The Secret Maps We Navigate By

At the British Library’s Secret Maps exhibition, I was intrigued to see charts and maps that were never intended for display. Some were painstakingly accurate, even if not to scale; others were filled with guesswork, dotted with imagined coastlines or warnings about dangers no one had ever verified. Each map revealed something of the meaning for its maker — their hopes, fears, ambitions and assumptions — even when the geography was uncertain and the cartography undisciplined.

The maps we carry are similar, quietly guiding our decisions. Ask someone how they reached a turning point in their life and you rarely get a neat plan; you get a story. A value they’ve held for years. A piece of advice that stayed with them. A belief about what is possible — or not. Our internal maps can shape our direction long before we consciously name them.

In coaching, people often discover that clarity doesn’t come from drawing a new map, but from noticing the one they’ve been using all along: the values, stories and assumptions that have shaped – and are shaping – their direction.

If you need time to notice the path beneath your feet, I’d be glad to offer space for a conversation that matters that you.