LEADERSHIP, CONFIDENCE & RESILIENCE COACHING

A coach can help you when you want something in your life to change. Examples can include; finding a new career, managing relationships, becoming more confident, being more assertive, defining and achieving goals, finding a better work life balance, dealing with setbacks, setting new challenges for yourself and finding fulfilment. All of these and more can be helped by coaching.

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My job is to help you clarify what you want to create more of in your life. Figure out honestly where you are right now. Then we can work on what steps you need to move you from where you are to where you want to be. Sounds easy, doesn’t it? If it was, you would have got there already!

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We all create blocks and obstacles for ourselves which stop us from making the changes we want. For example, when we believe something is not possible for us to achieve or that we don't deserve it, we will likely self sabotage . We can imagine other people's disapproval or family disappointment. We can get very creative in how we find ways to avoid things. Sometimes these are outside our conscious awareness, so we don't even realise they are holding us back.

 

When we hit real life obstacles such as bereavement, job loss or relationship breakdown, positive thinking doesn't make these go away but the mindset we engage as we address the practical side of life changing events can make a huge difference in helping us to make the best choices for ourselves and our futures.

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I am a leadership (including self-leadership), confidence and resilience coach because I have found that changes in these areas have the biggest impact across the board.

 

I once heard confidence described as having courage and it does take courage to make changes in your life. Once you set off down that path, you need to find ways to keep going, especially when it inevitably gets tough. That’s when your resilience gets tested. If you would like to find out some ways to build your resilience check out the blog post on resilience, How to "Keep Calm and Carry On".

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I absolutely believe that each of us have all the resources we need. However, sometimes we forget what we are capable of and get disconnected from our true selves and from our inner strenghts. This can show up as struggles with our self-belief and lack of clarity in our personal purpose.

 

My job is to help reconnect you with those temporarily forgotten capabilities and strengths and figure out what the best next steps are. No-one else ever fully knows your situation, so you are best placed to decide what the best decision at this time is. I offer support and sometimes challenge, while you work out what is needed to move forward.

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Over 15 years of coaching I have accumulated a broad toolbox and a good set of skills. It’s hard to describe what I do in a soundbite, because I take all that I have learned and adapt it to whoever I have in front of me and whatever they might be working on. So really, I have as many coaching approaches as I have had clients. It’s probably easier for me to give some examples of changes I have supported:

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(Please note that I have changed names and details to protect the identities of these clients.)

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Client case studies

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1. John was a writer who wanted to move into a new area. He had a lot of success writing for radio but the new opportunity was in a high tech games environment. He was busy trying to accumulate a high level of technical expertise when I was able to help him see how relevant and valuable his existing writing experience was. He then found the confidence/courage to take a chance and applied for an opportunity in America, not expecting to get it. To his delight and mine, he was successful.

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2. Sunita felt very undermined by her manager. We worked on her confidence and assertiveness and identified that some of the behaviours of the manager were arising because of their very different styles of working. When Sunita could see the situation from her managers perspective, she was able to adapt how she presented issues to her manager, so that she didn’t trigger the response that she had been experiencing as undermining. They now have a good working relationship.

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3. Claire always wanted to train in law. When we met, she was working as an administrator. She explained how she had put her life on hold since she had her daughter and planned to pick up her career again when her daughter turned 16. After a lot of discussion, I asked what would happen if her daughter got pregnant. She immediately said she would look after the baby and let her daughter get on with her career. I pointed out that his would add another 16 years to her plans for herself and asked, “When is it your turn?” It was one of those coaching moments, when a realisation hits a client like a sledgehammer. She booked herself onto a law course the next day and never looked back.

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4. Elijah was struggling to cope with high levels of anxiety, he was constantly worrying about all the things that could go wrong and the catastrophes that could occur to his friends and family. It turned out that he had experienced some real traumatic experiences growing up. I helped him see that when those things happened, he had been a child and not in a position to do anything about them. We explored where he had been resourceful and resilient in his life as an adult and found lots of great examples. We were able to work on the unconscious beliefs he was holding about being helpless and add some about his strengths and resourcefulness. We worked out that he had developed a real talent for creating disaster movies in his head, so we spent some time creating some happy and mundane ones he could run when someone was delayed, instead of the motorway pile ups he had been running. After some time and practice with these new strategies and beliefs he reported back that he was experiencing far fewer anxious episodes.

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5. Jennifer was on the verge of leaving her job. She had been promoted and was hating it. When we explored the situation, she didn’t actually want to do a different job, but she was missing the camaraderie and social life she enjoyed with her previous team. So instead of leaving her job, she started to initiate activities in her new office to get people socialising and working together. It totally transformed her experience, but without coaching, she would have assumed it was all about the job and likely left.

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6. Charlotte came to me wanting to improve her relationship with her partner and was surprised when I refused to help. When I reflected back what she had told me, she was able to hear that she had described what sounded like a coercively controlling relationship to me. We talked this through and I recommended a couple of good books on the subject. Charlotte came back for the next session with a completely changed perspective and we then focussed in the sessions on working out how to safely leave the relationship.

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7. Abdu was a journalist who had been in the business for 30 odd years and expected to see out his career in the same place until he was made redundant. While working together he discovered a passion for amateur dramatics and creative writing. He went from being almost bereaved at the loss of his career, to full of fun and open to all the possibilities that were still available to him. Not only was he grateful, his wife got in touch to say thank you as well.

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8. Yulia was a marketing manager who was very stressed when we first spoke. She worried about her work and was double checking everything so much she was falling behind, which obviously increased her anxiety. This had got so bad she was working into evening, creating additional problems in her relationship with her partner as well as not sleeping well. I shared some basic breathing exercises with Jane and calming practices. I found out that she enjoyed climbing, so we talked about how you can't climb and worry, so we knew that she had the skill to block worries out and concentrate, she just had to find out how to apply this skill to work. We also tackled the unhelpful thinking loops she had developed and created some more realistic ways to measure her progress. Jane changed so much after just a few sessions. She was enjoying her job again, had got it all back into proportion and was able to take time off with her partner. Even her sleep had improved.

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I hope this gives you a flavour of what I do. There are so many more examples I could give.

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Do get in touch if you would like to have a chat about whether coaching would be useful for you. My number is 07710 240 585 and you can fill in the contact form at the bottom of the page too.