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Please describe what was going on in your work/life that made you come to me for help. How were you feeling? What were you doing? What did you want to have happen?
I felt negative about work and life, I think, as a result of not feeling valued at work and following divorce. I had no personal direction work wise other than to work ridiculous hours in the same job, the same job in which I felt not valued at all. In my personal life I had the same non direction. I did nothing; felt no one had any interest in me. I wanted everything to change but mentally didn’t have the tools to do so.
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What made you decide to work with me?
I had come across you in a minor way when we worked in the same company and I always saw a positive energy; that together with your background equips you well for what you do now. I didn’t select you, but I was asked what I thought about you before the decision was made to work with you. The one thing I knew I had to do was surround myself with positive people and that, together with some knowledge of you, made up my mind.
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Did you have any concerns about the process or the work we might do together?
When people are in the frame of mind which I was in, the initial reaction is to question what difference it is going to make, but” hey the company is going to pay for it so what have you got to lose”. To be very honest, I was also worried about letting go of eight years of frustration and emotion in front of someone else. You handled this masterfully Martin.
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Which bits of the process did you find most useful, and why.
I referred to this as being “Counselling” and you very quickly changed this to “Coaching”. This instantly changed my view of what we were doing to being something positive. I know I didn’t react much at the time but this was key. Walking through my life was a real eye opener, painful but in hindsight absolutely key. I realise now that I was concentrating on eight bad years and ignoring many more very successful years. Following that realisation, the tools which you coached me in allowed me to slowly move forward. There were small steps like learning to say the same thing but positively, and seeing the difference in how people reacted to me when I did this. And then the bigger things such as planning what I want to do going forward career and life wise. I’m not going to pretend that I find myself in some positivity utopia now, but I have the tools, and I also find myself sometime thinking “how would Martin handle this one”. “Nothing changes unless you make changes” has to be the biggest learning.
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What do you think has had the biggest impact on how you think and behave?
Positive thinking. Because I have become more positive and regained confidence (and I have received that feedback) and I guess through others eyes, receptive, I find that people are responding and coming up with “behaviour” suggestions totally unsolicited which is very helpful. I realise that I have been doing the same thing all my professional life to people, but I haven’t been receptive to this myself in recent years. I’m back to believing that my opinion matters and it clearly does, which then brings back the confidence. I am also in the process of adjusting my work/life balance. Hiding behind my work has to be a thing of the past.
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What would you say to anyone else thinking about working with me?
Very simple, do it. Don’t be concerned about letting it all go. Trust Martin.