You know what you want to change
Life asks a lot. It’s easy to lose sight of yourself in the middle of it.
Familiar habits are already running before you’ve had a chance to choose. And when you start to make a change, what felt possible can become harder to hold.
So you hesitate. You postpone.
You stop.
Not because you care less. Not because you lack discipline.
Because doubt, frustration, and discomfort are often when change becomes hard to sustain.
What’s needed is a different way of meeting yourself there. And that can be learned.
A different way to stay with what matters
This is coaching for people who know what they want for themselves, but find it easily crowded out by life, old habits, and the pressure to keep going.
Through three practices, Notice, Play and Return, we work with the moments where habits are already running, and the moments where change becomes harder to stay with.
So you have more space to notice what’s happening, more choice in how you respond, and a clearer way back to what you care about.
For anyone who wants to work with themselves, not against themselves.
A new plan, a better routine, more accountability, a fresh start?
Sometimes those things do help.
But they often don’t touch what’s already running beneath the surface: familiar habits, older stories, and what makes change harder to hold.
So the cycle continues. Another plan. Another reset. Another quiet loss of trust in yourself.
The deeper challenge is not only doing the thing. It’s learning how to stay with yourself when things stop feeling straightforward.
Three practices for staying with what matters
Notice
Helps you catch what is already moving: the familiar habit, the shift in energy, the urge to stop, the story that arrives with it.
Play
Loosens the grip of the old pattern, making room for curiosity, experimentation and trying something different.
Return
How you come back to yourself and to what matters, without blame, without starting over, and without waiting to feel ready.
Together, these practices create more space in the moments that used to carry you away, so you have more choice in what happens next.
This is not something you think your way through. It is learned through doing — starting, stopping, beginning again.
Who this is for
This work is for thoughtful, capable people whose intentions get crowded out before they can act, or become harder to hold once they begin.
That might look like work that keeps stalling. Wellbeing changes that don’t quite start, or don’t stick. Creative projects you keep returning to and abandoning. A conversation or decision you keep postponing. Insight that doesn’t become action. Your own needs quietly slipping to the bottom of the list, even while you keep going for everyone and everything else.
If you want more of your life to feel like yours — felt and chosen, not just managed — I'd love to hear from you.
Hi, I’m Jane
I came to this work through years of paying attention to what gets in the way of staying with what matters, and from recognising the pattern in myself.
For over twenty years I worked in research and insight, helping organisations understand what's really going on beneath the surface of people’s experiences and behaviour. What I kept seeing was that the gap between intention and action was not simply a knowledge problem. It was about how quickly familiar patterns move in before there’s much space to choose differently, and what happens when things become difficult.
That’s partly the world we’re in: one that rewards speed and performance, where it can become hard to stop moving long enough to catch sight of yourself again.
I know that from the inside too. I’ve spent years stopping and starting with my own wellbeing, work, and creative practice: beginning, losing the thread, finding my way back. What changed was not pressure or better plans. It was learning how to stay with myself, and return, again and again, in practice.
Working together
We work with what’s here: what you bring, what emerges, and what needs attention.
Whether you’re trying to begin, or trying to stay with something you’ve already started.
There’s room to slow down, stop performing, and not know. You only need to show up with what’s true that day.
Some sessions are conversational. Others are active: working with a real situation, trying something and noticing what happens — not only making sense of it afterwards.
Over time, you learn to trust your experience more, force yourself less, and return more easily when you lose your way. Things can start to feel less tight, more possible, and more your own. We also notice what’s unexpected: pleasure, surprise, ease or aliveness. Those moments matter too.
Coaching takes place online, one to one. Sessions are usually 60 minutes. The number depends on what you’re working with, and we agree that together at the start.
The first step is a short conversation. No pressure, no obligation. Just a chance to talk about what you want to change, and discover if this feels like the right fit.
A few words from people I’ve worked with
"Coaching with Jane gave me the space to step back and reflect on a period of significant career and life decisions. Her approach was thoughtful and non-judgemental, helping me explore different options, challenge some of my assumptions and focus on what mattered most.
Through our conversations, I gained greater clarity about my values, strengths and what I wanted from the next stage of my career. The coaching helped me make important decisions more intentionally, rather than simply reacting to circumstances.
Looking back, many of the things we explored became reality. I moved, secured a new role that aligned more closely with what I was looking for, and felt able to move forward with greater confidence and direction."
Nicola. Manager, Charity Sector.
“Jane creates a supportive and trusting environment that encourages honest reflection, while providing the right level of challenge to help you grow and develop.
Through skilled questioning and active listening, she helps you gain clarity, identify practical solutions and build confidence in your decision-making. Her style is professional, compassionate and thought-provoking.”
Shanine. Senior HR Manager..
“Jane helped me prioritise quality time for myself and reconnect with what I enjoy. I now feel more relaxed and have greater clarity when dealing with challenging times.”
Dave. Happy father of two.
Let’s talk
If any of this feels familiar, I'd love to hear from you. It costs nothing and commits you to nothing. Get in touch →
If you'd like to read more of how I think about this, here's a piece on what actually gets in the way of finishing things: Why Can’t I Finish Anything.
If you prefer you can email me directly at: jane@janedugdale.com