I had four Skype coaching sessions spaced out over 8 weeks.  I thought that setting up a time slot might be difficult being 14 hours ahead of NYC in Australia, but Chemda was very accommodating and happy to give me a later evening time to fit in with my office job schedule.

I’d not been to see another life coach before my sessions with Chemda. I’ve always liked the idea, but how do you know who that person is or if their values and own life achievements will mean they’re someone you want to spend your time talking to?  In this way, being a listener of KATG and especially the What’s My Name podcast meant that I already knew I’d be talking to a driven, honest and insightful person.

I started the sessions wanting guidance on whether I should change my career.  I thought I was looking for a yes or no answer to a big but simple question. We took it slowly and we took it in-depth, delving into the heart of what was bad and good about my current career for me, my wellbeing and my future.  Chemda then gave me some homework tasks to work on and think about for the next sessions, helping to simulate and test the waters of a potential career change (e.g. salary cut).  Before coaching I had only thought about these things as ‘downsides to worry about’, but not actually thought of ways to test them.  Another thing that I was guided to think about was options of making a deviation from my career path as opposed to a huge change.  It seems simple now, but again this had never occurred to me.  It helped me think outside my normal thought pattern to verbalize my thoughts to Chemda and have her tell it back to me the way she heard it, with frankness and analysis.

So over the course of our sessions, with journaling and homework tasks, we came to realize that the question I was asking had changed, and was more about ‘how do I find my self-confidence and look after my mental state?’.  Chemda gave me strategies to put into play to help me take back my boundaries at work, to be myself and only give what I owe, leaving space in my head and my life to be better to myself and my loved ones.  Meanwhile I’m still working away at the ‘crazy ideas’ list (fun homework!) of supplementary jobs/businesses I may try my hand at in the years to come.