A clearer mind. A life that feels like yours.
Life Coach in
Ferndown, Dorset
See beyond what’s keeping you stuck. Find more clarity, confidence and freedom to live your life.
Perhaps there’s something you’d love to change, but you keep talking yourself out of it. Or life looks fine from the outside, yet you know you’re not feeling as fulfilled, confident or engaged as you could be.
I’m Chris Finn, a life coach, CBT psychotherapist and author of A Clear Mind.
I offer life coaching in person in Ferndown, welcoming people from Bournemouth, Poole and the surrounding area, and online across the UK.
Together, we’ll explore what you want from your life, what’s getting in the way, and what becomes possible when you begin to see things differently.
An informal, no-obligation conversation to see whether I can help. We’ll meet on Zoom, or you can request a telephone call.
When life could feel different
You know there could be more to life. But something keeps holding you back.
You might be considering a change of career, wanting to feel more confident around people, or hoping to make more of something you care about.
Perhaps you’ve spent years doing what seemed sensible or expected, and somewhere along the way you’ve lost touch with what you actually want.
Or you know exactly what you want. You just keep getting caught in the same familiar thinking:
“What if it goes wrong?”
“I’m not the kind of person who can do that.”
“I should be happy with what I’ve got.”
You don’t necessarily need someone to give you another plan. You may already have plenty of plans.
What you need is a conversation that helps you see something you haven’t been able to see by yourself.
A lot of personal development starts with the idea that you need to add something.
More confidence. More discipline. More positive thinking. Another routine to follow or another version of yourself to become.
My starting point is different.
I don’t see you as a self-improvement project. I see someone with their own capacity for wellbeing, wisdom and possibility—who may have lost sight of some of it.
That is the philosophy behind my book, A Clear Mind: The Less Is More Mindset to Wellbeing & Performance. I call it a subtractive approach: looking at what’s getting in the way, rather than continually adding more things to manage.
For example, there’s a difference between learning how to appear confident while believing you’re not good enough, and beginning to question whether “I’m not good enough” is a reliable description of you in the first place.
There’s a difference between pushing yourself harder to prove your worth, and recognising that your worth doesn’t need proving.
This is what I’m interested in exploring with you.
Not how to become somebody else, but how to be more freely yourself.
A different perspective
When a thought starts looking like a fact
“I can’t handle difficult conversations.”
A fresh questionHave you ever had a difficult conversation that went better than you expected?
In my book, I use the phrase mind-made prisons to describe the limitations we can live inside without realising they’re made of thought. An idea about who we are becomes so familiar that we stop questioning it.
Take a thought such as:
“I can’t handle difficult conversations.”
You might not experience that as a thought. It might simply look like something you know about yourself.
From there, avoiding a conversation makes sense. You put it off, rehearse it in your head, or say what you think the other person wants to hear.
In coaching, I’d be curious about that starting point.
What does “I can’t handle it” mean to you? What are you imagining will happen? Have you ever had a difficult conversation that went better than you expected?
We’re not trying to convince you that every conversation will be easy.
We’re looking at whether a familiar assumption has been making decisions on your behalf.
You can take a challenge seriously without treating every doubtful thought as the truth about what you’re capable of.
Your life, not somebody else’s
What do you actually want?
This sounds like a simple question. But it’s surprisingly easy to answer a different one.
What should I want?
What would other people approve of?
What do I think is possible for someone like me?
Or perhaps you know a great deal about what you don’t want, but haven’t had much space to discover what you do want. This distinction is central to the way I explore direction and fulfilment in A Clear Mind.
Our conversations can give you that space.
You might want to change direction at work, start something you’ve been putting off, feel more comfortable being yourself, or enjoy your life without constantly looking ahead to the next thing you need to achieve.
It doesn’t have to be an impressive goal. It needs to matter to you.
And you don’t have to know the answer before we meet. Sometimes becoming clearer about what you want is where the work begins.
Working together
What it’s like to work with me
You can expect a warm, straightforward conversation, with room to think out loud and say what’s really going on.
I’ll listen carefully. I’ll ask questions. And where it’s useful, I’ll gently challenge an assumption you may have been taking for granted.
You may already understand your patterns quite well. You might know that you overthink, seek approval or put yourself under pressure. But knowing the name of a pattern isn’t always the same as seeing what makes it feel necessary.
That’s something we can explore together.
