Ah, fall!

Autumn leaves. Oh, how I love them.

I'm writing this blog the morning of Sept. 2, the first day after Labor Day. I know it's not autumn yet according to the meteorological calendar, but in my cultural and personal almanacs, this is fall, baby. Hallelujah.

New beginning!

The advent of fall is as important to me as the advent of a new year. And this year in particular I have a strong sense of my mindset's change of seasons, mostly because I'm retiring from my "day job" this month — the better to plug more time into my coaching and writing and better living all around. So I was happy that my Insight Timer, a meditation app, gave me an appropriate quote for the day: "The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new" (Socrates).

As I've mentally and practically prepared for retirement this summer, I've been dealing with my subconscious — quite contrary to my wish — going through an internal audit of my whole working life, focusing mostly, alas, on regrets large and small. A few weeks have become dark nights of the soul; such "nights" point toward growth, but they're not easy.

All the while I've tried to remember some of my comforting principles and adages, and one of those is to let things go so I can fill up with something else. And that's what fall feels like to me: opportunities to fill myself with the new.

In coaching, we do that with intention. Yes, sometimes the world will have its way with us, and we have to go with the flow — and often, that's a pretty good thing, just to flow on that river wherever it takes us. But I also choose to go my own way to the self I'm becoming, the goals I want to achieve, the progress I want to make.

What do you want to fill yourself up with this fall? Let's all take the seasonal change as a time to develop new intentions, new practices and habits, new inklings of how to become our best selves. And if you want a partner on that journey, sign on for a 15-minute consultation to talk about how coaching might help.

Meanwhile, happy autumn. It begins now.