Living Your Best Life | Tips from Life Coach Natalie Miller-Snell

You deserve to be living your best life. This past week, I had the most amazing conversation with Natalie Miller-Snell when she came onto my podcast Curves Welcome. She shared her insights on how to live your best life. I walked away from this conversation with a new appreciation for change.

Connect with Natalie MIller-Snell: https://nmscoaching.co.uk/

The GROW model referenced was developed and popularized by Sir John Whitmore: https://www.performanceconsultants.com/grow-model

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Transcript

0:08

Hey thanks for joining me today for this episode of curves welcome, a podcast about facing and embracing the curves of life. If this is your first time tuning in, this is suzie carr. Thanks everyone for tuning in today. I'd like to welcome a special guest to the podcast today. She's the founder of NMS Coaching, a motivational speaker, a qualified civil engineer, the host of seize the day podcast, and an overall people enthusiast. She's also my partner on our lively facebook group live your best life. Her name is Natalie Miller-Snell and she's here to chat with me today about ways you can start a new journey in life. Natalie it's great to have you here today. Oh thank you suzie. What a lovely introduction. It's great to be... it's so good to see you. In 2021, we all look different. New year, yes, we uh we definitely, everything's just great. We were just chatting before we actually went live with this and you were telling me you've revamped your house your environment to sort of set the stage for 2021 and the newness of your environment to help you just catapult yourself into this year on a good foot, if you will. Yeah absolutely. I mean i've yeah i mean we just touched on it very briefly. i found i mean 2020 was quite a bizarre year it was so unusual for everybody and there's a lot of you know stuck a feeling of stuck in just generally everything that we did and i i mean i love my office i absolutely adore it but one of the things i wanted to do was paint it you know redecorate give it a little bit of new life and since we're not exposed to any newness outside of our four walls release we're not seeing anyone we're not going out it's a really great opportunity to make everything feel fresh again and new to give you that new kind of injection of life and push forward so it's really had the desired effect i must say i love because i keep seeing my backdrop now you know when i'm on zoom calls and i'm like yeah okay that looks nice i'm really happy it really looks cool for obviously people listening in they're not seeing this your logo is right behind you on a beautiful white canvas the nms coaching time to change with an hourglass and i just think that is so cool it's such a pretty thing and i love you have a little is that a frog with big it's a frog i love it i did a vote on instagram a poll to get a name so her name's roberta which i think is brilliant and i actually i lifted the pictures up a bit as well because what i was finding last year i used existing nail fittings in the wall so it was just down a bit too low and it was right behind my head but now you can see the logo which is great yeah i've always loved the hourglass i think it's you know it's a time to change isn't it it's all about time it's about seizing the moment and seize the moment as well or see the day for the podcast so all you know all connects nicely absolutely let's talk about a time to change because we are here today to talk about starting a new journey now many people especially in the beginning of a new year it could be you're listening to this in the middle of the of the existing year but there's always a time when people feel like they want to make a change maybe they're afraid to maybe there are just too many factors involved to feel overwhelmed by it but starting fresh and and creating a new a new paradigm for yourself doesn't have to be as overwhelming as i think people make it and i wanted to to chat with you today because i know that you've made a change in your life you've you know you've taken a new step with your business can you just talk a little bit give people a brief background about your path to where you are today and what you are doing today sure um i suppose let's just rewind a little to what i studied i suppose in terms of coming out of university and when i was as young because i always wanted to help people so i studied civil engineering i mean i don't know quite how or why i went down that path but it was what resonated in terms of my a levels that was studying maths physics and design technology so that's the natural path i went down and i really enjoyed it i mean i have um i consider myself quite creative in terms of how my mind works i like to understand how things operate and you know how you make things work and connect it back together so i spent my life um after university in kind of design roles if you like so ultimately leading towards a leadership role with in-store development so building stores across the globe and leading teams to do that so from concept through to completion seeing something in a design phase and then seeing it realize which was incredibly inspiring and really quite nice and i suppose lends itself to that that newness because you're always seeing something new you're seeing something evolve you're seeing something grow and there's there's an element of beauty in that so i absolutely loved what i did but i always had this thing at the back of my mind i want to help people and it's what i'm doing sure it helps me because financially it's great you know supporting my family but am i what's my purpose what do i really want to do in terms of investing back into the community investing back into the world and just generally helping people and so i made a