What is coaching?

What comes to mind when I ask you “What is coaching”? It’s a question I’m sure everyone would answer in a different way. From my perspective, coaching helps you learn about yourself so you can fulfil your potential while working towards goals that feel meaningful to you.

Coaching can help you work out what you actually want

Coaching is future-focused. I help you to explore what you really want your future to look and feel like. When all of society’s pressure is stripped away… When you stop carrying the burden of family expectations… If you stop listening to the voice inside your head saying “I should…”, what is it that you really want? Do those hopes and dreams align with your personal values and current priorities? Or are they just whims that you’re not truly motivated by? I’ll help you set goals that make you feel the most “you” you’ve ever felt.

A coach provides support and a strong belief in you

I will then support you as you make that vision of the future become your reality. Providing unwavering support to my clients is a big part of what I do. As your coach, I wholeheartedly believe in you, even when you’re struggling to believe in yourself.

I also have complete confidence that, deep down, you already know all of the answers about what’s next for you. I am not there to provide the answers, I’m there to help you uncover your own answers. Sometimes life’s experiences cause us to conceal certain parts of ourselves. As your coach I can help you to reveal the valuable resources within you that have been buried over time.

Coaching helps you to learn about yourself

Unlike a mentor, a coach will not teach you – instead, they will help you to learn about yourself. During your sessions, I will facilitate your personal development. For example I’ll help you get to know your preferences, your priorities and your values. Knowledge is power. The more you know about yourself, the easier it is to move forward towards the life you want to be leading (see this blog post for more about getting to know yourself).

How does coaching work?

As your coach, I’ll ask you purposeful questions to empower you to work through whatever comes up during the session. Each session, I’ll support you as you set a goal that’s in alignment with your core values and your current priorities. We’ll then spend time creating a step-by-step action plan that works for you, and you’ll leave each session confident about taking the next steps towards the life you want to be living.

Who do I coach?

Coaches work in all sorts of different fields – from business to health. Here at Julia Davies Coaching, I support women who have been the “good girl” their entire lives – getting good grades at school, getting a good degree, having a good career, finding a good partner and settling down in a good area. I believe there’s a quiet rebel in all of us, and she is the one who truly knows what’s best for us, not our inner good girl. The quiet rebel wants us to stop squashing ourselves into society’s boxes and define what success means for ourselves. I’ll help you start to listen to your inner quiet rebel and start to live that life you were always meant for…

What you could explore during coaching

• Perhaps you want to explore a new career option that really excites you (even though it also scares you to step away from the career path that’s been mapped out for you since you left uni)
• Perhaps you want to add a different income stream that will help you have a better work-life balance (I fiercely believe it is possible to have this balance!)
• Maybe you want to study something totally new but you feel like you’re too old or that it might be too big an undertaking alongside your job – I’ve done this too, and I’d love to help you follow your passion
• Maybe you, like me, believe there’s life after London and you’d like to make that leap towards working from home permanently so you can live somewhere that allows you to go to the beach every single day (I see you dreaming while you’re on holiday – I was on holiday in Dorset when I decided that I needed to be close to the sea and 2 weeks later my house was on the market!)
• Or maybe you aren’t actually sure what you want. That’s totally ok. If you’ve spent years being a “good girl” like I did, it’s totally natural to forget how to trust your own intuition. It’s so common to have a life that’s so busy that you can’t hear the whisper from inside saying that you don’t actually want that life any more, a whisper saying you’re ready to make a change and explore what your life could be like instead of what you should be doing at your age.

What next?

If coaching sounds like something you’re interested in exploring further, please do book a virtual cuppa to ask any questions and get to know each other a little better. It’s a totally non-pushy, non judgemental way to see if coaching is right for you at this time. I’d genuinely love to support you as you start saying no to your inner people-pleasing good girl and start saying yes to your inner quiet rebel as she is the one who truly knows what sort of life you’d like to be living!