I met with CJ when she had just left the corporate world to start her own consulting firm. She had felt unempowered and not recognized in her corporate position, and the stress affected her, impacting her health negatively.
CJ felt she needed to improve her self-belief and self confidence now that she was working on her own. And for her new business she knew she needed to do more networking and selling, yet this scared her so much because it was unfamiliar and she found it challenging to connect with people, foster relationships and make “small talk”. She was more task-focused, serious and reserved and hadn’t needed these skills till now.
CJ procrastinated making decisions, and would find excuses or keep changing her priorities, rather than get what needed to be done, done. She also procrastinated with confrontation finding it challenging, taking it very personally and becoming defensive. She would then tend to take out her anger at home, rather than set a boundary that had been crossed and felt like she was walked over, especially at work.
CJ also found she didn’t manage her emotions, and struggled to express her feelings to her partner.
Coaching
During the coaching we worked on her gaining flexibility with her thinking patterns, like all or nothing thinking, discounting, perfectionism and having an “other-esteem” rather than a robust and healthy self-esteem.
We also worked on her ability to count what was working for her and in place. This helped her to feel less depressed and discouraged, and she start seeing her progress and feeling a sense of achievement. Instead of trying to achieve perfection, she is more active, doing more tasks, and seeing more results – all still at a high standard.
We also coached about her sense of power and responsibility, and how to use her emotions constructively, which has led to her expressing her boundaries when she needs to. This, with also delinking her self-worth from criticism, and learning about positive confrontation and feedback skills, has given her the skills to handle criticism better and learn from it. And if it is hurtful, she doesn’t take it personally and is bouncing back much quicker and more constructively from the difficult conversations.
The coaching also helped her with her personal relationships with her family, partner, and domestic staff. A key contribution to this was learning to see and empathise with the other person’s perspective, and handling emotions better. Her growth was acknowledged too by her partner.
CJ now trusts herself, and speaks up sooner when she feels something is not right. She is making decisions more often which led to finishing her handover to the corporate, and then setting in place key steps that have taken her business forward.
Now, after the coaching, CJ has achieved 92% of her outcomes set for the coaching. She is feeling optimistic and has a compelling 5 year vision broken down into steps and stages, with a vision board. She expresses her emotions, especially anger and frustration, in a way that moves situations forward to resolve issues. Her demeanor is a lot more positive and she is comfortable in her own skin. Now CJ finds it difficult to remember not feeling that way when we met, because her growth has been so holistic and real.
CJ feels she has a strong foundation to move forward with her relationships and business, already with some big clients onboard. She no longer experiences any fear about cold calling, networking or meeting people and is looking forward to her next networking event. She has noticed that it’s not that difficult to start conversations and learn about others, and even finds she is enjoying the discussions.
In her own words:
“The coaching gave me the vocabulary to network and develop relationships, and has opened up my perspective to see things more from others perspective, to be more flexible. It was the constructive thinking and belief system or frames that have made the change, and now I realize how self esteem is attached to everything and coaching made it tangible. My perception boundary that “I can’t” was broken, now it’s about “do I want to?” I have no fear to book a networking event, and feel at choice about if I want to engage with others or not.”
You too can experience this type of growth and change in 5 months, so book a Readiness Session with me, Telana, to find out how.
Image courtesy of gameanna / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
