The following case study presented by Tina Sibley won her client Jane "life makeover of the year award" (and a £1,000 holiday).
Well done to Tina who won the "Excelerate Power Coach 2004"
Client too afraid to join a computer class ended up teaching IT skills all thanks to coaching
Jane came for coaching January 2001. Her New Year’s Resolution was to turn her life around. She felt her situation was hopeless. Her main priority was to start work but Jane didn’t know where to begin.
Jane was suffering from very low self-esteem. Since breaking up from a long-term relationship, she was left with a daughter at University, a son going through GCSEs and a younger daughter who was just about to start school.
Jane was completely dependent upon benefits to survive and was involved with the Territorial Army for her social life. She was also contemplating selling her lovely home in the country, as she could no longer afford to maintain it.
Jane wanted to get a job as soon as her youngest daughter started school. However, she did not feel that she would be able to get one. This self limiting belief was based on the fact that she had not worked for 11 years; had no (perceived) current qualifications and had been unsuccessful in applying for a job as an evening shelf-stacker at a local supermarket.
Jane realised that it would be an advantage to be able to use a computer, but was too anxious to join a class, feeling that she would show herself up and be unable to keep up.
We began working on her self-esteem, and focusing on everything that Jane had achieved throughout her life. Her children are a credit to her; she has many skills such as cake decorating, hairdressing and painting. Jane also helped run her ex-husband’s restaurant. In addition, she had been to Iran with her ex-husband, learned Farsi and survived dangerous times when war broke out. Jane was also a successful medic in the TA, just being a member takes great strength of character to get through the tough recruitment process and ongoing training regimes.
Having focussed on Jane’s past successes, we looked at transferable skills and types of work that may be suitable. Jane was extremely anxious about the vast majority of jobs requiring IT skills so we explored re-skilling options. I gave Jane 2 lessons to gain some familiarity and this gave her the confidence to join a class. She excelled and was actually ahead of everyone else rather than last as she had feared.
Through coaching work on her confidence, Jane at last felt able to apply for jobs. A part-time position became available at a company that I did some freelance work for and I suggested that she might enjoy this. Jane agreed that she would love it but did not feel that she stood a chance. We worked on her CV and interview skills and in June 2001, Jane was successful in gaining employment. Further coaching enabled Jane to progress with this company, following which she has undertaken many roles with them, including administration for open access courses, first aid training, key skills support and assessing. The biggest success of all is that by 2003 she was running an IT suite for Adult learners. Jane has gained a City & Guilds 7307 adult teaching qualification and is now working on assessing awards so that she can get involved in NVQ assessing. Jane also took on another part time role as a distance learning coach and assessor for Infection Control learners.
During the years, while we were working on Jane’s career, she was still looking for a replacement for her partner and found her Self-getting into several destructive relationships. We have begun working on this and Jane found the confidence in August to end an 18 month relationship in which she was not happy that was undoing the success we had achieved on her self-esteem.
Jane has learned to be happy being single and no longer feels the need to depend upon someone. The knock on effect has been improved relationships with her children, her family and her friends. She no longer relies on the TA for her social life and enjoys a wide and varied social circle. Happily, Jane has been able to keep her home and has even been able to afford to carry out the necessary improvements through re-mortgaging and sorting out her finances.
Through coaching and taking positive actions, Jane has achieved many of her goals. She is a completely different lady to the one I began coaching in 2001 and continues going from strength to strength.
