New Insights On Life with Bill Burridge
New Insights on Life, hosted by personal development and life coach training expert, Bill Burridge, is the audio version of the New Insights On Life Blog.
The theme is personal development and self improvement within the overall context of life coaching. Topics discussed are wide ranging and will be of interest to life coaches, aspirant life coaches and members of the general public who value personal growth and development advice.
The mission of Bill's organisation, New Insights, is to bring greater personal Freedom, self-Confidence and Growth to people from all walks of life. As a specialist life coach training institute, it does so both directly, by training people to become life coaches, and indirectly through the great work of its certified coaches.
New Insights distributes Its life coach training and certification programme to people around the world from its sister companies based in the UK and South Africa.
New Insights On Life with Bill Burridge
The Time is Now
The advent of a new calendar year provides a welcome psychological boost for many who yearn to change their lives for the better.
What better time for a New Year's Resolution?
Only, it has been proven that New Year's Resolutions seldom, if ever, work to deliver the changes desired.
In this podcast episode, Bill explores some of the key reasons, and offers a far more powerful and effective alternative that is all but guaranteed to bring about lasting change.
THE TIME IS NOW
Let me start by wishing every New Insights On Life blog reader and podcast listener a very happy, healthy, and prosperous 2025.
It’s been a while since the last podcast.
My son arrived from the Philippines in early December for a short visit, briefly competing with the main focus of family attention in the past few months of the year – my daughter’s wedding. So one might say I was distracted, for good reason!
An ‘interesting’ year
Anyway, here we are, having just turned another page in the history books as we find ourselves catapulted into a year which is shaping up to be interesting, to borrow from the classic understatement of Chinese philosopher, Confucius.
Special significance
We humans assign a very special significance to the advent of each new calendar year.
It is symbolic, of course. In astrological terms, nothing defines the start and end of our planet’s perpetual orbit around its star. And nothing significant accompanies the arbitrary completion of yet another cycle.
A time of renewal
But for us, a new calendar year is a good excuse to celebrate. It’s time to cast out the old and usher in the new!
Psychologically, this self-appointed time of renewal has the effect of spawning various personal resolutions, through which we hope to bring about change in our lives for the better.
A shock
But, according to Time magazine, as many as 80% of people who make New Year’s resolutions, will admit failure by February. A paltry 8% will remain in the hunt a year later!
For most, this should come as a shock. However, as I’ll explain shortly, for those actively involved in life coaching, it comes as no surprise.
The realms of fantasy
There are many reasons why such resolutions tend to remain in the realms of fantasy.
Most notably, resolutions are generally conceived with a healthy dose of holiday spirit, whereas seeing them through requires focus and attention during the inevitable ‘life as usual’ period that kicks in post the year-end festivities.
Resolutions are seldom written down, and even when they are, there isn’t much in the way of specifics or detail that can be scribbled down on the back of a Christmas cracker joke or a festive napkin!
And then, of course, there’s the issue of personal willpower and how vulnerable it is to attrition from the many day-to-day demands of a rapacious external world.
Forget about resolutions
So let’s cut to the chase. My advice is to forget about New Year’s resolutions. They seldom, if ever, work out.
That said, by all means use the psychological boost that accompanies this time of the year to commit to much-needed change in your life.
Change is not only desirable, it’s more than possible … if you go about it the right way.
I think you may know what’s coming next.
Life coaching
Hire a life coach!
Before you raise your eyebrows, think about this.
If you want to commit to a financial plan, you hire a financial adviser. If you want to commit to losing weight and getting fit, you hire a personal trainer. If you want a healthy diet you can sustain, you consult a dietician.
Likewise, if you want to transform your life in one or more areas, you should think no further than hiring a life coach.
Warning
Now, a word of warning here.
Unless you are already a life coach, or have experience with life coaching, you’re likely to think that a life coach is some form of counsellor, advice giver, mentor, or role model for the ideal life.
None of this is accurate.
A good life coach will never advise you on how to live your life. They won’t try to apply their life experiences to your unique situation. And they won’t prescribe solutions for your problems.
Agent for change
The best way to think about a life coach is as a facilitator, or an 'agent for change', if you like.
The life coach uses various skills, tools and techniques to help you unlock your full potential by transforming how you relate to yourself and the outside world.
The answer lies within
You may have heard the saying that the biggest obstacle to achieving everything you desire, lies within.
Poorly conceptualised goals, along with overbearing needs, limiting beliefs, misaligned values, impossible rules, a lack of acceptance of personal responsibility ... these all contribute to a life where one can feel stuck, unfulfilled and lacking in purpose.
Work miracles
Transformational life coaching fixes all of that.
It truly can work miracles if you embrace the process and – importantly – commit to take the actions that you, with your coach’s help, identify as needed to get you to the promised land of achieving that which you desire for yourself.
Voyage of self discovery
New Insights trained life coaches are masters at helping guide their clients through a voyage of self-discovery.
That voyage involves exposing your self-sabotaging behaviours, finding your inner power, growing your self-awareness and, ultimately, identifying your life purpose.
Inevitably, that results in setting a new, more empowering, more meaningful, and more exciting course in life.
A caveat
That may all sound pretty exciting … and believe me it is!
But there is a caveat.
The life coach is not a change consultant.
Remember, I said the life coach is a facilitator of change - and a very skilled one at that.
There’s a big difference.
Consultants are people you hire (often at great expense) with the necessary expertise to get things done for you.
The secret of life coaching
The secret of life coaching lies in its acknowledgement that the only person who has expertise when it comes to your life … is you!
So, although a life coach will help you to transform your mindset and self-belief, you are ultimately the one who will do the hard yards to bring about the desired change you identify.
And you’ll be profoundly amazed at what you are capable of achieving when you have a skilled life coach in your corner!
Never a better time
If you’ve ever wanted to invest in a better future, there’s never been a better time.
The time is now!
