A coaching journey

by Linden | Nov 4, 2020 | Career Change, Well~being

Before I started my coaching business, I worked for over 25 years in a large vocational education organisation in South-Western Sydney region, with a focus on Faculty Leadership & Management, Change Management, & coaching.

Within my corporate role, I was able to develop and use my coaching skills to mid-level leaders and I had targeted coaching as a possible job option after TAFE.

My career had many highlights and wonderful moments. However, it took me being on the brink of burnout and the resulting months of healing to learn that the role I was doing was no longer aligning with my own values, strengths and personality and there were toxic elements at play undermining me, my leadership and business self-confidence.

This experience inspires me to help others to find careers that are better suited to them, helping them feel more fulfilled and to support them in well-being.

While I already had coaching development and experience through the workplace, what I needed was specialised coaching, training and tools to help me support clients to move into more fulfilling work – and working with Terri gave me some of that.

My period of depleted health, energy and confidence ignited a desire to support others by utilising positive psychology resources, so that they can better manage difficult situations, become more self-aware regarding career pathway and prevent any decline in their wellness.

When a redundancy was offered, I searched myself and my potential with the help of Terri’s Personality Type coaching which was such a positive and supportive first step to understanding who I now was. I have taken almost three years on my journey to self-awareness, self-leadership and being comfortable in my skin to this point now where I am self-confident in my coaching role. And feeling that I am getting to know myself fully.

I ended up training with BYC Academy as a life coach, which has given me invaluable knowledge and tools, as well as a coaching series with Terri – in addition to becoming certified as a Coach for Innovators, which was training I had done earlier – and I now apply both within my coaching and for myself. I also became accredited in Hogan Assessments and am now learning Breakthrough Coaching delivered through World Business & Executive Coaching, so look forward to adding this to my tools.

Positive psychology is essentially the science of happiness, in each aspect of physical, emotional and mental health. Combining positive psychology with coaching – it’s the perfect combination!

My approach is holistic, bringing together evidence-based tools and strategies to support my clients primarily in the context of work.

Who do I work with and how do I typically work with clients?

There are two main strands to my work: my 1:1 career transformation coaching practice and my well-being focus.

My one to one coaching targets mid-life women in their career shift journey and I also support my clients to define what fulfilling work means to them and to be happier and healthier at work.

I enjoy using all my combined coaching and associated tools to help people make sustainable improvements to their well-being – specifically focusing on reducing their stress and overwhelm and strengthening their physical, mental and emotional health.

I’ve worked with clients across the world and all of my sessions are online. I find that meeting every two weeks (rather than weekly) allows for life and other priorities as well as keeping up the momentum of the coaching progress.

In addition to my coaching practice, I’m aiming to develop an online course on resilience as a first step in well-being resources for career-shift or other transitions available on Teachable. I have a first course “The secret to creating “The Best Resume” in Teachable and I’m planning the launch that course promotion currently.

I like that this is a holistic focus and I can bring in what I’m passionate about, which is well-being at work.

Coaching isn’t affordable for everyone and so this is what’s great about creating online courses – people can tap into powerful content for a small investment – and for those who are a little unsure about working with a coach, it allows them to get a sense of what the benefits are and get to know and trust different coaches before deciding to work with them.

What has my training helped me to achieve?

With my clients, I always take a customised approach, so it’s been very valuable to, for example, go through the whole of my career shift process for one client, then an exercise or two for another with a more traditional coaching focus.

The single most important impact has been increased confidence and this is something clients say that they want to achieve from coaching.

Simply having space within coaching to learn more about themselves, clients have felt better placed to go to job interviews or speak up in meetings at work or even focus more on themselves in terms of their well-being.

So, when people set goals like getting a new job or delegating more, I always encourage them to add a goal that’s related to their wellbeing.

These goals might be about ensuring they do more activities that they really enjoy, taking time for physical exercise or bringing in more mindful activities.

Well~being is key

Often, just introducing and embedding a small well-being related change has a huge positive impact.

It’s great to see the clients achieving results like a new job, promotion or even a new career, but it’s satisfying to see the wider impact of what’s going on – the increased confidence, improving relationships, or a sense of self-acceptance so that they can bring their authentic selves into work.

For me, the most positive results are those that tend to be less tangible but are often the most long-lasting. So for example, helping the client to develop ways of minimising stress in their lives, create a better work-life balance, increased confidence and well-being resources.

My work during the 2020 pandemic:

I’ve always worked online so this hasn’t caused any issues for me.

The topics that clients bring to our sessions have evolved a little, particularly right at the beginning of lockdown.

Wellbeing has become increasingly important to discuss, especially for clients who are working from home.

My hopes for the future

I’ve found my coaching niche. I love utilising the Hogan instruments as well as evidence-based positive psychology tools in my coaching.

It’s very important for me to be the absolute best coach I can be and to provide my clients with the best possible support.

So ongoing self-development is a natural part of what I do as a life-long learner and I enjoy having a diverse range of tools at hand to provide that support. It gives me confidence and satisfaction.

And of course coaching to make a difference!