Don't play with knives I was told as a child and, even today, my mother's voice still echoes vaguely in the back of my mind whenever I start slicing vegetables: 'Careful, it's sharp!'

Of course now this is always mentally followed up by, 'Yes, yes, I know it is', with the absolute certainty of an adult who knows her way around a knife block. However, in spite of this, I recently sliced the end of my thumb off while chopping up an onion.

Nothing had to be sewn back on and it's healing now, but for the last few weeks, I've had to work around it, being careful not to knock it on anything because if I did, it really hurt...

It's reminded me how big an impact one little thing can have on the rest of your life. All the other parts of my body have been working just fine, but that thumb has caused no end of problems in its own small way.

People assume that they need a life coach when they're falling apart, when everything has gone wrong, when they're utterly broken and need fixing. 

Actually, in most cases, it's more subtle. It's about working with someone to sort out their metaphorical thumb – the one small part of themselves that's stopping them doing and being all they want to be. 

Of course they're functioning just fine with that aspect of themselves being out of whack, but - wow! How much easier life becomes when they don't need to operate in that permanent state of work around!

I believe that life coaching often involves making the little changes that can create wider  horizons, open out possibilities and allow you to notice what suddenly becomes possible that wasn't before.

Our bodies are clever – they automatically compensate for our weaknesses. When one muscle or joint is under-performing, others take over - but after a while, we tend to feel other aches and pains as a result of being out of line and off balance. 

Like a chiropracter, a life coach is about realigning, rebalancing and helping you perform in a way that reduces stress. It allows you to be more effective, to move more effortlessly, and yes, sometimes to let go of pain.

So what's your metaphorical thumb? What's holding you back and making you compensate and work around?

And one final question - if you could change one small thing about the way you do things today, what would it be?