Why I Believe People Can Change
When I Stopped Seeing Behaviour and Started Seeing Journeys
There are moments in life when nothing around you changes, but the way you see the world changes forever.
For me, that moment came through coaching.
Before then, I think I mostly saw behaviour.
Afterwards, I started seeing journeys.
It sounds like a small shift, but it completely changed the way I looked at people, relationships, and eventually the symbols I create today.
Following the path that was already laid out
Like many people, I grew up believing there was a certain way life was supposed to look.
Work hard at school.
Find a good job.
Meet someone.
Get married.
Have children.
Work until retirement.
It was presented as the natural order of things.
Even as a teenager, something about that never quite sat right with me.
I didn't know what I wanted from life, but I certainly knew what I didn't want.
Looking back, I don't think I was rebelling against society.
I think I was searching for authenticity before I even had the language to describe it.
I wanted to live a life that felt true to me, not simply follow a path because everyone else expected me to.
Like many people, though, I still found myself living on autopilot through parts of life. I worked hard, followed the rules and tried to do what was expected of me. It wasn't until much later that I realised how much of my life had been shaped by other people's ideas of who I should be.
Fear doesn't always look the way we expect
One of the biggest lessons I've ever learned came through an abusive relationship.
People often ask why someone stays in a relationship that is hurting them.
The answer isn't simple.
For me, the fear of the unknown became greater than the fear of what I already knew.
I knew the relationship wasn't healthy.
I knew I wanted to leave.
But I was terrified of what life would look like afterwards. I was frightened of losing everything that had become familiar, even when that familiarity came with pain.
Looking back now, I realise that fear keeps far more people stuck than they realise.
Not because they're weak.
Not because they don't want change.
But because the unknown can feel more frightening than the life they're already living.
That experience taught me something I still carry with me today.
People rarely make decisions in isolation.
They make them through the lens of everything they've experienced before.
The moment everything shifted
When I discovered coaching, it felt less like learning something new and more like being given permission to become myself.
It didn't replace my beliefs.
It strengthened the ones that had always been quietly sitting underneath everything else.
As I learned about mindset, intention and human behaviour, I began to understand something that changed the way I looked at people.
We aren't born believing we're not good enough.
We aren't born convinced we can't change.
Life shapes us.
Our experiences shape us.
Our fears shape us.
If experiences can shape who we become...
Then perhaps new experiences can shape us too.
That simple idea became one of the most important beliefs I hold.
Not because I think change is easy.
Quite the opposite.
I know first-hand how difficult it can be.
But difficult doesn't mean impossible.
From behaviour to journeys
The biggest change coaching gave me wasn't confidence.
It was compassion.
Instead of seeing someone's behaviour and making assumptions about who they were, I started wondering how they got there.
What had they experienced?
What fears were they carrying?
What story had shaped the person standing in front of me?
That doesn't excuse harmful behaviour.
But it does remind me that every person has a journey we know very little about.
That shift changed not only how I viewed other people, but also how I viewed myself.
Instead of asking, "What's wrong with me?" I found myself asking, "What has shaped me?"
For me, those are very different questions.
Why I create symbols
People sometimes ask why I moved from coaching into symbolic design.
To me, it doesn't feel like I changed direction at all.
It feels like I found another language.
One of the ideas that fascinated me during my coaching training was the Reticular Activating System (RAS), the part of our brain that helps filter the enormous amount of information we encounter every day.
When we decide something matters, our minds become better at noticing opportunities, patterns and reminders connected to it.
That idea stayed with me.
At the same time, I'd always been fascinated by symbolism, intention and the creative traditions behind sigils.
Gradually, those two worlds began to overlap.
I realised that a symbol could become more than a beautiful design.
It could become a reminder.
Not because the symbol changes your life.
Because you do.
The symbol simply reminds you of the intention you've already chosen.
Whether that's calm.
Protection.
Confidence.
Self-love.
Growth.
The change doesn't come from the lines on the page.
It comes from the choices you make every time those lines remind you who you're trying to become.
A philosophy with many threads
A little while ago, I came across a word I'd never heard before.
Meliorism.
The belief that the world can become better through human effort.
I remember reading the definition and smiling because it gave a name to part of something I'd believed for years.
Not all of it.
Just part of it.
I don't think any single philosophy can fully capture how we experience life.
We're all shaped by different experiences, different beliefs and different ways of making sense of the world.
But meliorism resonated with me because it reflects something I come back to again and again.
The world changes because people do.
Every conversation.
Every act of kindness.
Every boundary we choose to hold.
Every fear we find the courage to face.
Every small decision shapes the next.
Every intention becomes a symbol
I don't create symbols because I believe they contain magical answers.
I create them because I believe they can become meaningful reminders of the person we're choosing to become.
To me, that's where their power lies.
Not in changing us.
But in helping us reconnect with the intentions we've already chosen for ourselves.
Because every choice shapes tomorrow.
And every intention becomes a symbol.
