Coaching Journey: My Story

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.

In our coaching session Cathy read to me my story from what I had said. Wow…that was an amazing experience. It really is strange to have someone read back to you your own thoughts, feelings, dreams, words, expectations of yourself and goals. When it was done the first thought in my mind was to apologize to her for making it so hard. Why couldn’t I have just made it simple? Then it dawned on me that we were creating my perfect life and she asked me a lot of questions to get to this point. The progression of thought was quite interesting. At first I was laughing and really had to hold myself back from giggling.   I couldn’t believe that I wanted all of that. I thought that it was too much, that my expectations were far too high. It felt like it needed to be simplified. After she read on then my thoughts began to accept that maybe I could do it. Each time it was read I found myself being able to more and more accept that it could be a reality.

Before Cathy started to read she explained people’s normal progression of acceptance and going from resistance to being open and then to acceptance. In quality assurance we are aware that it takes adults a number of times to learn something but I never thought about a number of times to accept something. This changes how I will approach suggestions I give in my job moving forward. Even after having studied Influence via the VitalSmarts organization I can’t recall this. After having my goals read to me a number of times and how I felt in the beginning, feeling the resistance, to walking through to a road of acceptance that it could be, I am convinced. The coach training is going to help me help others.

When our meeting ended I committed to some very specific actions. When the day came to an end I completed my homework and sent her a confirmation email. That night I started on the path of following through on a daily basis to create my story.

For our next session I have to think of my top priorities and we will then dig into strategy and make it happen. Hum…maybe I can actually make this happen! I am more excited about the coaching certification too.