I’m not here to tell you what your life should look like, or to become the person you have to consult before making a decision. Part of the work is helping you recognise and trust more of your own judgement—what I call inner knowing: the common sense and fresh perspective that can be difficult to hear beneath familiar doubts and rules about what you “should” do.
And what changes outside the conversation?
The point isn’t just to have an interesting discussion about your mind.
It’s what that understanding makes possible in your life.
That could mean having a conversation you’ve been avoiding, exploring a different career, making a decision, saying no without a lengthy justification, or beginning something before you feel completely ready.
Less thinking doesn’t mean doing nothing. The distinction I make in my book is between seeing through a thought-created obstacle and taking action where there is a practical problem to address.
We won’t pretend that money, responsibilities, skills or circumstances don’t matter. We’ll look at what genuinely needs your attention—and what you might be adding to it with self-doubt or unnecessary pressure.
Tell me what you’d like help with and get a feel for whether this approach suits you.
A client’s experience
“Working with Chris has created a self-trust in me that I’ve never had before.”
My own turning point
I know what it’s like to need a different perspective
At 26, I was working in a successful corporate role. I had a good income, responsibility and respect. On paper, things were going well.
But I wasn’t fulfilled.
A mentor asked me what I really wanted. Not what I thought I should do next, but what genuinely interested me.
I told him I was fascinated by people and wanted to understand more about what makes us tick. When he suggested studying psychology, my immediate response was that I was too old.
I was 26.
Then came the other reasons: I couldn’t afford it. I wasn’t intelligent enough.
That conversation helped me see that I’d been dismissing something I deeply wanted before properly exploring it. I went on to arrange part-time work alongside a full-time psychology degree.
I share that because I know the difference a conversation can make when someone helps you see beyond the limits you’ve been taking for granted.
My career since then has included 14 years in the NHS, teaching CBT as a Senior Lecturer, psychotherapy and life coaching. I’m a BABCP-accredited CBT psychotherapist and a certified transformative coach.
What matters most to me is using that experience to help the person in front of me—not making our conversations more complicated than they need to be.
The practical details
Life coaching in Ferndown, near Bournemouth and Poole
Face-to-face coaching takes place in Ferndown, Dorset. You’re welcome to meet with me here whether you live in Ferndown itself, Bournemouth, Poole, Wimborne or the surrounding area.
I also offer online life coaching across the UK, so you can work with me without travelling.
Some people prefer sitting down together in person. Others prefer the convenience of meeting online. My Ferndown practice is easy to get to, with easy parking. We can discuss the practical arrangements during your introductory call.
£95per 55-minute coaching session
There is no requirement to buy a package or commit to a fixed number of sessions. We’ll review what you’re getting from the work as we go.
The initial 20-minute call is free.
Before we speak
A few questions you might have
Do I need to read your book before we work together?
No. The understanding behind A Clear Mind informs how I coach, but there is no required reading.
We’ll begin with you and what’s happening in your life. You don’t need to learn the terminology or arrive with a particular understanding.
Is this about controlling my thoughts or always being positive?
No. I’m not asking you to maintain a positive mindset or monitor everything that goes through your head.
The book makes an important distinction: understanding your mind doesn’t mean you’ll never feel doubtful, stressed or low. Our work is about seeing your thinking with more perspective, rather than turning being happy or confident into another standard you have to meet.
How many coaching sessions will I need?
There isn’t a set number that’s right for everyone. It depends on what you’d like help with and how the work develops.
We’ll discuss this together and review whether further sessions would be useful. You don’t need to commit to a course before we’ve even spoken.
What happens if therapy would be more appropriate?
I offer therapy as well as coaching, and we can discuss which would best fit what you need.
My coaching work focuses on areas such as direction, confidence, fulfilment and performance. Where a psychological difficulty is causing significant distress or affecting everyday life, we can talk about whether therapy would be more appropriate instead. You don’t need to choose the label before contacting me.
A simple first step
You don’t have to work it all out before we speak
You might have a particular question, a change you’re considering, or simply a feeling that you’d like more from your life.
That’s enough to begin a conversation.
The free 20-minute call gives us a chance to meet, talk about what you’re looking for and explore whether working together would make sense. I’ll explain how I work, answer your questions and be honest about whether I think I’m the right person to help.
It’s an introduction, rather than a full coaching session. There’s no obligation to continue, and you don’t need to decide on the call.
An informal conversation on Zoom, or request a telephone call.
In-person life coaching in Ferndown, welcoming clients from Bournemouth and Poole. Online coaching across the UK.