So often we find ourselves stuck in a way of doing things, even if we are good at it, knowing there is something missing.
8 years ago I felt the exact same way. In this article I share my personal journey to embracing the life I want to live.
Continue reading
Do you ever wonder: “Is there another way?”
What do you do when it all becomes unclear or uncertain? If you don’t know what this year will look like? Because all measures may or may not be in force or will remain. Persistence is being tested and we all deal with it differently.
Do you get stuck in your work and your habits? Are you trying to control what you can still influence? Do you just lose control and your rhythm starts to shift, do you gradually become a nocturnal animal instead of an early bird?
The ambitious business woman who was always on the go now finds herself in an office set up at home. Where possible, still looking somewhat fashionable, but in most instances already months without heels. The social salesman who always had his car as an office and had great conversations with potential customers. But who now walks into the supermarket sometime during the day to have the opportunity to speak to someone in person. And the colleague at the office who always has a joke or cheerful comment ready to boost morale, but who now only sees you through the screen, longing for a little office culture. The question is how it will ever be like this again. We’ll have to make do with the way things are for a while to come.
Everyone is insecure. And every person tries in their own way to find a form to hold on to. And at the same time, many realise that the existing ways of doing things, the well-known patterns, are no longer sufficient. It often limits you even more in your room to move instead of giving it space.
And if you do ask yourself that question, try to listen carefully to your inner voice
And then it gets really interesting. Because which of these examples do you recognize in yourself? And how do you deal with the uncertainty? And who do you come across in yourself? Are you able to relate? Are you already taking on new challenges to expand your own mind? What new habits have you developed or unlearned?
Because one thing is clear now, this time offers the chance to take a good look at yourself. Ask yourself the question: “Can it be done differently?” And that might be about anything; your relationship, your friends, your creative side, your work, your food, your hustle and bustle, your loneliness, your being outdoors, your life. Really everything.
Ask yourself how it can be done differently, how it can be done better and how it can be more meaningful. And if you do ask yourself that question, try to listen carefully to your inner voice. What do you think you want and what do you really need? And that is quite a difficult question, because before you know it you will be answering it from the current situation you are in now. After all, you already have a good job and of course you have studied for years. And you have responsibilities like a mortgage and expectations from others. And don’t underestimate your own expectations.
And that’s all very fair and well, but the question you should at least ask yourself is: “How else can it be done in a way that makes me happy and healthy?”
Will you seize this opportunity so that you can live life to the full instead of just surviving?
One thing is certain: it can really be different. It can really be better, more beautiful, more fun and more meaningful. We have learned in the meantime that things can be resolutely different. A virus has made that clear to us in the past year. And that is why I invite you to ask yourself the question, how can things be different for you. So that you give yourself the space to look and, above all, to listen to what you need. So that you can start living your life to the full instead of just surviving.
The journey in itself is a beautiful undertaking and I am sure it will make you so much happier. You will give yourself the chance to live your own life completely.
And if you’re looking for a driving force or someone to spar with on a walk, give me a call. I can guide you, with both feet on the ground, lovingly confronting and in connection with nature.
Come get lost with me, I know the way
~ Loesje
This week my 13-year-old daughter came to the breakfast table with the following question: “What is my identity anyway? I read that identity is not determined by my colour, my gender, my age or the things I do. So what does determine my identity? What makes me who I am? What makes you who you are?”
Chambers definition ‘identity’ – i-den-tity (n) 1 the state or quality of being a specified person or thing; who or what a person or thing is
Wow what a pretty intense question. Immediately it grabbed my full attention. And she went on and I listened. “Then I am not 13, but my age is 13. I am not a volleyball player, but I play volleyball. I am not a student, but I am at school. I am not Dutch, but I have a Dutch nationality. I am not Janna, but my name is Janna. I am not a daughter, but I have parents.”
Her comments felt a bit awkward at times, especially the last two took me a while to digest. But what a remarkable point she had made.
Together we discovered that if you remove the labels, what remains above all is the human being. How beautiful is that!
How I enjoy these conversations with our children, seemingly out of nowhere the most wonderful questions or theories come up. How incredible to listen and ponder on them together. And we can learn so much from them. It is so inspiring to start a conversation and discover what identity is. Lots of questions and possibly not as many answers.
How often do you identify with your position or role, with the things you do or perform at? Where you come from and where you want to go. They are relevant facts and worth knowing in themselves and of course it also influences what you do. But maybe you are much more than that. I realize that I also often use labels to indicate who I am. Less and less, but I still catch myself doing it.
