Michael Loveday

I’m passionate about helping early-career and mid-career creative people (artists, writers, musicians, makers, freelancers, facilitators, sole traders & owners of self-employed creative businesses) to make more progress with long-term goals - so that you feel like you're getting to the next level with your creative life.

My coaching works by offering you an ally who fully understands creative processes and the creative mindset, and who recognises the importance of approaching life creatively.

We'll get you moving ahead by exploring any challenges that you face, brainstorming possible paths forward that really suit you, and making concrete, actionable plans for next steps and good habits that you feel genuinely inspired and motivated to pursue. I help creative people professionalise, gain clarity, and harness energy in a focused direction. 

Coaching leaves you better supported. Here are some of the tangible benefits of working with a creativity coach:

• An ally who understands the importance of a creative life and can help you bounce back from disappointments and struggles 
• Increased confidence – quieten your inner critic, understand your strengths and how to maximise them
• Productivity – an “accountability buddy” to help you stop procrastinating, stay motivated, manage time well, and finish projects that are currently stuck
• Finding a better balance between work, personal life and your creativity
• Gaining clarity on difficult dilemmas or confusing choices, by identifying the priorities that are most important and helpful to you 
• Becoming more organised, with clearer and more specific goals, more actionable plans and more positive habits
• Deepening your knowledge of the creative industry in which you’re working, and figuring out how to earn more money from your creativity
• Help with building a stronger network of allies and contacts who can support your creativity
• Figuring out how to create social impact, find your work more meaningful, or find your specific path in the world as a creative person
• Smarter success strategies for getting your projects and ideas out into the world, find new audiences, or share your work more widely with others.

Types of Clients:

I've been working in group settings since 2011, facilitating people's writing and general creativity, for over 15 different educational organisations and charities, and working with people from diverse backgrounds and all levels of experience. In 2015, I began working one-to-one with writers, and in 2019 then expanded into also working one-to-one with freelancers/sole traders, musicians, artists, educators, and self-employed creative practitioners in other forms. I do have a particular interest in helping creative people who are:

• trying to complete or embark upon a major project and finding it tricky to make tangible progress
• OR wanting to reach a wider audience with their creative ideas
• OR hoping to earn more money from their creative career
• OR struggling to get organised/feeling overwhelmed by juggling too many interests and competing priorities
• OR wanting to develop as a freelance tutor/facilitator in some field of creativity
• OR wrestling with motivation and grappling with questions about the meaningfulness, value, or impact of their endeavours
• OR struggling with their inner critic/lack of confidence
• OR facing tricky decisions about options/paths for their creative career
• OR fully engaged in one form of creative activity yet longing to make progress in a very different direction 

How it Works:

A typical coaching session lasts 60 minutes (over Zoom/GoogleMeets/Skype/telephone, or face-to-face), or can be conducted by weekly email exchange.

We start by understanding your situation fully - what you enjoy about your current activities, what the main ups and downs of your creative life have been, and any challenges, frustrations, or obstacles you face in moving forward. Our work will then often be focused on identifying clearer goals, fully understanding any problems you're facing (including those specific to the field you're working in) plus your particular strengths, and brainstorming possible paths forward that really suit you. A significant outcome from our sessions will be tangible, actionable plans for next steps and good habits that you feel genuinely motivated to pursue. And a sense that you now have someone alongside you who understands how important your creative practice or creative business is, someone who can help you move forward with it.  

My coaching/mentoring is very much client-led and question-based, aiming to empower you to find the answers that are right for you, rather than tell you what to do or think. You decide what you want to work on and prioritise. And through the supportive, reflective space provided within the sessions, you decide your route forward, so that your next steps are ones you’re enthusiastic about!

Sometimes we’ll end up identifying something “upstream” of or “underlying” the specifics of the problem you had brought to discuss – something happening earlier in the process, such that when you resolve this, it unlocks in a more long-term, transferable way the specific situation you’re finding challenging and then lots of other similar situations in the future. And we might do this by thinking about the language you’re instinctively using to describe things, because often working with language helps us dissolve unconscious blocks in a powerful, creative way.

I began my career initially in business, including working as an international strategy consultant for clients such as Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, and American Express. Then I had an epiphany of sorts and left that life behind in 2001 to become a published poet, fiction writer and freelance tutor, before moving into mentoring and coaching. So my life has straddled the practical world of business AND a purely creative arena where play, innovation, expression and joy are the focus. 

Think of our work together as a solution-focused chat with an informed creative ally. It’s as simple and as powerful as that!

• £85 for 60 minutes for corporate clients/SMEs/employees/externally funded
• £70 for self-funded sole traders/individual practitioners
• £55 reduced rate (and £150 for three sessions) if meeting at least monthly - available to subscribers to 'Loveday's Letters': https://michaelloveday.com/
• Our first conversation is free of charge - an opportunity to ask questions, and get to know how I work
• Weekly email support instead of face-to-face/Zoom/telephone – £50 for four weeks

Testimonials:

"My experience working with you has been extremely beneficial... Through your encouragement and suggestions I developed some excellent tools to resolve self-doubt and negative patterns and to deepen my creative work... Overall I gained conviction in my process, my work, a stronger sense of self and artistic direction and have resumed an effective creative practice.  Thankyou!" (J.S., artist)

“Michael is a friendly, skilled and supportive coach... Our sessions are always fun and enlightening. He has helped me bring greater focus and structure to the nitty gritty of getting work published and helped me formulate and, more importantly, stick to short-term goals. I couldn’t think of a better person to work with.” (S.N., musician and poet)

"Thank you for all your help - it's been a brilliant and valuable experience at a really crucial time. You enabled me to gain some real insight into what is and isn't conducive to my happiness and creative productivity, and encouraged me to introduce some changes that are realistic, sustainable, and which I'm sure will have a long-term positive impact." (L.F., artist and creative educator)

"Michael’s coaching sessions came along at exactly the right time.  He is an excellent listener and his advice enabled me to focus on my priorities and goals and most importantly to believe in my writing." (D.S., writer)

“Michael's coaching has enabled my writing life to progress faster in the past few months than it had in years of working on my own... My confidence on a personal and creative level has increased far beyond what I would have been capable of without his wisdom and expertise.”  (K.W., writer and YouTube influencer)

"Before starting these sessions, creatively I was completely lost. I'm happy to say Michael has a gentle, respectful and insightful way, and he made me realise lots of positive things about myself… my creativity is in full flow, leading to opportunity and productivity. One very happy Creative!" (L.S., musician)