In my long journey through to where I currently find myself today, I have done a lot of personal reflecting and academic-ish research (yes, they do go hand in hand…).

To make a long story short, I have followed a less than traditional path to be where I am today. In my final year at university, I was in a dilemma that made be choose between captaining the baseball team for one last season, or do my final teacher training placement. I chose….neither. In the end, I took the decision to travel to New Zealand in the months that followed my graduation to do my final teacher training placement, meaning I got to play my final season and finish my teacher training without the need to return to school for another semester (technically, I had my cake and ate it too…). I have never looked back.

During the whirlwind that has been the last 15 years, I haven’t had much time to reflect upon my rollercoaster journey…until recently. At the end of the 2018 - 2019 school year, I took the brave (possibly stupid) decision to leave a thriving career as a teacher and school leader to set up two businesses. One being Eckhoff-Nine Coaching, and the other one called Inner Armour Psychology. The conversations, potential client lists, interested private investors, and conversations about creating apps was all going extremely well….until COVID.

What now remains is a situation where my Eckhoff-Nine work is going well, but the other business has taken a huge hit (lots of reasons here…too many to get into at the moment). However, never the pessimist, I have not given up on making a success of both businesses. However, in this time of uncertainty, I have had a chance to reflect, learn, and adapt which has honestly been a bit of fresh air; despite the stress that has accompanied the uncertainties.

As many of you may know, I have become a passionate learner and practitioner of the science and field of Positive Psychology. The life coaching that I offer and the work that I do with Inner Armour Psychology is rooted in Positive Psychology and offers the people that I work with a chance to explore within themselves the tools they already have to live happier, more fulfilled lives with only minor tweaks and adjustments to be made.

The reason I have become passionate about the field is that it deliberately focuses on the parts of psychology that need to exist in order to flourish. This sounds straight forward, but I promise you, it isn’t. There are many misconceptions about Positive Psychology, one particular misconception is that in order to practice it, you have to be overtly happy all of the time. This is not true. There have been studies in the field that have found negative impacts on people if they try to be ‘too happy’ and never consider their negative emotions (they are just as important to feel and experience as positive emotions). In fact, what is coined as the second wave of the field explores areas such Post Traumatic Growth Theory and the need for adversity in ones life in order to achieve higher levels of personal resilience and growth. In other words, finding light in the dark; as without dark, there can be no light.

Putting Positive Psychology (PP) into everyday life requires a lot of time and commitment initially, but over time, it becomes easier (especially if you have a good coach ;)). The key is to break the mind’s natural negativity bias (to make change, you need to have a 3:1 positive to negative ratio in thought patterns before change is sustained). The hardest part of implementing PP into your life is figuring out which PPI’s (positive psychology interventions) you should use. One of my favourite PPI’s at the moment is exercising gratitude. As I mentioned above, my life has been very uncertain in recent months, causing me to feel more stressed than I think I’ve ever been, sometimes leading me into negative thought cycles. During the early stages of COVID lockdown, I felt stupid, scared, and helpless. Why did I make such a stupid decision? Why did I leave a thriving career right now? How am I going to make this work? How am I going to provide for my family? The thoughts kept coming and I found it really hard to combat these awful thoughts and emotions. Luckily, I have a lot of supportive people around me who reminded me that if I look hard enough, I will be able to see the light in this situation and begin to make changes that could lead to success again. The key to me coming back into the light was gratitude.

When practiced correctly, gratitude can be a very powerful intervention. When my good friend and business partner, James Pope, suggested that I ‘take stock’ and practice some specific gratitude exercises, I was not in the right frame of mind to believe that it could be useful. In fact, the first few days I found it really hard to find anything to be grateful for (in hindsight, I know that there were tons of things…I just couldn’t see through the fog). However, after being quite disciplined about it, I started to regain my confidence and started pursuing any and all avenues and opportunities I could find. Having implemented this strategy now for approximately 5 months, I am nearly back on an even keel, with many more prospects waiting in the wings. The reality is this; I always had within me the things needed to emerge on the other side of this predicament. However, in the moment, I couldn’t see through the fog nor could I identify the correct intervention that would help me get through this rough patch. Therefore, I will be forever grateful to my friend James as he was the instigator behind my change. He helped me see me again. I am also hugely grateful to my wife who was also very supportive and reminded me of what I am capable of (specifically, she reminded me that I can be quite bad ass if I want to be…at anything). I need to also acknowledge a good friend of mine who basically constructed this website whilst I was at my lowest point. My IT angel was Louise Denny. I will be forever grateful to her as well.

I am now in a position where I am enjoying my extra time at home now that I’m working from home 3 days a week. And, I’m enjoying my life as a gig economy surfer The people I’m working with and supporting are all brilliant and give me loads of energy.

The type of help I received from James is also the type of support I give to others now as a life coach and positive psychology coach. If you know anyone that you think would benefit from this type of support, send them this blog. Some day, I will be in a position to offer referral benefits! For now, I will just be very grateful.