One of my sons failed to escape abroad in time and has been locked down with us for months now. In desperation, he decided that he would digitise all the family’s photos including Granny’s who also came to stay through this otherwise isolating time. Way more than 5000 pics! It involved spreading 20 or 30 out on a table and taking a pic of each one. An heroic gesture for future generations to reflect on – and for them to be subjected to accompanying apocryphal stories about what happened when Dad was hitchhiking around America, what Mum (or will it be Great Granny?) was doing in Ibiza in the 80’s or what Great Uncle Harry did during the War (POW in Taiwan as it happens)..

So those rare, idle moments when not brain training, reading educational books or mountain biking (ahem) have been taken up with reflecting on our past lives. Our children’s lives and our lives as children. I spent quite some time this morning looking at this photo and trying to gain insight into what was going on inside that wonderful little head at the time. It was easier to reflect on what wasn’t going on.

• There was confidence and happiness – mostly!
• There was little worry about what was going on outside his immediate world
• No worrying about the things that were outside his control
• There was a trust and natural confidence in his own ability to learn – to cycle, to read, to do a back somersault on a trampoline. To understand how a volcano works. (Sorry to digress but lava and magma seemed to feature on the school curriculum forever didn’t it?)
• There was a ready, unconstrained laugh
• There was a preparedness to try new stuff
• Change was natural and welcome
• Conflict was ok when you believed in, or really wanted something
• And there was no one inside his own head making him anxious and telling him he’d be ‘crap at doing that’
• And there was an ‘enjoying life in the moment’ thing going on generally. Being absorbed in the person or activity in front of him. At least until something more interesting or desirable came along. We call it – or something like it – ‘Mindfulness’ these days. Most of us have to work really hard to achieve it. Look into those eyes and reflect on whether you feel the young man in the pic needed to be taught to be ‘mindful’. Perhaps he needs to be re-taught how to be mindful some 25 years on..
  
  

As I write this, I am acutely aware that many of us have suffered financial hardship, work anxiety, loss, illness, loneliness, isolation, claustrophobia or domestic violence. Many children have had appalling things to deal with – and that innocence and confidence described above will have been ripped away for so many young people. Much will need to be done to try to restore that well-being and confidence that they hopefully had, at least for a period of their lives.

I have learned that we will be better off worrying less about what we can’t control and trying to be more comfortable in our own heads – and to take the time and create the space necessary to work out what will get us to ‘work better’ – in every sense.
A good coach can help us to unlock that lack of constraint and absence of anxiety that I hope you had as a child. To take time to reflect and to be honest with yourself. To get insight about what’s holding you back and preventing you to be the person you want to be in the place you love and value. And then to start taking the steps to get there.

How much would you value that? Imagine being part of a team or a company or even a society that truly values the honesty and integrity of a child – as much as values the potential power and inspiration inherent and sometimes trapped inside a motivated adult?