Sometimes the moments that stay with us are the small ones and can become a coaching reflection for me later.
Not the dramatic turning points.
Just a tiny shift in a quiet moment that makes you pause and smile.
Something happens that wasn’t planned.
And for a second, it feels like life might be gently on your side.
I had one of those moments in the not-so-distant past.
One of my family members has a canal boat.
They feed the local wildlife every day.
There’s one duck, a bit of a loner, who’s become part of the routine.
We call him Little Dude.
No one quite remembers why.
That morning he was waiting for brunch.
I put some food down in one spot and he started to dig in.
A second duck marched up, pecked at him, and chased him off.
I found myself gently lecturing the ducks about bullying and telling Little Dude he could eat further down instead.
Just then, a gust of wind came through.
It blew the plastic lid from the food tub off the bench behind me and it landed right behind the bullying duck.
Not hard. Just enough.
It made me smile.
Little Dude reminded me of a kid in the playground coming over to ask for help.
And just for a moment, it felt like the wind had his back.
Sometimes life moves in quiet ways we couldn’t have planned.
A coaching reflection
Moments like that often remind me of something I see in coaching conversations.
People sometimes arrive feeling as though everything is against them.
Their circumstances look difficult. Their thinking has become heavy. And it can seem as though they’re navigating the whole thing alone.
But when the conversation slows down and something inside settles, a different perspective sometimes appears.
They begin to notice things they hadn’t seen before.
Support that was already there.
Possibilities that weren’t obvious before.
A sense that life might not be quite as stacked against them as it first appeared.
Nothing external may have changed.
Yet their experience of the situation feels different.
And from there, people often begin to see possibilities that weren’t obvious before.
They reconnect with their own creativity and common sense.
Questions for coaches
If you’re a coach, you might enjoy reflecting on a few of these:
- When have you seen a client suddenly notice support that was already present in their life?
- What helps people move from feeling alone with a problem to recognising they are supported?
- How do you create the kind of space where clients can see something new for themselves?
- When have you experienced a moment in coaching that felt quietly serendipitous?
No pressure to answer them all. Sometimes one question is enough to open a new direction.
A quiet thought
Perhaps those small moments we notice, the unexpected gust of wind, the timely comment, the sudden insight, are reminders that life is often moving in ways we can’t fully see from inside our thinking.
And sometimes, just sometimes, it feels like the wind might have our back.
About Jen
Jen Waller is a transformative coach who works with thoughtful professionals and coaches who sense there must be a quieter, clearer way to move forward. Her work helps people reconnect with their own wisdom and see their situation with fresh eyes.