Claire chose to take redundancy following a restructure in her organisation and was at a crossroads as to what to do next. Claire was highly respected and knowledgeable in her field and already had a wide network. It was clear very early on in our discussions that Claire wanted to get away from the constraints of employment and set up her own consultancy business.

Claire was born to run her own business. She was already talking to consultants in the field she wanted to work in and developing leads. Claire also put together and submitted a proposal for a large piece of work even before leaving her organisation!

However, Claire had some strong limiting beliefs that were holding her back despite everything she was already doing. These were:

I am just running away…

I can’t do anything about it until I leave

Who would want to contract with me…

If I am not earning money then I am not doing anything…

There was also pressure from her husband to find a new role quickly and bring in the money. He and her colleagues would ask her about her future and, because Claire wasn’t doing the expected things of applying for and interviewing for jobs, she felt she wasn’t doing anything. This undermined her confidence and belief in her ability to run her own business.

Through coaching Claire was able to overcome her limiting beliefs and come to believe in herself. This increased confidence meant she was able to talk about her fledgling business positively and not let other people’s insecurities and opinions dissuade her from what she wanted to do.  

Claire now runs a very successful consultancy practice.

When Steven and I met he was employed as a business analyst in a local authority and was studying hypnotherapy in his spare-time. Steven had already trained as an NLP Practitioner also in his spare time, and was very interested in human psychology. His dream was to fulfill his personal ambition to work in psychology within prisons.

Through coaching he built his confidence in his dream as well explored the realities of changing career direction, enabling him to test whether he really wanted to make that change.

We also worked together to identify his transferable skills and bring in his qualifications and experience he had gained outside of work into his applications, which also demonstrated to prospective employers his commitment to his career change.

Steven applied all over the country for trainee psychologist positions in prisons before finally securing one that was commutable from his family home. His transferable skills from his studies he done in his own time helped Steven secure this role.

Katie had been working full time as a tourism manager for a local authority when she was made redundant. Seeing this as an opportunity to improve her work life balance and stop a long daily commute, Katie set about making her training activities around her hobby into a proper business.

However, Katie felt that she didn’t want to rely solely on her business to earn an income and wanted to reduce potential uncertainty by taking on some employed work. So, whilst setting up the business, Katie was using her professional tourism network to look for potential opportunities. This led to consultancy opportunities and Katie was able to explore various options.

Katie now has a portfolio career consisting of her part-time role, her training business and consultancy work in tourism.