decision back in i forget you know time i'm not sure with at the moment because it's been such a whirlwind i'm going to say 2019 maybe even 2018 to start looking into studying life coaching so i could actively help folk on the side while i was still working and i started so that was part time outside of working hours and i was working as a consultant so this is now the year before last because 2020 is last year and i was a consultant and then covet hit and i was between employment and unfortunately in the uk how the government support packages were that if you're in between work you didn't get any support so i mean it was in truth 2020 was a terrifying year at the beginning because i'd gone from having employment having an income albeit through a consultant basis so you know still seeking active employment to then nothing literally no income whatsoever um and i really had to do a great deal of reflecting i did a lot of crying over a lot of wine with a lot of chocolate i mean seriously it was it was quite i mean i did go through a bit of a dark moment as well but it occurred to me that i've always wanted to help people as i've mentioned i could still do what i wanted to do but i just needed to accelerate that process and i just really needed to apply myself in a much more constructive much more efficient and much more thorough way to make it happen at a more accelerated pace and and that's exactly what i did i connected with people susie i connected with people outside of my immediate industry my immediate circle of friends to just reach out and contact people who had experience who had knowledge who might be able to help and honestly i can't begin to tell you the volume of kindness i experienced through incredible people who yeah who made my year who helped me massively and it just went literally it catapulted upward after that just phenomenal what would you say first of all that's phenomenal that you've experienced this level of success in this new journey and yeah and i i would say just hearing your story i would attribute that to your positive attitude and your determination to say this is what i want this is what i have to do because i have a family to support and i'm going to make this happen and so that whole phrase make it happen it's a very powerful affirmation and it's your why you knew why and i think a lot of people myself included during parts of my life when i've tried to when i knew i needed to make a change but i had no idea how to or why why i should it's because i didn't know my why and if you don't know why you're doing something the motivation to continue doing it wanes and they're gonna be as you said there are some critical moments when you're starting a new journey that like you had no income you had absolutely no income now most people would just say okay forget this i'm gonna go back to what i know and i'm just i'm gonna take five steps back and just go back to my comfort zone and do what i know and you didn't do that you persevered and you were determined and you said i'm gonna make this happen so kudos to you and yeah so what would you say in that respect to somebody who doesn't know their why like how do you determine that how do you do were there a few steps that you could suggest that someone take in order to determine that motivational factor that's going to keep them going during these tough times it's a that's a fabulous question and in fact actually one of the things that i did when i reached out to folk last year was to connect with the wonderful coaching community and i got myself a coach and that was possibly one of the best things that i did because during that um during that session and those sessions with sandra and for anyone who's listening who doesn't necessarily understand the difference with coaching and therapy and all of those different kinds of services that you can employ coaching is very much about the listening space it's about listening to the person you're with and asking sometimes quite loaded questions to get to the root or understand what the barrier is that's preventing somebody from moving forward therapy tends to focus on the problem itself and helps you unpack it so you can deal with it coaching listen in that space and then we help the clients find their own solutions and their own way forward from whatever they you know whatever their challenge is and they then set the action plan and they're then accountable so it's quite a powerful environment that you're in as stephen covey i think once said the interesting thing about conversation and dialogue is more often than not we think we're listening to somebody but actually we're waiting our turn to speak which i think is really powerful and very true so the coaching environment is all about listening and helping so sanji my coach who i adore she's absolutely fantastic i'd highly recommend it to anybody coaching when you seek a coach it's all about your relationship that you get with somebody so everybody not everybody is meant for everybody if that makes sense you'll find there's a connection there isn't there that makes it anyway yeah and she would just ask me some really great questions and she focused a lot on what is what's my why and i knew my why was to help people i knew also i needed to provide for my family and you know ensure that situation was right for us to move forward and from that i was then able to piecemeal right okay how do i do that the these are the it's the house it's the whats it's the where it's those open beautiful open um open-ended questions to get you to think maybe with some creative tools as well so how could i do that you know what are the options one-to-one coaching group coaching where could i do it what's around me who do i speak to where do i go next and then it's all about proactive steps to make that happen and sure you'll get something wrong along