December 2025: From ‘Self-Critic’ to ‘Change Maker’

This month’s topic, to bridge this year to the next: 
‘from ‘self-critic’ to ‘change-maker’.

Not from the books, but from behind the scenes of coaching conversations with real people!

1. All Personal Coaching Backstage: Reflections and ‘how-to’s’ on moving from ‘knowing’ to ‘doing’

2. Motivation Moment: Game On: Coaching Question Friday Raffle #36 and monthly awards!

3. Just One Learning Bite: a podcast conversation on HOW TO turn our ‘imposter moments’ into ‘confidence moments’

What’s a struggle or a topic you want me to talk about next month?

All Personal Backstage:
From ‘Knowing’ to ‘Doing’!

yes, I brought a jar, some rocks and pebbles, erasers, and markers to a virtual class with Access Bookboon recently.

The session was called ‘Work Goals Without the Overwhelm’.

Ironically, I was the first one to be overwhelmed while designing the session.
The more I thought about what I wanted to leave people with at the end, the more it fell flat for me.

I knew they knew ABOUT most (if not all) tools out there that might help us ‘get it done’.
But knowing HOW (and WHEN) to apply them in their day to day, that’s a familiar scenario.

So I decided I wanted to help them move from ‘knowing’ to ‘doing’.

It then made sense to me to start with ‘the jar’ demonstration (what happens when you constantly fit the small stuff in first).

And, well, no surprise, people recognized their own overstuffed calendars reflected back at them.

We then looked at that good old Eisenhower Matrix differently. Not just as a sorting system.

We reframed that ‘important but not urgent’ quadrant.

You know, the one with:

– strategic planning

– important reports not due yet that require research and focus

– relationship building

– the project that only matters to you right now (I call that ‘behind-the-scenes’ work)

We called it the ‘you need to protect it’ quadrant.

The one that needs us to become knights in shining armour to protect the time we need to ‘get it done’, because it’s important to us (and, later on, to others around us).

And because, if we don’t protect it, no one else does.

That need for protection is urgent!

By this point, everyone was ready to get into action.

So, we didn’t just talk about the Pomodoro Technique.

We ran one.

Live.

25 minutes on the clock while we covered the remaining frameworks.

When the timer went off at the end, people had already moved from knowing ABOUT the tool to working with the tool.

It helped them measure, right there, just how much they got done in those 25 minutes!

And how much control they actually have to PROTECT their focus time.

At the end, I asked which tool they’d commit to using.

Again, no surprise, the answers were all over the place: Eisenhower Matrix, Pomodoro, ‘yes and’, signalling boundaries.

And that’s the point, isn’t it?

It’s not about one right framework, It’s about the right one, at the right time, for the right purpose.

Frameworks that serve us, not the other way around!

OK, personal reflection done.

Game on – a question for us all to reflect on:

What goals need you to be their ‘knight in shining armour’?

(today, this week, this month, in 2026…?)

Lead Different.

Just One LEARNING Bite

Our last leadership learning bite of the year, and I think it’s a good one.

Thrilled to have been a guest on Cansulta’s Turnaround Tuesdays podcast, talking about something I see in most of my coaching sessions (and in my own experience):
the confidence gap.

I absolutely believe that we don’t lack talent.
But we do sometimes lack confidence at the moments it matters most.

And that’s not a flaw, it’s human.
And, as I mentioned in this podcast, it’s actually a strength for most high-performers!

In this conversation, we got into the real work of building confidence (not the clichés):
– why imposter feelings are often a sign you’re growing
– how to navigate transitions without losing your footing
– what actually helps you show up with clarity and credibility.

If you’re scaling a company, stepping into a bigger role, or simply trying to feel more grounded in your day-to-day, I hope this gives you something useful to take into 2026 & beyond.

What’s your biggest confidence challenge? I’d love to hear.
Game On: Lead Different. 

What’s a learning bite you’d want to share?