manny and his team, they are incredible. Manny had recommended this guy Joe. Joe came over, we immediately clicked with him, and once he saw the bathroom, he suggested a configuration of putting things that did not require extending the space or removing the chimney breast. Nobody else had come up with that, so he gets serious props for that.

I’m not a builder, but my brain is very good with layouts and floor plans and things. That’s how my brain works. I hadn’t thought of this, which kind of kills me, but I also just think it’s amazing that he just came in and saw that. Of course it is, because he’s a professional. But sometimes we’re so close to a problem that we can’t see the best solution.

So Joe came in and just had this fresh perspective that no other builder had mentioned, by the way. It just reminded me why I love coaching so much, because as a coach, I do the same thing. I’m coming in with fresh eyes. I’m not in the circumstances of your life. You’re informing me about them, but I’m outside of it. I’m not in the pool with you. I’m unaffected by the ripples and the currents that are affecting you. Being on the outside looking in, then I’ve got the clarity to help you see options that you might not even know exist. That’s what Joe did.

Think about your life and how can you gain a new way of looking at your challenges and perhaps the things that feel limiting to you? How can you get a different insight?

Because when you’re in the thick of it, your options can feel really limited, even if there’s something that’s really obvious to someone else. When you’re just so in it, it can be really hard to see that. That’s why stepping back and looking at things from another angle is so important. Even the simple act of writing what’s going on inside your head down on paper will make a difference, because that’s a different perspective of looking at things. It also helps you to work through the stuff that’s there.

That’s the same as saying it out loud. You could literally say it, record a voice recording to yourself. You could say it to someone else. If you’re in the membership, of course you can come and get coached on these things. But that’s the power of coaching, is you get someone else’s perspective on things as well.

So, renovating the bathroom has been so much more than creating a functional, healthy, non-mouldy, beautiful space. It has been several chapters about me stepping into leadership in my own life and making decisions, trusting my instincts, managing my mind the whole way through. And the same applies to any goal or dream.

Taking ownership of whatever goals and dreams you have means accepting where you are, making intentional choices, and trusting that each step will bring you closer to your vision. Okay, but it’s all about having that relationship with that vision and trusting yourself. This is what it’s all about.

So think about the last time that you made a bold decision or took ownership of a challenge. Hey, this is about steering the ship. That’s the energy you want to channel as you take the next step towards your vision.

So, final reflections. Where can you make a bold choice, take some imperfect action or invite a fresh perspective? I’d love to hear answers to this question, so make sure you let me know. And it’s just as important to celebrate when it’s done, okay, which is what I’m doing in recording this episode. I am acknowledging the entirety of the process and celebrating myself.

Every time I step into our bathroom, and by the way, I love how it turned out. In case you’re wondering, we tiled it from floor to ceiling with this rectangular olive green tile. It’s a really interesting tile, by the way.

It’s like a really unique olive green and it’s got a slightly irregular surface to it, and the shape is slightly irregular. Thankfully the tiler was really good, because we didn’t realise by the description and the image online that it had that irregularity to the actual shape. But they look great. So olive green tiles, a light grey grout, large square beige floor tiles, and then black taps and a black shower, etc. And then the vanity unit where the sink and things is, is fawn, which is a retired farrow and ball colour and it looks so good. The combination just worked out so well.

Every time I go in there, I am reminded of the decisions that I made years ago. I’m literally looking in the mirror in the bathroom thinking about how I bet on myself. I chose delayed gratification over quick fixes. The result of that is this stunning bathroom that I feel so at home in that is just, I mean, such a huge upgrade on what we had before. I can’t even tell you.

And me back then, I don’t think I was thinking that I could have a bathroom like that because it’s kind of like my friend Robin was like, oh, it’s like hotel vibes. It’s so good. I think that was even beyond what my future self at that point was thinking we’d end up with. So it’s been really fun to blow my own mind with this and I just have goosebumps even thinking about it.

So I hope you found this episode interesting and some insight into my personal life and how that relates to the decisions I’ve made professionally and that you found this inspiring and you can take it into your life and think about what bold, courageous action you want to take. What decision can you make today that is going to be in service of your future self.

All right, folks, I’ll 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.