What a haircut can teach you about life decisions

Sitting waiting for my appointment, I started thinking about the decisions we make about our hair and the angst they can sometimes cause us. Dye it, perm it, layer it, keep it short, grow it long, feather it, and don't get me started on products.

How similar just one part of us, our hair, can be to the dilemmas we face in our lives. To diet, to splurge, to cut and run from our jobs, to stick in there and hope that the job grows on us, to bring a bit of excitement and colour in... Perhaps they're not so different after all?

So, if we want to make things easy for ourselves, what can we do?

Work with our strengths and weaknesses perhaps? For my hair, that’s getting to the root of the situation, accepting and understanding the facts:

• It’s straight.
• It's fine.
• It's faring quite well on the colour stakes.
• It has a natural kink.
• It can look ok with minimum effort i.e. head down, blast the hair dryer, ready in 10.
• It doesn’t hold a style in the wind or a moist atmosphere.
• I prefer not to spend a lot of time fiddling and prepping it.
• It’s too thin if grown long.

My action plan – a simple, relaxed mid-length style, with a tint or semi colour just to enliven a little. It will work, and I will have an easy life.

Ok, I can hear you shouting from here – ‘Hair is simple but it's my life we're talking about! My career! My future! That's a whole different ball game!!’

Is it really, are you sure? Are you really sure?

Where are you now in your career and life? Is it all a bit disorganised and unmanageable? Do you need some professional guidance about what you could do to make it easier to manage? Is it a bit rough around the edges and you need help to tidy it up, so that you can head out feeling more confident? Has it lost its shine and you want to enliven and enjoy it again? Or do you feel ready for a bigger, more creative overhaul of where you're heading?

Yeah perhaps you are right; perhaps your life and business dilemmas are nothing like those of your hair!

Many of us are willing to spend time and attention on how we look on the outside. Just consider for a moment: what might happen if you gave some of that same attention to what's going on inside? How would it feel to give yourself the time to consider what you want, what’s working and what you might like to change? Is it time for you to shine from the inside out?

The next time you're wondering what needs to change, perhaps start as I did with my hair: look honestly at what you're working with, what works, what doesn't and what you'd like to be different. You might find the next step becomes a little clearer.