the way i do you know i learned for it but then i move forward it's about that resilience level as well picking up and keep going forward but to your point it is understanding the why and speaking to somebody really helps if you don't know helps get that out of you sometimes from what i just gathered from what you just said it's really important to be able to ask yourself great questions because that's really the only way you're going to get great answers but those answers that you get from those great questions that you ask yourself seem to be the stepping stones to action and without action there is no realization of goals dreams plans any of that because you you do have to take action in order for things to happen it can't be just willful thinking as some you know there's some schools of thought oh just think it and it will be that's not that's never been my experience i need to take action i need to think about it and i need to wrap my my brain around the fact that i do want this i want x y z and i will get x y z so how do i do that that's a great question how what when all those kinds of questions that start with those create a dialogue in your brain with yourself in order to create these action steps that are necessary to get to that point b to get that xyz do you know what susie that's a really interesting point actually and for those who might be familiar already or those who aren't familiar there's a fantastic model by um sir john whitmore who i think he popularized it back in the 90s it's called the grow model and it's the grow literally as an acronym so you've got um g for goal r for realism o for opportunity or options and w for will to action so when you're setting any kind of plan this is a really great template to follow in that what is your goal what is your realistic circumstance so therefore what are you able to achieve with either resource around you home schooling financials people to support you what does that really look like what your barriers might be what are your opportunities when you come to oh so what are the options and opportunities for you to seize on how do you overcome barriers what are the options in order for you to move or who do you contact as well and then the w is the will to action will you do it can you do it and those that sequence it's got to be sustainable now when this year first started i had a plan for the first week coming back to work you know doing x y and z get myself ready for the year i'd already decorated my room so that was done but i had a whole secret of things i wanted to do then we got locked down again in the uk which meant we are homeschooling um so that radically changes everything but i forgot to change my plan so i felt like i was failing i felt like i wasn't achieving because i didn't move things around so everything has to be sustainable because there's so much so much joy and celebration you get from actually achieving something that then propels you to carry on afterwards okay i've done that even if it's not quite as successful as you would like it to have been you've completed it so you can move on to the next step so it's a beautiful cycle to help you get you know move from where you are into wherever you want to go that sounds like a plan that helps to set a person up for success yeah i feel like a lot of i've made this mistake where i've created these crazy unrealistic plans if you will to achieve something and i'd have to be a superwoman to have achieved it through the plans that i set up and so i automatically assumed that i failed at it instead of creating realistic plans yeah something that you really you can achieve something every day towards that plan if you can or once a week be able to set these milestones that are achievable like chunk it down into achievable steps so that you can celebrate those small victories and then when you look back you're like wow i did 10 small victories they've they've added up and yeah now you feel like you've succeeded versus failed right absolutely absolutely and it's a great mindset to have and it really helps you take that next step and that next point of action and keep you on the path particularly if you're making radical change yes absolutely natalie what would you say to somebody who is considering carving a new path i mean is there a small piece of advice that you would give a direction that you would give to be able to like what's one of the first things they can do to be able to start to carve out a new path for themselves i mean i think you touched on it well earlier when you said the why it's really good to understand why we're doing something what is the reason behind it and from that connecting with people it's key and i think particularly in this world that we're living in at the moment because we're so isolated because we've lost that connection with folk and at the end of the day we're a tribal species at heart when you look at all of the data and the kind of research that you see you know all of those beautiful chemicals that get um you know distributed in our body the serotonin when we hug that when we're kind you know there's other ones on it meditating brings out the serotonin dopamine when you'd self-care um endorphins for exercise and so on we're missing that connection and that general kind of thing that produces those so it's i think it's not i think i know from my experience last year as well connection is really key that also helps you understand and you know if you're connecting with people that are on the path or the direction that you want to go they can give you advice as well and i certainly experienced that in you know bucket loads last year so that's really important learn every opportunity take on board what folks say some of it might be relevant some of it might not be but really try to learn every opportunity to if it's in if it's in keeping