Cathy Liska Blog series by Joann Evans
Joann Evans holds a B.S. in microbiology and chemistry. She is also a certified Paralegal. She has 20 years’ experience in quality assurance, control and engineering in fields such as pharmaceutical, medical device, IVD, biotech and blood banking. This blog series is her journey through being coached and then earning her coaching certification.
When Cathy began working with me as a coach we talked about really experiencing coaching before coach training. As this is now our third session, I am fully getting how I am really experiencing it instead of analyzing the process. We have traveled through a process that is very important to have direction and to fully unders
tand my own priorities.
At the beginning of this session I expressed concern about some of the goals I said I’d like to accomplish. What if I want to change them? What if I’m not totally sure about them at this point in time but just think that maybe it’s where I’d like to go? Cathy let me know that my thinking is great and part of the process so I make the choices and if I want I can let her know what I want to change. There was comfort in knowing this.
After our last session I began using the tools from our session. As a testament to how the tools might actually be working, I was in the grocery store this morning and didn’t even consider walking out with something I normally would – dark chocolate malt balls. Honestly, I never EVER walk out of the grocery store without them. Today, for some reason, it wasn’t even a thought in my mind because of what I was focused on. Something changed!
For this session Cathy worked with me on setting my priorities. The path I will take as it relates to work is not clear to me so she asked me the pros and cons for all the different paths. A piece of me felt a bit stupid. Duh…why hadn’t I thought of that before? When I was young, before going back to school to get my degree at a real low in my life, I did something similar. I had 5 pieces of paper. I wrote out likes, dislikes, good at, bad at, and dreams. While what I was good at didn’t really support my dreams page I knew I needed to go get the skills and it meant taking a chance on myself; it meant risking believing in myself. I decided to give it a try. I did it. I got my degree in microbiology. Obtaining my B.S. degree made all the difference for me and the process is a lesson I can apply now. I think I am getting ready for coaching certification now.
