A story of high heels, hiking boots and change

A story of heels, hiking boots and help for navigating change. "Does she still wear red as much?" I recently met with an old university friend and he was asked by our other uni’ friends to find out the answer to this question.

From my first pay check working at a supermarket check out, I bought a tomato red jogging suit. From my first pay check working at Boots the chemist I bought a pair of scarlet, killer heels. And at Uni’ I wore a crimson coloured wrap when it was chilly outside, and I was at university in Scotland, so I wore that wrap a fair bit.

Now, red is a good colour. It’s adventurous, happy and has energy.

But as life unfolded, I learned that there are other things that bring adventure, happiness and energy.

Enter a pair of hiking boots that were my companion as I camped on the Mongolian Steppe, trekked Tiger Leaping Gorge in China, and volunteered building houses in Thailand.

I came to treasure these boots.

Then, a few years later, my husband suggested it was time.

They’d outdone themselves, really they had, and helped my tootsies in all kinds of new lands but it was time for them to go. I was resistant but I knew he was right. I wanted to frame them and put them on a wall. Which is ridiculous but it shows you how attached I was.

Then, one day in an outdoor shop in Munich, I squealed with delight, shocking the assistant helping me, as I walked around in a new pair of shoes that were, well, just divine.

Now, I’m not the kind of person that would normally put divine and hiking boots in the same sentence. But they made my feet very, very happy and I knew that they'd set me up for new adventures.

No, they didn’t have the power of wearing red but it gave me another kind of power.

As life happens to us our needs and wants can shift and we get power from different things.

What once served us can change, as can our environment and our choices.

Some of these things happen organically or just through common sense - red high heels and a backpack not so much, but hiking boots, a big, happy, yes please.

And then there are times when the change is going to happen but it’s a bit bumpy and it’s creating lots of moments of yuck, and fewer moments of yay!

That’s when a coach can help support you for the journey, give you the space to reflect and help create the conditions to navigate a change, whether you wear heels or hiking boots.

And that’s what I do.

P.S. My husband tells me those original hiking boots are well and happy and living on a farm.