Together my daughter and I discovered that if you take away the labels, what remains is mainly the human being. How beautiful is that!
Everything is welcome
The human being, with all their beautiful and also the less beautiful sides. The whole person, because that makes us who we really are. Including everything. And above all, don’t get rid of anything, you are completely fine just the way you are. Everything may be there.
My daughter taught me a great lesson in this early morning conversation and I am going to apply it. My name is Nita, I am curious, always busy and at the same time also lazy. I am a dreamer and I have both feet on the ground. I like structure and rebel against hierarchy and the establishment. I am lovingly confrontational and like to be outside. And I enjoy helping people get to know themselves.
Have you already met yourself? Feel free to call and we can schedule a walk together or a meeting with the horses.
And let yourself be surprised by the most beautiful person on earth: YOU.
Go deeper with both feet on the ground, lovingly confrontational and in connection with nature.
In August 2015, I handed in my resignation as partner at PwC and stood down as CPA. How time flies. Every now and then I run into former colleagues who ask me where I ended up. The answer is simple: close to myself. The journey was not always easy, but it was for sure well worth it.
While I shook the last hands, returned my laptop and walked out the door, I had no clear picture of what I was going to do. I had promised myself one thing and that was to spend more time outside in nature. A few months before leaving the firm I had walked from my birth town Bramsche in Germany to my home in Amsterdam. Ten days on the road with only myself as company. Outside, in the woods, through the fields and crossing villages and towns. I walked over three hundred kilometres step by step. Enjoying everything around me. What I realised on this journey is that I already have everything I need. Including everything to become happy in what I do in order to live my full potential.
With that realisation I started exploring possibilities and trying new things. Wonderful adventures, sometimes on my own but above all together with others. After the Master Consulting and Coaching for Change at INSEAD, I started a boutique firm FNX Company together with my then partner, Femke Kruiderink, for team coaching and leadership development. Together we were able to guide great projects. For example, in Dubai we guided 100 Arab women through reflection and grounding exercises, in Italy we facilitated a retreat for 70 creative people, and closer to home we went into the forest with a top team of lawyers. Full of passion and power. With confidence in experiential learning. By trial and error and always staying close to ourselves.
‘Rediscover yourself, empower others’.
Soon after, the horses came on my path. For someone who had seen these animals mostly along the highway, there was work to be done. At a beautiful boarding and training stable near Amsterdam, I became a 40+ years old trainee, got up before dawn and helped out with the horses. I stood among the mares with foals, the youngsters and anxious stallions and learned to know the different types of horses and all the basic skills needed. I quickly felt at home and owning my own horse became inevitable. In no time, Zidane and Froucke walked into my life and these beautiful black Frisian horses have completely stolen my heart. In the meantime, I completed the training “Systemic and Shamanistic coaching with horses” and for a season further harnessed my skills by working as a trainer.
Nowadays I offer tailor made executive coaching programs and systemic equine coaching to individuals, families, professionals and teams together with co-coach Iris Garnier and of course with the horses.
The art of listening and acting on your heart’s voice.
I describe the past few years as mainly characterised by the courage to make choices. Trying out new things, sometimes with considerable trepidation. Observing with much care to what gives me energy. Learning to distinguish between what I do using strength and what flows naturally. Trying, reflecting, making choices, discovering further and going deeper, over and over again. Sometimes I got a few dents in my ego and on other occasions tears from laughter and relief. Making choices based on the combination of head, heart and gut. And one step further every time. And always doing it myself, but certainly not alone.
“Life in multitude is courage”, a translation of the quote ‘Leven is meervoud van lef’, from the Dutch poster-activist movement, Loesje, has always stayed with me. Courage is the ability to do something that frightens you. Courage comes from ‘cor’, the Latin word for heart. In other words, the art of “To speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.” The art of listening and acting on your heart’s voice.
That’s what I’ve been doing for the past few years. Step-by-step. Listening to my heart and making choices. Saying goodbye to how I’ve always done things. Choosing things that do not always seem to fit the familiar pattern or the expectations of others. As a result, I do the things that make me happy.
It now all comes together in the combination of observation, nature and horses in my coaching practice. The verDIEPing (the DEEPening) journey, coaching through connection and the confidence that every person already has everything in them to live their life to the full. With an experience-oriented personal course in which head, heart and soul work together. So that you can be successful in your career and stay true to yourself.
I ended up close to myself. And that while spending much time outside in nature. I can’t imagine a nicer place to be. I am alive and I am a professional and outdoors-person. Who are you?
