Earlier this month, I shared my experience of working with Creative Business Coach, Debbie Bryan and talked about the benefits of this to my creative business. This isn’t my only experience of working with coaches, mentors and creative women who have inspired and guided me. I also worked with Life Coach, Rebecca Kirk back in 2016. I had already met Rebecca through a Mentoring programme at Nottingham Trent University so when I discovered her amazing Life Coaching programme I jumped at the chance to work with her again.
Rebecca specialises in supporting mid-career professionals who are at a crossroads, feeling stuck, out of alignment or searching for greater purpose and balance. Her career coaching work has enabled hundreds of clients (myself included) to awaken their working lives and become truly aligned to who they are. It is her mission to help people create true and lasting happiness from their work by bringing a more holistic approach to Coaching. She described life coaching as helping someone get from A to B, and helping them gain clarity on what B actually is.
I don’t say this lightly but working with Rebecca really did change my life. At the time we started working together I didn’t really know that I was about to embark on such a transformative journey and I certainly didn’t know what or where B was. I was a Pharmacist, working in primary care in the NHS. I was plodding along in my career, quite happy with the status quo, no major career development aspirations but not feeling especially fulfilled either. I think what kept me going was the fact I had started an art business several years prior and this gave me the creative outlet I needed to keep work and life in balance. I don’t think my pharmacy work was lighting me up, I didn’t have a sense of purpose or feel I was making a real difference to anyone. There was less and less personal connection and relationship forming which is one of the things I enjoyed so much in my work and it was becoming more and more about policies, procedure and strategy. I knew I needed to make some kind of change but I didn’t know what that could even look like.
Through her guidance and recommendations Rebecca helped me to define where I wanted to go. She asked important questions and helped me to think about possibilities I had never considered. She helped me to distil down what I really wanted from my life, even down to such details of what kind of people I wanted to work with, what my goals and purpose were, what I love and what my key skills were. We even thought about ideal working conditions and realistic income options. I knew I wanted to keep my creativity at the centre of what I did but also I had a keen interest in Wellbeing and helping people. Through this process I discovered the profession of Art Therapy. I hadn’t ever heard of it before, even with my long career within the healthcare system. It was a lightbulb moment when I realised I could combine my two passions of creativity and health. The only problem was, I would have to go back to University to study in order to be able to do that.
This was where Rebecca’s support came in again as she helped me to navigate through the process of identifying, challenging and overcoming my self-limiting beliefs so I was able to see the possibility of what lay ahead. I hadn’t ever imagined changing careers in my mid-forties, never mind going back to University for the second time in my life, so you can imagine how many defences arose at the thoughts of such huge life changes. Initially I couldn’t see how going back to University was financially viable, how could I continue to earn enough money to live and make the time for a full-time two year course and the time needed for studying. All of the reasons I came up with for not doing it, Rebecca gently challenged me to realise many more reasons I should.
I’m happy to say six year after that initial consultation my life has changed beyond recognition. I gave up my Pharmacy career last year and I now life a fully authentic creative life. I’m so much happier than I’ve ever been and I honestly don’t think I would be where I am now without the chance (or destiny) of our two paths crossing and the journey that took us on. I feel I have discovered my true purpose, I am proud to say I enjoy my work and this path has helped me make many more new and inspiring connections and pursue new creative directions.
If you would like to find out more about Rebecca and the work she does, you can find out more by visiting her website here. If this sounds like something you might quite like to pursue but you aren’t quite sure yet, Rebecca offers a free taster session so you can ask questions and find out more. You can find the details for that here.
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