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Authentic gay conversations on personal development, life coaching, and mental health. Join Keegan Hirst (founder of The Unapologetic Man and Gay Man's Coaching) a former professional rugby player, for weekly real talk about gay lifestyle, coming out, relationships, business, and authentic living. Deep, honest conversations that help gay men build confidence, find community, and create vibrant, unapologetic lives.
Hello and welcome back to the Kiki with Keigs. A little catch up with me, what's been going on. Hopefully I can give you a few insights into things that are going to help you in areas of your life. But I mean, first let's have a little catch up. How are you?
Keegan:What have you been up to? What's been going on? For me it's a bit of a time if I'm being honest with you. If you listen to last week's episode we talked about we've committed to getting the kitchen done, we've got a start date for that, which is on Monday, which I am terrified about. Actually, it'll be as this episode goes out.
Keegan:We've got the builders in, so microwave meals for two weeks. We've also decided that we're reupholstering the sofa. We've gone for a boucle, which I be honest with you, I didn't know what that was. It's more of a fabric with a bit of depth and a bit of texture to warm things up. But we've got so much going on.
Keegan:We had a trip for Joel's birthday, kids having football, Taylor is playing for multiple teams and she's learning to drive and I've restarted piano lessons and it honestly, it all feels like it's in motion. Everything has been going on at once and I think I think a lot of people will be able to relate to that, especially this time of the year kind of going into the last few months before Christmas, everything ramps up because obviously there's Christmas around the corner, there's work stuff, people wanna get things rounded off. Or, you know, when things are chaotic, when things are shifting, when there's a lot happening at once, I remind myself that this is what change looks like in real time. It's not calm. It's not structured.
Keegan:Even like the best laid plans are great, but they don't like, no plans survives first contact. Change in real time is messy. And that was what I wanted to talk to you about this week. The big thing that is kinda I I I had a conversation with one of my mentors, Phil. I have I have three coaches.
Keegan:I have a coach for training and looking after myself. I have a coach who helps with social media and things like that. And then have a coach who like a business mentor as well to help, you know, deliver good business for clients and making sure that we're ahead of the game and, you know, helping people and serving people as best we can. For me as a coach, I feel like it'd be very hypocritical of me if I essentially didn't believe in coaching. If I didn't invest in myself time, energy, effort, money to grow, to get help from people who've been where I wanna be and who've done what I wanna do.
Keegan:Every bit of success I've ever had in my life has come from people who know more than me, people who've been there and done that. It's, whether I look at rugby, whether I look at life, whether I look at physique, whatever area of my life, that has always been a big part of it. I don't think there'll ever be a day where I don't have a coach. Because even sometimes when things are not going full whack, it's better to have it and not need it and need it and not have it. It's like a condom.
Keegan:It's the condom principle. Yeah, I wanted to essentially regurgitate a conversation that I was having with one of my mentors, Phil, about growth and change and how we view it and how to recognise what season we're actually in. Because he said something to me that really stuck. He said we can always boil down things into two areas in life. We're either in contraction or we're in expansion.
Keegan:So if we break it down, contraction is things are getting smaller. We're simplifying. We're clearing things out. We're streamlining. We're saying goodbye to things and sometimes it can feel like loss, it can feel like change, it can feel sometimes it's done by design and sometimes it's not but it's making space.
Keegan:Whether it's decluttering, whether it's ending a relationship, leaving a job, pulling back to get more perspective and reassess. And we can be contraction in one area of life, maybe a relationship, maybe a job, and then being in an area of in a season of expansion in another area. And expansion is where things are getting bigger, new challenges, new people, more opportunity and usually what comes with that as well is more chaos. And what comes with that is feeling excited but also feeling overwhelmed. And again that's going to be things like getting a new job, starting a new relationship, whatever relationship.
