Coaching helped me to prioritise what is important

By Siobhan • 17 May 2021

Siobhan shares how her Work It Out Coach Jeffrey helped her to set goals and focus on what is important to her in both her professional and personal life.

I applied for Work it Out coaching thinking it would be useful to talk a little about my CV or interviews as I was in a rut with my current job. Little did I know it would turn into so much more.

Getting started with coaching

During the simple application process I was able to request email or phone call appointments and was able to specify if I would prefer to be coached by a woman. Shortly after submitting my application I found out it had been approved and I was paired with my coach, Jeffrey.

We emailed to arrange our first appointment then Jeffrey called me at the planned time. He explained what coaching was and talked to me about the process. I quickly realised this was going to be a much more useful process than I had been expecting.

Within the first few minutes we had outlined any areas of my life I felt would benefit from coaching and selected a top 3 to work on. For me, this resulted in a

  • Career goal
  • Self-care goal
  • Conflict management goal

This was a lot of work in just one hour and by the end of the first session I realised this was going to be really important work on myself and was absolutely raring to get stuck in. If you are able to access coaching I highly recommend that you really commit to it. The more you put in, the more you will get out.

Tackling my goals

Over the following sessions we looked at each of my goals and explored how to tackle them. The sessions were booked flexibly and allowed me plenty of time to put any actions into place. The accountability really helped me to get stuff done that I felt I should have started a long time ago. Jeffrey was so easy to talk to and was always really positive. I found it very easy to be honest with him which definitely helped me get the most out of my sessions.

At each session Jeffrey checked in with my goals from the previous session. There was no judgement if I had not managed one of the tasks but plenty of support for anything I had done. As we approached our final session we made sure to tie off the loose ends from earlier in the process, as well as leaving some skills to practice.

The final thing we did was to write a career statement. Jeffrey was kind enough to share his with me and we developed mine together. This is something I will use whenever considering new opportunities.

How coaching has helped me develop

Since completing coaching, I feel I have developed so much as a person and in my career. I know how to look after myself better, I am more confident in difficult situations and I have even managed to secure two new jobs. In both interviews I have been told that my passion and enthusiasm have been the reason I’ve been offered the job and I believe that coaching has helped me to prioritise what is most important in both my professional and personal life. This has made it easy to seem enthusiastic in interviews, because I am!

My friends and family have also noticed a big change in my attitude to difficult situations and I am really proud of myself for continuing to practice the skills I learned through coaching.

I would recommend coaching through the Young Women’s Trust to anybody and I am very grateful that I had the opportunity to try it out. If you are thinking about it, apply today. You have nothing to lose, and a lot to gain.


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