with where you want to go you know pick up as much as you can and be open and flexible to change that's you know again like i mentioned earlier with the um with the home schooling this year and i think for everybody actually 2020 has thrown so many curveballs that we've just literally had to adapt to and change to so you we've really got to whilst we have our goals once we have our plan once we have our okay i need to do x y and z to get to you know a b and c be flexible that that might change i love that that being said though i think a lot of people might struggle with understanding how they can be open and flexible to change it's one thing to say it sounds yeah sounds like definitely we should be open and flexible to change but a lot of people fear change they fear it worse than death like they just like their comfort zones and you're right this past year was full of change and we don't know it we don't know what the future holds it could be full of more changes how does somebody deal with those changes as they're being tossed at them be kind to yourself wholeheartedly be kind to yourself and i'm going to draw on the experience from the two weeks ago again just for this although i've got myriad from last year as well when i wasn't achieving what i wanted to because of homeschooling and that's a sh i had my my head and my my heart set i'm going to start this year i've got a clean path ahead of me yes we're still in a a kind of challenge in time with covid but i'm you know i know my sequence take the boys to school pick them up i've got a nice window of opportunity in between to work all of a sudden that was destroyed with homeschooling so i had to change but i wasn't being kind to myself to allow myself almost a little bit of a grieving process that oh for crying out loud i've got to do it again it's a bit like the cube larosco you know that the grief or five stages of grief that were referred to but effectively it's a change curve you get the shock you get the anger you get the frustration you then you know you're at the bottom this is the lowest part you then start to see optimism and then you you know i was at the top and the end i've got my vision ahead and then all of a sudden someone just flicked me back onto the other angle you know what's going on so it's you know appreciating that you're going to go through those cycle you're going to experience those feelings and those sensations and that's okay we all do be kind to yourself take yourself off to do whatever self-care that you need to do that will help you know go meditate do your walk whatever whatever that is for you because we're all different but be kind to yourself i think i like that and it reminds me of the idea that life is full of ebbs and flows and that the highs and lows of life actually there are lessons to be learned in both the highs and the lows and it's near impossible to live in one extreme or the other right there's always i think the goal for me anyway is to get to that middle ground where the when i'm dealing with a low i realize that it feels like it's forever but i know everything is temporary in life and if i can just embrace the lessons that that low is giving me that is when i i feel like i'm lifted up and i can get to that middle ground and then when i reach the high we all want to stay there but we know that that's not sustainable either that's also an extreme and that also has lessons as well and so i always feel like you should never fear either one of those and you should but you should strive for learning the lessons from both and kind of bringing yourself back to that middle ground and know that you're gonna you're gonna go down you're gonna go up and i also feel like if we didn't have the lows in life we would never appreciate the highs in life so i think of the highs and lows as the valleys and the hills and i've heard that analogy i i'm i'm sure i've read it in many different places i don't know who to attribute that to but the the hills and the valleys they each have their lessons and if you stand on a hill for your whole life which is the highs you're never going to appreciate the beauty that the valleys do have right absolutely the lows in life do have beauties even though it doesn't feel like it at the time if you look around and you say to yourself i want to find the beauty in this or the purpose in this or the value in this low your brain is going to go into automatic search mode and find it and then you're going to find what that purpose was and that's going to help you lift again to that middle ground absolutely yeah it's just important to keep that perspective and that that perspective has helped me it's not always easy when you're stuck in that low you're like you just feel like you're stuck there forever but it's knowing ahead of time planning ahead of time for those moments when you're going to reach those lows to remember fi seek it seek the seek the lesson in that and then you will find the lesson in that and then that will help you get to another hill where you'll see the beautiful valleys and accompanying hills and then you know you'll find that middle ground where you can take a break and rest and enjoy life it's you know it it's a bit like though i mean i think i mentioned gratitude before as well having gratitude for what you have and sometimes we take things for granted so actually you know gratitude journals are really beneficial in this regard but it's it's recognizing it particularly if you are going through change or you're struggling with the change okay what do i have at the moment what went well what's going on despite the change around us despite adversity what's actually going well and to your point with the valleys looking at them and appreciating them and being grateful for them and then you can move on because when you start to see things when you start to appreciate