Rather than having to change her life, she needed to see it differently
How six months of coaching helped a corporate professional move from overthinking and seeking external validation to self-trust, clarity, and feeling reconnected to her life.
- Client
- Corporate professional & creative entrepreneur
- Coaching
- 6 months · flexible monthly retainer · 2 sessions per month
- Starting point
- High self-awareness, but feeling stuck, overwhelmed, and disconnected from what she wanted.
Before
“I didn’t even know what my next goal in life was. I just felt SO lost and found it difficult to understand what I truly wanted for myself.”
after six months of working together
“Today, I feel more curious about the world, more connected to myself, and more confident in my own abilities. I am less afraid of the future, more willing to embrace change, and I trust myself to find the answers within me.”
The shift
- “What should I do?”“What do I want?”
- Seeking reassuranceListening to herself
- OverthinkingTrusting her judgment
- Fear of making the decisionChoosing what matters
- One worst-case scenarioSeeing more possibilities
- PerfectionismActions, progress, moving forward
- Needing certaintyTrusting herself to handle whatever comes next
Where she started
When she came to coaching, she was on stress-related sick leave from her corporate job, dissatisfied with her dating life, and seriously considering giving up a creative side business she loved.
She was contemplating huge, disruptive life shifts – a career change, a move abroad, an overhaul of her dating life – without being able to name what she actually wanted underneath any of it.
She came to coaching with a high level of self-awareness – after years of personal reflection and CBT therapy, she understood many of her patterns and could often recognise them as they were happening.
However, there was still a gap between understanding those patterns and translating that insight into forward momentum.
While she could see what was happening, she still felt pulled into the same negative spirals.
Burnout
The overwhelming pressure had culminated in taking sick leave from her corporate job.
The overthinking loop
Automatically defaulting to “what if this goes wrong?” and running worst-case scenarios before she had ever started.
Loss of internal compass
Constantly seeking reassurance and approval from others, and finding it harder to trust her own thoughts, feelings, and intuition.
Boundaries
Putting everyone’s needs first, shrinking back, and adapting to other people’s expectations while losing touch with her own desires.
Impostor syndrome
Fearing failure and judgment to the point of almost abandoning her beloved side business.
“I was constantly looking for reassurance and approval from others because I struggled to trust my own thoughts, feelings, and intuition.”
The work
Over six months, our work focused on taking the awareness she already had and translating it into real-life action – creating a space where she could reconnect with her own voice, and learn to tell the difference between acting out of fear or obligation and acting from what she actually wanted.
Rather than trying to find the “right” answer for her, we worked on helping her hear her own answer more clearly.
Learning to trust her own judgement
Her reliance on external reassurance showed up in our sessions too: “What do you think I should do?”, “What would you do?”, “What would you advise?”
Instead of answering, the questions kept coming back to her: What do you think? What do you want? What feels true to you?
“One of the biggest surprises for me was that coaching wasn’t about being given answers but about being asked the right questions. Almost every question was turned back to me, and I had to find the answer within myself… At first, I found that incredibly challenging because I didn’t trust my own intuition or emotions. I was so used to looking for reassurance and approval from other people that trusting myself felt unfamiliar.”
“Over time, I realised that I already had many of the answers, I just needed the confidence to listen to myself. Learning to trust my own judgement has been one of the most valuable things I’ve taken away from coaching.”
Seeing the inner critic differently
Together, we started looking at her automatic negative thinking and catastrophising from a different perspective – including what these patterns were trying to protect her from, and whether they were still serving her now.
She began to recognise them as old patterns rather than facts she had to act on.
“I’ve never realised how automatic it was or how much it was holding me back! That insight completely changed the way I started observing my own thoughts and helped me understand that I didn’t have to believe every worst-case scenario my mind created.”
Widening the field of possibilities
Since her mind had become very good at anticipating what could go wrong, we started shifting the question from “What if it goes wrong?” to “What else could be possible?” What if it worked?
Over time, this allowed her to start seeing different paths, perspectives, and potential outcomes, rather than automatically attaching herself to the worst-case scenario.
“My first thought was always, ‘What if this goes wrong?’ I would imagine the worst-case scenario before I’d even started, and the fear of wasting my time or failing often stopped me from trying at all. Now, I catch myself asking a completely different question… ‘What if it goes well?’.”
Separating fear from what she actually wanted
Instead of walking away from her business, she realised that it was something she was genuinely passionate about – a way to channel her creativity and find fulfilment helping others.
“I was so close to walking away from something that genuinely brings me so much joy because I was letting fear make the decision for me. Through our conversation, I realised I didn’t actually want to give it up, I just needed to stop letting fear overshadow how much I love doing it. That was a huge turning point for me.”
What changed
As she continued integrating these internal realisations into everyday life, they began showing up in tangible ways.
She no longer needed to escape her life.
At the beginning of our coaching together, she was contemplating changing jobs, moving abroad and making significant changes to different areas of her life. As she became more connected to what she wanted, those conversations gradually dissolved – she no longer needed to escape her life to feel better within it.
Instead, she became more intentional about how she wanted to experience the life she already had – and what she genuinely wanted to change.
At work
She challenged core beliefs around perfectionism and not being “good enough,” becoming more comfortable taking on higher-level corporate responsibilities that previously would have triggered anxiety.
“Instead of being terrified that I’ll make a mistake, I now see challenges as opportunities to learn and grow.”
In her business
She also re-engaged with her creative side business with new energy rather than abandoning something that brought her genuine joy.
In dating and relationships
She became less reliant on external reassurance and more comfortable making decisions based on her own judgment.
Rather than constantly asking what other people thought she should do, she started asking herself “What do I want?” and trusting herself enough to listen to the answer.
“I look forward to meeting new people, going on dates, and experiencing things that I would have avoided before. I no longer lose myself in dating or relationships. Instead, I stay true to who I am and what I want… I also no longer feel the need to be in a relationship just for the sake of being in one. I’m genuinely happy on my own, and I no longer believe that my happiness depends on having a partner.”
In how she meets uncertainty
She became less attached to the idea of needing certainty before taking actions. Instead of having to know exactly how something would turn out, she developed a different kind of confidence: “If something doesn’t go as planned, I know I’ll find a way through it.”
“I’ve realised that I don’t need certainty before taking action. I can make a decision without knowing exactly how everything will turn out, because I trust myself to handle whatever comes next.”
“I see new experiences as opportunities rather than threats, and that shift has given me so much more confidence to step outside my comfort zone and enjoy life.”
And it showed to the people around her:
“My family and close friends have told me that I have a completely different energy about me now. They see me as happier, more positive, more confident, and genuinely enjoying life in a way they hadn’t seen before. Overall, I feel calmer, more resilient, and much more hopeful about my future.”
In her own words
“When I look at where I was at the beginning of this journey compared to where I am today, I feel incredibly proud of myself. Coaching didn’t just change the way I think, it changed the way I live my life.”
“I can wholeheartedly recommend Anna… She is professional, empathetic, and has a wonderful ability to make you feel comfortable and understood. You can feel her warmth, intelligence, and genuine passion for helping others. She helped me look at things from a different perspective and discover answers within myself.”
Curious what coaching could look like for you?
If you recognise yourself in this story – capable, self-aware, with a life that looks good on paper, but somehow feeling disconnected from it – coaching can create a space to step back from the noise, question the stories you’ve been mistaking for your own, and reconnect with what you actually want.