A personal insight into how Rosalyn Clare changed her life for the better. …

I spent ten years working in large companies. Two were US owned multinationals and another was one of the British big four accountancy firms. Despite working in a number of different roles with some success I wasn’t happy. My value to my employer seemed to be only in terms of the time I billed each month.

Every time I contemplated change I panicked. What about the mortgage? And I told myself I had to get it right next time. It felt so scary that each time I stopped thinking about change and put it off again. I
hadn’t yet learned that moving out of comfort zones isn’t comfortable.  I lacked any strategy for making decisions about the future. I didn’t want to ‘waste’ the professional qualification  I’d gained and I feared there was nothing else I could do.

I was stuck.

As is so often the way, life stepped in. A divorce gave me freedom to consider my life afresh. At a Christian arts festival I realised I’d been a round peg who had tried to fit into a square mould for a long time and had been compressed. I needed a break to recover my roundpeggedness, to recover my own identity.

I gave in my notice 3 days later and in less than 6 months flew to Rio de Janeiro and the Rio carnival. This was the start of an eight month round the world trip, a glorious time of temples, cocktails, mountains
and a skydive.

Coming home was hard. Lots of anticlimax and adjustment. Yet I took a temporary Social Services job and found a peace in feeling that I was making a difference which I had never experienced amongst the glass
lifts and chrome coffee machines.

I rejected an early intuition about life coaching - I didn’t even know what that meant - and trained as a voluntary counsellor. After yet more fear and procrastination I employed a life coach Bruce Stanley
who helped to clarify that my twin desires to make a difference in the world and see people change would be used as a coach. I took the steps to train as a coach with the Coaching Training Institute.

As a coach, starting my own business and learning to be an entrepreneur has been another journey of discovery. I still feel fear as I step out of comfort zones. The big difference is that I have strategies to deal
with the stressful thoughts. I have learned tools for dealing with the negative thoughts. And I’m doing work that I love which uses my strengths and meets my values.

It’s great to work with others who are stuck, sometimes in different ways, and I really enjoy working as a career coach for Figuring Out. I work with a wide range of people from professionals to young people to help them change their life for the better now and love it.

If you’d like to explore how career coaching can help you, email me at rosalyn@stridingout.co.uk to arrange a chat.

We can access funding to provide free coaching to unemployed professionals  and young people aged 18-25 claiming JSA. Drop me a line to find out more.

What a change!