and when that starts to become second nature it helps you move forward when you can see the beauty when you can see the happiness when you can see the even if it's teeny tiny bits of light it will then help you see something else next time so it is a bit of a reframe it is changing the narrative a bit it's that it is converting the the negative to the positive and trying to pull out what is good with what's going on yeah that's a great way to put it natalie is there anything else that you'd like to add that you feel would lend value to this whole topic of starting a new journey i think probably yeah just reiterating those points actually self-care is 100 150 super important and i've certainly learned that over the recent year and i'm sure others have as well because we've been so isolated because we haven't had the the usual um i don't even know how to describe it because we haven't been inundated with things around us we've had to take the opportunity to look at what's important around us and focus on what makes us happy because we aren't seeing folks so self-care is really really really important and you know allowing yourself to do that so being kind in that sense as well the connection i've touched on so i've written down one note here actually saying yes to things that terrify you and i know it's terrifying i really know it's terrifying but you know what once you've said yes to something even if again it didn't go quite how you want to you'll feel epic i mean the feeling you get on the other side at far outweighs the terror you might have up front so definitely say yes to something that terrifies you i contributed to an article in the guardian which is a uk paper before christmas that then lent itself for me being invited on a radio show now i'd never done that before and i i was terrified but i just thought to myself you know what just go for it what what truly is the worst that can happen you'll never get invited on again i got invited on four days later so you know yeah just go honestly just go for it truly um and again and just help support changing the narrative to help you move forward i can do things i will do things you know when i first started um training to be a coach i had this this narrative in my head i'll never be taken seriously as a coach because i'm from another industry and that was my dialogue i was telling myself i reframed it and i said to myself do you know what i will be taken incredibly seriously as a coach because i've got such a great reputation in my other career and i mean even you might hear it in the inflection in my voice that promotes positive thinking it changes how you think and you it enables you to think differently and actually believe do you know what i can do this so yeah i i'd say those were top tips maybe i love that you know at any moment we can reframe our story yeah at any moment we can change our story by reframing it totally how you tell yourself what's going on yeah i love that and i i specifically also love the saying yes to something that terrifies you i'm a firm believer in that i've done that many times in my life and it is the most empowering feeling to overcome something like that like you said even if you weren't successful in the way that you wanted it to be yeah still did it and so you feel like you feel like a superwoman when you get done i mean i've done that with power tools i was afraid of power tools i was afraid of scuba diving i was afraid of public speaking and i just said yes to it and now i'm i don't fear those things anymore i actually look forward to those things so that's so amazing amazing so natalie how can people connect with you so i've rather brilliantly or at least i thought so at the time when i did it because i changed my you know company nms coaching you can find me everywhere my handle is at nms coaching twitter instagram facebook i'm sure i'm missing one linkedin i'm actually my name natalie miller but i think that's all anyway at nms coaching you'll find me everywhere excellent do you have a website that you want to direct people to oh yes um nmscoaching.co.uk or in fact actually if you put my name in again um you know nataliemillisnow.co.uk or nataliemillisnow.com it'll all direct there perfect and what i will do is for anybody listening i'm going to be putting all of this information on how you can connect with natalie and any resources that she talked about i know that the grow research i'd like to be able to put that in the show notes as well so people can find that information and connect with youtube you perfect yeah you you're you're a star i love it and if anyone listening wants to just drop me a line to talk about coaching or understand a bit more about it please feel free i love talking about it so if you know if you want an idea or even just a tidbit on you know how maybe is best to do this or what do you suggest on that please just drop me a line i'd love to talk to you that's great natalie it has been great chatting with you today thank you so much for coming on to the curbs welcome podcast my absolute pleasure hey friends thanks for spending time with me today i hope you enjoyed today's topic if there is something you'd enjoy exploring in a future podcast please reach out to me via my website at curveswelcome.com and i'll work it in while you're there grab a free story too it's my way of thanking you for your support of my podcast and romance novels i also want to take a moment to thank all who have become patrons on my patreon page your support means a great deal to me for more information on joining me on this journey and gaining access to special rewards visit the link in the show notes also be sure to follow the curves welcome podcast channel to keep up on the latest episodes so thanks for tuning in until next time go out there and continue to learn grow and embrace life's curves you