About Me

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It was a period of personal challenge and adversity that created a huge change of perspective within me, and it's that period of my life which motivated me to set up Leeds Life Coaching Practice.

Back in 2016 my Fiancée and I were planning our wedding for April 2017, and we were excited to start a family shortly after.  During the course of the year, she started showing symptoms of depression, which became more severe over the course of a few months, and led her to begin a course of medication and therapy. She had been signed off work for two separate spells and had been in crisis on a number of occasions but things appeared to be improving at Christmas 2016. One evening a few days after Christmas, we returned home from a family meal and she popped out with our dog for his last walk of the day. When she didn't return home, I went out to look for her, only when I found her she had taken her own life. Life was turned upside down in the blink of an eye.

The initial days, weeks and months were the worst period of my life. I was traumatised, in a deep depression, and I felt a lack of purpose or meaning to my life. l was ill-equipped to process the trauma that I had experienced. I had to find a way of turning life around, of taking care of myself, and of finding purpose and meaning again. The initial 18 months following the death of my Fiancee taught me a huge amount about the importance of self-care, of mindset, of setting goals, of creating healthy daily habits and of helping others. Perhaps most important of all, I learnt the profound changes we can create in our lives by using our minds effectively, and that our true potential is much greater than most of us believe. 

One of my key principles in life is to treat the mind and body as one. We have to look after both in order to perform at our best. If you want to be mentally well, focused, and have clarity of mind then aspects of your lifestyle such as exercise, diet, sleep, alcohol use, and relaxation play their part. Similarly, your mindset contributes to how much energy you feel each day, and if you're mentally or emotionally unwell, then it will affect your physical wellbeing due to the impact of altered behaviours, lethargy, disrupted sleep, and the damage done by stress hormones.

The quality of our lives are the result of our thoughts or as the Stoic Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius put it "all is as thinking makes it so". Our thoughts trigger emotions, and we tend to behave in a manner consistent with our emotional state. The way we behave then determines the results we get in life. When we start with our thoughts, we can create a domino effect  that spreads throughout our lives. When we're rational, open minded and confident, we'll try new things, seize opportunities, find ways of overcoming challenges and give ourselves a much greater chance of achieving our goals.

You will be amazed by the power of getting a really clear goal, developing an action plan, overcoming any limiting beliefs and then taking small actions every day or every week. Just imagine what you could achieve if you spent 30 mins working on your number 1 goal each day for a year! Once you begin taking action, you develop momentum and before you know it you've created an upward spiral. You goals aren't as far out of each as you think and you can become the person you want to be by tapping into your own resources and realising your true potential!

The opportunity to coach people through the process of overcoming personal challenges, seeing them flourish and move forward with a greater sense of purpose, fulfilment, and wellbeing is what's most rewarding to me. I'm here to help if you have challenges to overcome and goals you want to achieve.

Best wishes,

Rob