Keeping every option open felt safe, until I realised what it was costing me.
I've been building my coaching business for the last couple of years, and I've tweaked the positioning on my website more times than I'd care to admit. Every time I thought I'd finally found the right positioning, another possibility appeared.
I'd get excited about one direction, then immediately find ten reasons why another might make more sense. Every time I got close to choosing, another question appeared:
What if I exclude people?
What if I get it wrong?
What if I don’t include all my qualifications or show all of my capabilities?
Choosing a niche felt like leaving a part of me behind, which felt oddly painful. With my Learning and Development Business Partner/Consultancy and Education background, I am used to solving many problems with many different contexts in partnership with others. How could I possibly just keep it down to one? And everyone tells you to find your niche, because when you talk to everyone, you talk to no one.
After leaving my career in corporate, I just wanted to set out my stall and stand by it. After years of masking and adapting I wanted to be able to say: This is me. This is what I believe in. This is what I do.
The frustrating thing is that I have the experience and skills already, and have already been doing the job. But my amazing systems-thinking brain kept giving me nuance and lots of options as a way that made me feel safe. But also very stuck. It made it so hard for me to put it down on paper.
I eventually realised that seeing so many possibilities stopped being useful to me. So, I decided to invest in a coach. I believe in coaching, and I wanted to walk the talk of a service I also sell. The most fascinating thing I found is that my coach saw something in me that I couldn't quite see in myself. He believed in me.
And in that moment, 2 years of feeling stuck, something just clicked. I realised I had spent years tying my capability to my worth. If I was capable, useful, knowledgeable, successful, multi skilled, and therefore approved of... I felt okay. So often I found myself in environments and with people historically that led me to believe that my sensitivity was somehow a problem that needed fixing. So I overcompensated with showing my capabilities.
But when I stopped trying to prove that I needed to choose the "right" thing, I noticed something. There was something I kept coming back to simply because I loved it so much! My love of animals, and in particular…. cats!
I can see some of myself in cats. Their sensitivity, their discernment, their ability to choose connection rather than automatically seek approval. And most importantly, their complete lack of interest in proving that they're worthy of being…. well, just being a cat.
Their sensitivity made me realise it's part of who I am, and also who I’ve been supporting naturally.
I didn't need to become less of myself to choose a niche. I needed to become my own biggest cheerleader and to believe in myself.
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Drumroll please....
My niche is: Walking alongside other capable, ambitious and perceptive women who have sensitive nervous systems. The goal isn't to become less sensitive, as sensitivity is not a problem. But not every signal our brain gives us needs attention. That’s why training interoception awareness alongside discernment, how to interpret the information, building self-trust, strengthening boundaries and responding from a grounded place is so important.
But equally, so is being in a supportive environment. I also work with organisations and workplaces to help create environments where sensitive, high-achieving people can thrive.
If any of this resonated for you, I'd love to know what that is?
