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Jane is a very caring person, having difficulties in putting herself first.  Jane had also been over-generous with gifts and denying herself time-out to pursue her own interests and to rest.

All in all, Jane found she was unhappy and lacking in motivation to improve her career prospects and her health.

When questioning Jane about why these issues were ongoing, it became evident that Jane equated putting others first with a measure of her self-worth.  Whilst Jane examined self-worth, she realized that putting others first was reducing her self-worth and not increasing it; this was a turning point in her life, from where she was able to make positive changes.

 

Jane – Putting others first

If Jane felt unconfident about saying ’no’ to anyone face to face, she would text this message instead.  Jane also looked at how to limit her spending on gifts which she would buy for others.  She would do this by sending a card or a heartfelt message rather than buying a present.

Jane was starting to feel better herself and felt more in control of her life.  She was now able to concentrate on herself and started to buy and cook healthier foods.  She also had started to draw up a weekly timetable in which she allocated time for her to relax, paint and read.  At the end of the final session, she had a ‘eureka’ or light bulb moment when she realized she had a mental block which stemmed from her childhood; this mental block prevented her from being happy.  As a child, her father frowned upon people who appeared happy and referred to them as ‘do gooders’.  This belief had stayed with Jane and subconsciously prevented her from being happy.  Once Jane was aware that this belief was her father’s and not hers, she was able to put it aside and start living her own life.  Jane could now move on.

 

Emma – Losing control of her business papers and needed to de-clutter

Emma was self-employed and struggling to keep her business papers in order; she also had papers which could be binned once they were sorted out.

In Emma’s mind, the papers felt like a dark cloud over her head and like a weight pressing down on her.  No wonder she was unable to tackle the papers as she had associated them with depressing images and feelings.  With the help of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Techniques), she was able to rid herself of these feelings and images which made her felt and more able to tackle the problem.  She decided she would have various categories for the papers to be filed under, which included a category she labelled as ‘shred’.

Emma now had her categories and could start putting the papers under these headings to get some order for them.  This allowed Emma to see not only where her papers were up to, but gave her a picture of where her business and finances were up to; she now had taken back control.

 

 

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During the coaching session, we looked at how Margaret could find time to do the research for her book.  She was busy researching for her lectures as well as making the costumes she would use in her lectures.  We looked at the priorities in her life, and could find little room to timetable research for her book, which Margaret desperately wanted to do.  Margaret had delayed writing the book for a couple of years and felt it was now or never to start writing it.

During the session, questioning was centred around the lectures and about how time consuming this was: Margaret was asked how the lecture material linked to the booked material.  At this moment the penny dropped for Margaret as she realized that the material for both the lectures and the book did link – she could use the material she researched for her lectures for her book.  Margaret did not need any more time to research for her book; she now could use the same material from her lectures for her book.

To date Margaret has had one book published and is now working on her second book; she had achieved what she wanted to do.

 

Gail – Unhappy in her job but does not know what to do about it

Gail was very experienced in her work received a good salary as well as having her accommodation provided by her employer which she rented from them.  Gail is French, so it helped her out enormously to have accommodation provided by her employer when she first came to this country; she liked the accommodation.

 

The nature of work Gail carried out was translation within a specialized area of work.  What helped Gail was to identify all the skills she had and to look at areas of work she could use these skills in.  There were many skills which were identified, but Gail felt these were skills which would be useful only in her current area of work and she wanted to work in a more artistic environment, and she was concerned changing her job would mean she would have to find somewhere else to live for herself and her cat; not many landlords would have a cat in their accommodation.

During the coaching session, Gail outlined her priorities; the top priority was to change her job, but she did not know which area of work she wanted to be in.  The solution here was that Gail was to look  at all jobs which were in any way were creative or artistic to get an idea of what types of jobs were available; from here she could then decide what she would like to do, and start to work on getting the training for skills required.  The second thing she would do, was to look at finding other rented accommodation in which she could have a cat.  Gail remembered she had a friend who would be travelling abroad and would be willing to rent her the house to herself and her cat.  This was to be explored by Gail.  Living elsewhere would make her feel better as she had ties with her current employer and when she changed her job, she would already had secured other accommodation.  This was her plan of action to make her move forward towards a more fulfilled life.

To date, Gail has discussed her problems at work with her colleagues which resulted in them confessing that they felt exactly the same way; this made Gail feel better and to realize she was not alone.  Gail had found support at work and now had a plan in her personal life to look for new accommodation and a new job.