The Same Broom, Different Handles

How we change while holding on to what matters.

There’s a wonderful moment in the British comedy Only Fools and Horses when Trigger proudly announces that he’s had the same road-sweeping broom for twenty years. In that time, it’s had seventeen new heads and fourteen new handles. But to Trigger, it’s still the same broom.

It always makes me laugh. But there’s something rather wonderful about the idea that almost everything can change while the purpose remains the same.

And I’ve been reminded of that this week as I’ve been revisiting something I’ve used in my own coaching practice for years.

I’ve just finished another revision of my Healthy Rhythms reflection sheet. It’s a simple collection of questions that I use to help people pause, take stock of their lives and leadership, and notice what might be emerging.

Over the past six years, I’ve probably revised it ten times. I’ve taken questions out, added new ones, changed the order and occasionally looked at something I’d written and wondered what on earth I was trying to ask!

And yet, if you placed the first version beside the one I’ve just finished, you’d recognise the same purpose running through both.

What I find fascinating is that the methodology behind it is hundreds of years old. These ancient practices of pausing, reflecting, noticing and responding have helped people make sense of their lives for generations. Yet they can still unlock fresh imagination, open up possibilities and help someone bring something entirely new into the world.

“I love that. Something so old can still make room for something that has never existed before.”

In The Imaginal Coach, I explore the importance of remaining open to the possibility that something could be better. Not because what we have is necessarily wrong, but because something more may be waiting to emerge.

And I think this is central to coaching, and perhaps to life itself, as we don’t always need to abandon what has gone before to make room for what comes next.

But that requires us to remain curious. To hold on to what matters while being willing to change what no longer serves us.

Perhaps that’s the invitation for all of us. To keep growing and changing without losing sight of who we are and what we’re here for.

So perhaps the question is simply this:

What might need to change so that something worth holding on to can continue to grow?

And perhaps Trigger was onto something after all.