Do you want to rediscover yourself? Feel free to contact me to help you in your journey of rediscovery.
Go deeper with both feet on the ground. Lovingly confrontational and in connection with nature.
In February 2016 I was interviewed by Renate Tromp for her then online magazine, Ambitious Mamas. Below is an extract from this interview, which I read in my moments of reflection, reminding me how far I have come in finding my own path. The title especially makes me smile internally, as I know exactly what I have done and will continue to do!
In my interview with Nita Wink, we meet an Ambitious Mama, who gave up her partnership at a major accounting firm to pursue her dream: empowering women as an executive coach – Renate Tromp
Ambition
Ambition means putting energy into what is important to me. And I recently made tough choices in that regard when said goodbye to my profession as an auditor. A profession that gave me the opportunity to brainstorm with people and organisations at a high level. Such a turnaround is quite exciting: I no longer want to do what I can do. And I can’t do what I want, not yet, as I have relatively less experience in that. (laughing) That doesn’t exactly inspire me with confidence! Sometimes I think to myself, really idiot, what have you done?
My ambition for the future as a coach/mentor is to bring the soul back into leadership. I have seen that many – still predominantly male – leaders have been dehumanised. Their main concerns being targets and analyses. But feelings, the human value, are gone. To bring about that goal and at the same time involve more women in leadership, I want to, among other things, use dreams as part of my coaching. Dreams are beautiful letters we write to ourselves in symbolic language, lovingly and in the same breath, brutally, showing the obstacles to further growth. For many men, you can use the meaning of their dreams to soften them. For women precisely to make them stronger.
Many women are conditioned to be kind and supportive, but there is also another side. The side that knows what it wants. Many women dream that they are angry because that side is not allowed to be there during the day. If we women free ourselves from that, we become stronger, more stable, more decisive. More aligned. But for that to happen, we have to let go of what we know. Just as I did. “What got you here, won’t get you there.”
Career
Before I decided to give up my career and partnership at PwC, I took a sabbatical. I wanted to think about my future and walked my own Santiago de Compostela “pilgrimage”. In September 2014, I walked 320kms in ten days from Bramsche, near Osnabrück in Germany, where I was born, to my home in Amsterdam. That walk opened up something in me and for the months that followed I relished the extra time I spent with my two young children, Janna, then 8, and Fedde, then 5. I faced the realisation that my career as an auditor was coming to an end, the developments in the profession were becoming less and less suited to who I was becoming. Being a pure auditor in an auditing organisation no longer suited me. The conclusion was inevitable: I am not going back to my company. It’s time for a new adventure.
In my new career as executive coach and systemic equine coach, I will create business with a number of people in the field of personality and leadership training. Empowering people and especially women makes me very happy and I am now working on a project in the Middle East to give ambitious women a stronger voice and let them experience where their strength lies. How will I exactly shape my new career?: I know one thing for sure. I don’t want to be away from my children as much anymore. Since I left PwC I have rediscovered the joy of being a mother. I want to be part of my own children’s journey of discovery.
Keeping all the balls in the air
I was lucky enough to meet a man, my husband Kees, who could handle the 90% / 10% split in home-life responsibilities. But since the work pressure has been lifted off my shoulders, there is more room for him to take on the tasks he enjoys. I’ll be the last to blame PwC for all the time I was away from home. That is completely in the nature of the beast. And I will stay vigilant of that part of me.
The difference now is that my needs are no longer naturally related to my work. I had great doubts about that as well. As an ambitious woman, can I manage to bail out? And is what I’m doing now giving up? But I don’t see any other option. I want to do things that give me energy and put my energy into what is important to me. Work that enriches my life and at the same time fits into my home-life. So no, there is no going back. This is my new ambition.
Dream
My dream is to set something in motion by bringing spirituality back into professionals and into leadership. Not so much the supernatural, but precisely that which is close to nature. Over and above the knowledge, the rationalisations, the analyses, I want to bring to light the soul in people. Tap into our connection to that energy source, call it intuition. It may all still sound vague, but I feel exactly what I mean and I’m going to do it. And if you ask me where I want to be in five years, my answer is “with my child in Times Square.” Why? Maybe to show her the bustling centre of the world and say, “It’s all yours!”
Nita’s tip to ambitious women: Go for a long, hard walk outside. That gives you time to get close to yourself and really get in touch with what you want. By literally putting one foot in front of the other, you will carry yourself there. It was definitely the journey of discovery I needed.
