I wasn’t in a good place when I decided to start coaching.

I wasn’t in a good place when I decided to start coaching. I had always let my job dictate how I valued myself as a human being and when I didn’t have a job or a team, I lost my confidence, my self-worth and my lust for life, in general. I wanted to disconnect the tie-up in my mind between my job and my self-worth.
When I started coaching with Irina, I had a very different idea of what coaching was supposed to be. I’ve been a people pleaser most of my life so I assumed she needed to hear certain things or I needed to do certain things that were part of the process. I was very mistaken.
Throughout the process, she would gently remind me to not digress and come back to what we were trying to accomplish. I remember crying a lot in the initial sessions because Irina would prod me to “sit in” whatever I was feeling and not run away from it or get done with it or ignore it. I remember that being very hard to do. It used to be the hardest thing which now comes naturally as a result of coaching.
The way I look at and understand coaching has changed. The way I value myself has changed. The way I don’t let others dictate what I want to do has changed, except if it’s my job and I’m being paid for it. Every now and then, though, I do have setbacks but instead of lamenting about it or making it a big deal, I just take little steps forward again to get back on track. I hope to achieve a lot of goals that I’ve set for myself – using the guidance of a coach like Irina.