What was going on in your business & life when you began to work with Megan?

Two things were happening in my life that prompted me to look into coaching. The first was a realisation that I wanted a change in my career but couldn’t work out what direction I wanted to take or what my opportunities might be. I was also lacking in confidence and understanding of what it is I could offer a new company/role.

At the same time as this, I was also doing a lot of work on my own around inclusion, antiracism, environmental and social justice and trying to reconcile my own position, accountability and responsibility to incorporate this into my current and future work. 

What hesitation or concerns did you have about working with Megan?

I hesitated about the need for a coach, whether I was going to pick a coach that would suit me, what it was exactly I wanted coaching on, whether I could afford to have a coach at all. I think until I started with coaching, I wasn't fully aware of what was on offer, or whether there could be coaching that specifically addressed the needs I had around leadership, sustainability/inclusion and working out what next in my career. 

What specific results have you achieved?

The results I have achieved from coaching have been subtle and as a result, I feel longer-lasting. I have grown more adept at recognising how I live through my values, actually just knowing what some of my values are, and using my self identities to help me navigate some of the challenges I have faced. I have also been able to notice and address my own patterns of behaviour that may be negatively affecting me, allowing me to reorient my perspective.  

Through working with Megan I have built up my courage to explore new opportunities in my professional life. This has involved having conversations with people I would not have contacted independently and making decisions about my 'what next' that I might not have had space to do on my own. This process has seen me significantly shift the direction I would like to take, from sustainability professional to someone who would like to lead on strategy and  operations in a purpose driven company. Coaching with Megan has provided me with the space and encouragement to reflect on how I can apply my strengths and interests in a professional capacity.

What did you like most about working with Megan?

Coaching with Megan has offered a resource of support and motivation that I didn't know I was missing until we started working together. I was able to greatly expand my capacity to understand myself and my approaches to things and to do this working in an open and non-judgemental space.

Megan works with a high degree of compassion and is able to make the coaching relatable, explaining how she reacts to certain situations and the outcomes she has had from her own coaching that enables an easy bond to form.

Megan also has a seemingly endless depth of knowledge and resources that are applicable to just about every situation I presented, which meant that we were able to be adaptive and flexible in our approach. At no point did I feel I was on a treadmill of coaching, applying a tried and tested and somewhat rigid coaching model. Instead, it felt like Megan tailored every session specifically to me and the path I was set on exploring.

How else have you benefited from our work together?

Courage: Firstly, learning to call it courage not confidence! In working together, I have opened a part of my brain that is more accepting of myself and willing myself to try things and own myself and my actions.

Values: I have always had them and may have taken a while to allow them to surface but through working together, I have been able to define and live through my values, using them to explain who I am and what I can offer, which is something I struggled with prior to coaching with Megan.

Resources: I have amounted resources that I can integrate into my life, to strengthen my resilience and ability to reflect and respond as needed

Perspective: While this isn't constant and I've certainly faltered at times (and will into the future), our work has given me the space to have some perspective on who I am and how that impacts how I approach work, life, challenges etc. As I reflect on our work together, I continue to identify ways in which I am using the resources we worked through in ways that weren't always immediately clear when I was first made aware of them. This comes back to the subtlety of coaching, it's not 'here's a package, follow the instructions and you'll be fixed', but more take these, reflect deeply and if you find them helpful keep using them.

What were the top lessons that stuck with you?

That while I have a personal desire/propensity to want to have things follow a certain trajectory and be neatly tied up in a timeline I have defined, I need to learn to have that challenged, to learn to live with things not conforming to my idea of now.

I have met and learned to address my inner critic in ways that have helped me deal with situations where I would normally be extremely self-critical/doubting.

To better understand my values and the ways in which they show up in the work I do, the person I am, and the position I want to hold in the world.

Who would you recommend to work with Megan?

I will and I have! I would recommend your coaching to anyone who is operating in the same/a similar professional space to me, anyone who is facing a junction of what next, or anyone who wants to build their capacity for compassionate and inclusive leadership.