As I write these words I am sitting on my bed in a town called Mikkeli in Finland. It is raining heavily outside and apart from skiving to write this column I am in the middle of a house move. Although I have had several lovely messages from friends wishing me a ‘happy holiday’ this week is not a holiday at all. I am here to empty out our family home which is soon to be lived in by someone else.

Anyone who has ever moved house knows what exhausting work it is. It is not just the sorting and carrying that takes a toll, it is also often the emotional journey of saying goodbye to one chapter of your life and embarking on another. This is even more so if you don’t have a clear idea of what the next chapter is going to look like.

Added to this is the fact that it’s days like these when I am reminded of all the things I can’t do anymore, and that can hurt too. A serious car accident six years ago left me with permanent injuries to my legs. I can still walk – so most of the time my limitations aren’t very visible, but when I am standing at the top of a flight of stairs and have to get down it carrying a piece of furniture, I am starkly aware of all the things I can no longer do.

So I have to admit that this morning has been a tough one. When my husband decided to chip in that in his opinion I wasn’t packing things well enough, that was pretty much the final straw. I was ready to walk out and come straight back to Dawlish, move or no move. However, with the job still there to be done I had to find a way to carry on with it. So, as I so often advise the people I work with when facing challenging situations, I decided to take a moment to ask myself what I could do to make things feel just slightly easier.

The first thing I did was to wait. This might sound counter-intuitive when there is a big job to be done, but often when there is something you don’t want to do, it can be really useful to wait a little while for a moment when you feel at least a little more charged with energy. Giving myself the time to watch some TV this morning meant I felt less resentful about using the next couple of hours packing and carrying boxes. Then I set myself a time limit. Rather than seeing the project as a week-long exercise (which it is) I decided that for the moment I just needed to get through two hours. That seemed much more manageable.

The next step was to put on some music. There is all kinds of research on how music can lift your mood – so I have some Spotify lists ready for occasions exactly like these then I need a bit of encouragement. My choice today was some ’80s dance music which always helps. Thankfully there were no cameras around to catch my little dances between trips carrying boxes down the stairs.

Then, once I had got a bit of energy, set a time-limit and put on some music I also had to face my limitations. No matter how hard I try, I simply can’t do everything that I once could. I am sure many of you resonate with that and how hard it can feel when either your age, health or both stops you doing what you like to be able to do.

Rather than becoming nostalgic and feeling sad about what I have lost, I decided to put these feelings to one side and find a reason to say thank you every time I got down the stairs. I said thank you for still having legs after the accident, thank you that I could still walk, thank you for family and friends and thank you for the possessions I was having to move. Not a single thing that we own is valuable in financial terms – but each item has been hand-picked and found second-hand from somewhere. This means that each thing it is not only unique to us but that it also comes with a bunch of memories. Those are all things to be grateful for.

Even though everything is going into storage for the moment, one day those things will still be there for us to enjoy once more.