Why I needed a coach…and still do

I get joy out of my work every single day. I love talking to people, hearing all of their amazing, inspired ideas and helping make those ideas a reality. I love all the research and learning I do around ethical business practice and sustainability. I love coaching executives to help make them better leaders and managers whilst ensuring they still enjoy doing what they do.

It is inspiring, motivating and endlessly fascinating.

I didn’t always feel this way.

For those of you who have dipped into my bio, you’ll know I ended up semi-accidentally moving from London to New York to accept a very big promotion at work. It felt like a once in a lifetime opportunity had dropped into my lap - one that was impossible to turn down. I’m so glad I went. It afforded me some incredible adventures (physical, emotional and professional) but it also brought me to the brink of the classic 21st century burnout.

‘Burnout’ was first coined in 1974 by the psychologist Herbert Freudenberger in his ground-breaking book Burnout: The High Cost of High Achievement. He defined the term as “the extinction of motivation… especially (when) one’s devotion to a cause fails to produce the desired results.”

It is a reaction to prolonged or chronic stress, characterised by three main symptoms: exhaustion, cynicism and feelings of reduced professional capability.

Hello! I checked all those boxes. I was constantly tired, had difficulty justifying to myself why I was still doing this job and felt like I was letting my teams down all the time. I won’t lie - it wasn’t all that fun.

At the time I didn’t have a coach. Honestly, it didn’t even cross my mind as I wasn’t aware of the personal and professional insights it coaching could bring. Looking back now with the benefits of both hindsight and my own training as a coach, the positive impacts are all too clear.

Being able to talk my anxiety over with a completely objective person would have brought me an enormous amount of clarity as to why I was so anxious. At the time it was just a constant feeling I couldn’t shake which left me permanently distracted and uneasy. Coaching would have allowed me to identify the cause underlying the feeling and equipped me to do something about it.

Coaching would have enabled me to question my growing cynicism around my career in a constructive way; why I was still working so hard at something that was making me miserable, why I had loved it in the first place and how that very real passion had been supplanted by total disenchantment. My imaginary coach and I would have discussed how I could recapture those first flames of passion or - if the love really was gone and resting 6 feet under - what I could and should be doing to move on.

Finally it would have made me face my feelings of professional inadequacy in a rational rather than emotional way. It felt like all the balls I was juggling were landing on the floor but with my coaching hat on I see that this simply wasn’t the case. We were meeting financial targets, delivering on projects, engaging new clients and retaining staff. By most metrics we were succeeding but I felt like I fluffed up every step of the way. Coaching would have made me realise that my subjective feelings were completely out of touch with objective reality.

In brief I would have seen the wood for the trees... And that is the beauty of coaching.

My circumstances couldn’t be more different now. That being said, I absolutely would not be without my coach - for both the good times and the not so good. Our meetings keep me accountable, forward-moving and clear sighted.

Checking in with my coach is a regular reminder of why I went into coaching myself - what I hope to achieve, who I want to help and what my fundamental values are - both personally and professionally (although they are pretty intertwined).

Being coached is not a luxury, nor is it a final resort for when you don’t know where else to turn. It is an investment in yourself, your wellbeing and your business. Investing in yourself is never a ‘cost’. It’s a win. My own experiences have been powerful proof of this.

I know it’s easier to see the benefits when you’re not doing so well. It’s logical to think that coaching would help you ‘turn things around’, allow you to ‘get it straight in my head’ or ‘get my plans in place properly’. All of this is absolutely true and 100% what coaching is all about. By why wait until you’re in a real fix to start working on these things? If you feel like things are going well surely it makes sense to invest in making sure they carry on going well - or - even better??

Coaching is about improving on where you are now so if things aren’t so great, coaching will move you into a much more dynamic, positive position. And if you already feel like you’re nailing it then a coach will allow you to nail it even more. You’ll be even nailier!

Coaching isn’t about the hard sell. It’s an incredibly personal choice that has to be right for you. All I would say is that I know from experience what a wonderful thing it is to be coached and the opportunities that have seemed to open up before my very eyes. Those opportunities were always there but I just needed a helping hand to see them.

If any of this feels familiar to you then I would love to be your helping hand. I may not know you yet but I know that opportunities are waiting for you and it’s just a case of seeing the wood for the trees.