How I Started my Coaching Career
I became a coach, before coaching was a "thing"!
I’ll start by introducing myself. Hello, I’m Vicky! At school, I was one of those annoying people who was both academic and sporty – luckily, or I probably would have been considered a complete geek, as I also had people pleasing teacher’s pet tendencies at that time! I was immensely proud to get into Loughborough University and their highly acclaimed Sports Science programme, but I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do after that! I left University with a 2:1 and an overdraft. I knew I was capable, but I was directionless and penniless, so I took the first graduate role I was offered.
I found myself in a sales / account manager role and by 2006, I was quite clear that the path I had taken wasn’t right for me. The problem was that I didn’t really know what else was available. I’d taken my education really seriously, believing it was the way to get a “good career” and be financially stable in my future, but I hadn’t really taken seriously the importance of doing something that was a good fit with my values.
If I’m brutally honest, I hadn’t taken the time to consider what my values were until I got to this particular crossroads. I was aware that what I was doing, was out of alignment with something within me – we were importers of fitness equipment at the end of the market where around 50% of the customers probably weren’t actually going to use the equipment.
So I came to realise that my important values for my work were (and still are):
- Connecting with and helping people
- Doing something which has a positive impact
- Doing something which could fit around being a present parent (when I eventually got to that point)
- Doing something which gives me the opportunity to show up as the best version of myself (rather than feeling “wasted”)
- Variety / interesting work
The process of exploration led me to need to confront my limiting beliefs and work through them. I had several! Including:
- I’ve left it too late to do something I’d love
- I haven’t got what it takes to run my own business
- People don’t like me enough to give me opportunities to shine
- My main goal is the be a parent, does it really matter if I don’t enjoy what I do for work?
- My parents will be really disappointed if I am not in a stable job.
I’m glad to say that I worked through and released all of this, and the process of doing so, was so fascinating and liberating that I couldn’t help but tell people about it and want them to share in the benefits of what I had learnt. After a while it dawned on me that rather than offer unsolicited advice to my friends and family, I could actually train and make this my new career! So I began that journey in 2007 and by 2009 I was a qualified coach and ready to start my coaching career!
Going Through the Process
I can’t emphasis strongly enough the importance of clarifying your values and clearing your emotional baggage (EVERYONE who is human has it) before embarking on some kind of big change in your life. Years of experience as a coach, working with others has made me clear without any doubt the importance of this as a first step. If you don’t do it upfront, you will need to do a LOT of it later. Many people make changes in order to feel better, but they bring to the new career, relationship, or other circumstance, the same emotional baggage. So while there might be a temporary improvement in outlook, what we don’t address comes for us eventually!
If you are curious to know more this process, check out my next blog, coming soon…