Keegan:That could be a friend relationship, it could be a romantic one, it could be starting a new project like getting your kitchen done or putting boucle on your sofa. It could be starting a new habit, it could be a phase of growth in your life. But it's really important to remember that both are necessary, both are uncomfortable and both are growth. That rhymes. But in a nutshell, when you are in a state of contraction, you're making room and when you're in expansion, you are filling it.
Keegan:And you can't have one without the other. I'm not really a plant gay but you have to prune the dead things off to let the new things grow. And that level of that is renewed. That is what growth actually is. Because people people think that growth is a straight line.
Keegan:You know, it's progress that just goes kinda if you were to look at a graph, just goes up as as time goes by. But it's not that. And it's not even, you know, you'll see graphs where it goes up and down and there's back and forward and there there is an element of that. But growth is is cyclical. It goes it goes around because every time you evolve something has to end.
Keegan:Right? If you think about anything that you've ever done in your life, there's something that has to go to allow space for the next thing whether it's an old job for a new job, an old relationship for a new one or an old belief, old identity for something new. And happens for all of us. So I often think of growth or like rather than being a straight line or even being a circle, think of it as like a spring, you know, like a coil that kind of goes up and round because we we kind of go through the same phases but we we do it at different levels. It's like yeah.
Keegan:It's you know, it's not square one, it's just the new level of the same game And we often confuse that we're starting over. You know, and I would encourage you to remind yourself of that when you feel lost or stuck or like you're starting again. It's not regression, it's renewal. You are you've elevated yourself to the next level. And I feel like I've been going through that a lot in areas of my life at the minute.
Keegan:Like going back to learning piano. I started in lockdown, was regular with lessons and then I kind of knocked it on the head. I let other things get in the way and a big mission for me lately has been to have some side quests on the go. I want other things away from just work or just the kids or you know some things that are for me and the things that are going to challenge me and help me. So you know relearning the piano, I'm gonna start having golf lessons as well.
Keegan:I'll keep you posted when I get round to those. But like we've got things coming down the, we're doing a huge online event in November for GMC for free for people. We're gonna call it elevation, the whole idea being helping people elevate their thinking, their beliefs, their identity, and we're gonna show them how to do it. We've been reorganizing systems at at Gay Man's Coaching to allow people to get better results even quicker. And so even like that as an example, to build new systems, have to get rid of old ones.
Keegan:We have to make changes. There has to be that kind of growth and you go, oh my god, I'm doing this again. I'm building the system again. I'm relearning the habit again. So what I do with clients is I break this journey, for want of a better word, down into four key areas and we essentially go around these repeatedly.
Keegan:It's a cycle that we go around again and again and again in different areas of our lives. So phase one of this four part journey is ignition, right? So that's starting again, it's breaking the inertia, getting going, finding momentum, lighting the spark, however you want to word it. And it's usually messy and it's emotional and there's a lot of self doubt. Examples of this might be your first gym session, your first therapy session, your first kind of risk going into, you know, first day after a relationship or something like that.
Keegan:And this kind of phase, it's not glamorous, it's uncomfortable. But it's where we kind of get our awareness back and our energy and we start to see a return. Essentially we start to get the ball rolling and what often do is we grow and then we plateau for a while and then something will make us change. There'll be a change in our lives, there'll be something going on, there'll be something that we decide that we want to achieve and that is when we go into this ignition again and we start that cycle. And then we have elevation.
Keegan:So this is kind of rising above the old version of you. Like I said, every time we grow in any area we have to elevate ourselves above the standards, the behaviors, the beliefs and the identity of that old version. And so we start implementing the things that we've learned because so many people get stuck in the learning phase, the information phase. What they lack is implementation. If information was all you needed, you'd be a millionaire who's ripped to death because all the information is on the internet for free.
Keegan:You don't need more information, you need implementation and that's what we do in this kind of second phase, this elevation phase. We start to outgrow identities and habits I guess it's where the discipline side of things live. It's where we start to gain momentum, see results, it starts feeding into it and we start to believe that things can be different. And then we go into this expansion phase, you know, where we start taking up space as this new version of us. Essentially you start owning it.
