Why I'm Holding Jilly Cooper Responsible for My Impending Homelessness

Or, the link between confidence and change and how we can use one to build the other

Photo by rod m on Unsplash

It’s not that I hold Jilly Cooper responsible for every life decision I make, but stealing her novels from my parents’ bookshelf and reading them under the covers late at night as a child, definitely accounts for some of them. My love of a ridiculous and pointless pun, for example, comes firmly from her inability to write more than two lines of dialogue without one of the characters making a quip. I am convinced that her character Janey Lloyd-Fox is the reason a whole generation of women, including me, became journalists. And I will eternally be convinced of the glamour of polo, despite not understanding a thing about it and suspecting that everyone who plays it is a moron. And right now, I am holding Jilly responsible for my impending homelessness.

This is what happened. A few weeks ago, I was browsing RightMove and my eye fell upon a cream coloured cottage for let set in the middle of rolling hills. I clicked through and quickly discovered that the property had come straight from one of Cooper’s novels. It was set in the middle of a polo pony farm, had a garden filled with Sweet Williams (if you know, you know) and, as if Jilly had written it, was called Stud Cottage. All my childhood fantasies flashed in front of my eyes and I instantly decided to move there. Within 24 hours I’d put my flat in London up for rent and booked a viewing.

Within a week I’d secured a tenant for my property, who moves in on the 26th June, and I’d put in a bid for my dream home. Now all that had to happen was for the owners to agree to rent it to me and I’d be on my way to a living in one of the Rutshire Chronicles.

For me, this is how change often happens, years of contemplation followed by a spur of the moment decision. Maybe I’m getting old but I’ve been longing for greenery and silence. I want to wake up in the morning to the sound of birds rather than the sound of the building site next door. Most of all, I want to be near the sea. I’ve known this for a few years now but I haven’t been able to take the plunge. I’ve occasionally signed up with estate agents or sometimes sent my friends a link to a property that’s wildly outside my budget but anything which feels like commitment I’ve shied away from. And then I saw this cottage.

Of course, it hasn’t gone to plan. It turns out that in the summer everybody wants to live in the countryside. I was outbid on the cottage and have since been outbid on another three properties. Despite calling every estate agent in the area daily, nothing else has come up which is suitable and right now I’m browsing AirBnB and wondering whether two weeks is enough time to do one of those van rebuilds that I’ve seen on TikTok.

What’s strange, though, is that faced with the prospect of having to explain to my dog why we’re living out of our car (a car which I don’t currently own so am also going to find one of those in the next two weeks), I don’t feel scared at all. In fact I feel rather invigorated.

Back in the ‘90s, organisational change experts Ann Salerno and Lillie Brock, were trying to understand why businesses found culture change so hard. Having spent decades working in large corporates, the two women left their jobs to focus on researching what made change happen and, more importantly, how to make it stick. What they created from this research was something called “The Change Cycle.”

They posited that change has six separate stages. Loss, doubt, discomfort, discovery, understanding and integration. They look a bit like this:

• Loss: we arrive here because something has changed. Perhaps we’ve been put on a redundancy list or a relationship has ended. Whatever it is that drives the change, we first need to lose something to be willing to step outside of our comfort zones and do things differently.

• Doubt: The problem however, is that change is scary. So instead of moving straight from loss to action, we first go through doubt where we become resentful and distrusting of ourselves and others. People tell us to make a change but we don’t believe it’s possible, we’re stuck in fear. This was me as I watched everyone move to the countryside during lockdown. We don’t think it’s possible for ourselves so we become bitter at those we see making it happen.

• Discomfort: Eventually, however, staying where we are becomes too uncomfortable. We don’t want to spend the rest of our lives jealously watching other people enjoying themselves on Instagram, we want to make a change but we don’t know how and every idea that comes to us feels overwhelming. For me, I felt like I’d got so many things wrong during the lockdown period that asking me to trust myself again and take a risk, felt almost impossible. The dominant emotion here is anxiety.

• Discovery: Here’s where it starts to get good. We can’t sit in discomfort forever so we take little steps of learning. This might be doing some research, applying for a few jobs, looking at a few properties - things might not go to plan here but it feels like there is momentum and possibility. There is energy in this stage and I would say it’s where I am right now.

• Understanding: Once we start taking discovery steps something miraculous happens, we start to realise we are capable of making a change and making that change work. We become confident in ourselves. So often coaching clients will ask me, how do I become confident enough to…. The truth is, we’re never confident enough at the beginning. All we can do is take those little steps of discovery until we begin to understand what we are capable of.

• Integration: And finally we’re not just making change, we’re living it. We’ve learned what we needed to and we’ve moved our lives forward. We feel focussed and resilient. And of course, it’s usually at this point that another loss hits and we have to start again. This time though we’re armed with a little more confidence and courage because we’ve faced change before and we’ve come through it triumphant.

For many years now, London has been my comfort-zone. It has been the place I’ve felt safe and where I’ve known there will always be work. My biggest fear has always been running out of money and not having anywhere to live. But what this change is teaching me is that I am capable and resourceful enough not to have to keep living in that fear. Perhaps Blue (my dog) and I will end up sofa surfing for a while but in the end we’ll be ok. I finally feel confident enough to make change happen, and that is delightful.

And of course, if anyone does know of a 2/3 bedroom, classic country cottage to rent in the South Downs area (or at this point, anywhere), ideally with underfloor heating and a roll-top bath, (because if I’m making wishes I might as well give you all of them) do let me know!

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