Earlier this week I ran a coaching session with one of my long running groups of business owners. To help me prepare for the session, I had asked them in advance what their key challenges were.

“Necessity is the mother of invention”, as the proverb goes and it is certainly true that the events of the last 12 months have led to many things happening which we would never have thought were possible.

Spring is coming and it feels like it’s time to re-energise.  The sun has been out and the view from my desk is looking brighter with spring flowers starting to appear in the garden outside. Hopefully the coming months are going to be more energising than ever, with the arrival of warmer weather and the exciting prospect of getting back out to do the things we love with friends and family.

In the month of January I ran over a dozen ‘new year’ coaching sessions with some of my former clients.  As well as being thoroughly enjoyable from my perspective, it was a great insight into the wide range of experiences and emotions felt by business leaders after a year of upheaval.

In this third phase of lockdown, my sense is that more people have been finding it difficult. Maybe it’s the weather or just the fact that it’s been almost a year since we had a ‘normal’ life.

People often ask that these days.  Frankly, after the last year, I don’t really know.  ‘I’m fine’, I say.  And I am.  But how I actually feel has been another thing altogether – happy one minute, in despair the next, then frustrated or bored……it goes on.  It’s been ‘an experience’. Part of life. But then life is basically the sum of all our experiences - good, bad and everything in between.