Keegan:Know, things get bigger, opportunities increase, we start to notice new opportunities, new challenges, there's more stuff going on. This is often where people forget to set boundaries and they think that growth should feel good, but expansion brings its own friction. This is where like I've spoke about example before when you start really respecting yourself because that's for me that's what boundaries are. It's nothing to do with being shy or it's nothing to do with being you know bold or confrontational. It's about having self respect of what you are and not willing to put up with and how you will behave as a direct result of that.
Keegan:So this is where you start to go, do you know what? Actually, I'm not gonna be forced food by my mom when I go visit, and I'm not gonna bin off the gym to go on the pace. I'm gonna do both or I'm gonna get in or I'm gonna find a way to make it work. It does bring a level of friction because we're growing into this we're starting to take up more space in a different way. And then there's the last bit where what I call integration, which is when it all clicks.
Keegan:Know, the habits become second nature, we embody that new standard and that's the kind of bit where things kind of settle down a bit. It's not flashy, it's kind of peaceful and you've stepped into what you set out to be when you set off on this kind of renewal phase. So you have ignition, elevation, expansion, integration and we kind of just go through that cycle repeatedly. And again, then eventually something will shift again, you will hit a wall, you will get uncomfortable and the cycle restarts but it's just at a higher level. That is renewal, that is growth, that is life.
Keegan:And the trap that most people fall into is when they hit that kind of contraction, that stagnation, that plateau, whatever you want to call it, they think I've lost progress, I've failed, I'm back to square one. That isn't failure, it's preparation. It's where you then realise right this is an opportunity, an area to grow in. That's where we're pruning. That's where we start making space for what's next.
Keegan:Do you see when we just kind of go round and round in that cycle in various different areas of life? And something to remember with this is that if nothing is changing, nothing is growing. And that's all like we don't need to be growing and changing in every area all the time. That is a trap that people fall into. That is that's not possible despite what social media tells you.
Keegan:That is not possible. We can't be things not finding ourselves all the time. That is how we end up burnt out. So that is something to remember. Often it'll be growth in one area and then the aim is to make sure that we're not going backwards in other areas.
Keegan:Like off the back of that ask yourself, look at the various different areas of your life, your career, your relationship, your social life, your self talk, your energy, your physique, your finances. Like in which area are you trying to grow in, which area you're expanding in, which area are you pruning and contracting, which area you're letting go, simplifying, clearing space, where are you expanding, adding, building, stretching. And if you were to grow in another one of those areas, what would that look like for you? What opportunities would it present? What could you let go of?
Keegan:What could you bring in? Often so many people think oh I need to do less of this. Fall into need to less less less less or more more more more and it's very often a mix of the two. Alexa, stop. That's not ideal is it?
Keegan:I think it's really really important to remember that growth is cyclical and it's about renewal, not complete fresh starts. That's why I hate when people talk about oh I just need a reset and I'm gonna wait for an arbitrary day. Like, fuck off with that. Just take action now. Just do something now.
Keegan:Why wait? In the future, you're not gonna be more disciplined, more ready to go, more you're never gonna be more ready. So fuck off the arbitrary reset. It's a phrase I I can't bear it. But yeah.
Keegan:Listen. I hope I hope that has kind of given you a little bit of an insight. But remember that whatever you are going through, whether it's chaos, whether it's change, whether it's growth, remember it is not regression, it's renewal. You're not stuck, you're evolving. How you see things and how you talk to yourself has a huge bearing on how you feel about it.
Keegan:So if this has helped, please do let me know. You can always reach out on Instagram. You can email mckeegangmanscoaching dot com. But until next week, look after yourself, stay safe, give yourself the opportunity to renew and ask yourself those questions. Remember that the quality of your life is dictated by the quality of the questions that you ask yourself.
Keegan:And I'll be back next week and I'll see you then.