One of my client's, her name is Waiman, has been on the supervision program with me for about 9 months. We recently started 1-on-1 mentoring, so I can help her with creating a coaching culture in the organization she works for.

She did her first coach training in October of 2015 and has been working as an internal coach for a textile company in Mauritius for six months now. Since it takes a lot of coaches quite a bit longer to feel confident enough to coach professionally, I asked her to write out her journey for you. And I'm grateful she was willing to do so.

Waiman's Story -- A Case Study

I had just gone through a coach training late 2015, and while I was so excited about everything that I had learnt, I also felt really overwhelmed. I struggled so much with coaching, that I'd feel fearful if I knew I had a session later on in the day. I had experienced the benefits of coaching myself, so I really believed in it, but I just dreaded getting lost and not being able to get an outcome for my client.

It really frustrated me, too, because I'd go to meetings every week to practice with other coaches. That helped, but I didn't feel I was getting anywhere because we were all at the same level and we didn't really know what the next step was. I also read a lot of books, and that only seemed to make me more confused. I wasn't making any progress at all.

One of my colleagues at the time, who was further ahead of me, commented that if I really wanted to master the skills I would have to get a mentor. That was also right about the time that I got an email from Femke in one of the e-groups I was a part of.

I hadn't heard of her and I didn't know what her background was. So initially I thought: Who is she? What experience does she have? What reputation does she have?

After watching a few of her webinars, I could see that she really understood where I was and she could speak to my level and she had an ability to turn what had always seemed complex into something that was simple to understand.

It was obvious that she knew how to structure a coaching session. She knew what she was talking about.

I struggled with my finances, and trying to figure out my finances, because I wasn't working as a coach at that time. My husband also wondered what the return on investment would be, since coaching is not an established profession so I really had to make sure that I was getting a good program that gave value for money.

I had to answer that question not only for myself, but also for him: "Is it worth the investment?"

I just knew how powerful coaching was, and that belief helped me a lot in making the decision. I can see that with small changes the benefits it could bring to clients. That was my driving force.

Well, after I did all of my research, Femke's program offered the most value for money and it helped that I could pay in installments. The fact that it was an ongoing program made a difference, too, because it was important for me to make this something gradual and part of my every day life.

Once I had signed up my first thought was "Yes, I am doing something concrete to invest in my skill! On the other hand, I was thinking "Have I done the right thing?"

That feeling of "Have I done the right thing?" completely went away during the first call we had.

One of the coaches did a 25-minute session. Femke fed back and explained how the conversation went, the structure of the conversation, doing detection & analysis. That was "wow, why weren't we shown this before?"

And I remember a few weeks after starting the calls, when I didn't have a lot of work on at that time, I went through a lot of the call recordings that are on the website (probably about 20) and really understood what the structure was. When I went back to my local practice group I was listening in on a coaching session and when I did the feedback they said: "How did you do that?"

Their response was "WOW, you just understood everything."

That's what made the difference for me. I finally thought I am getting somewhere.

I can see how to organize information. I can picture what the client is going through. In the step back position seeing present and desired state, seeing what they were doing in the problem state. Being able to identify where the change could be for them. Before I was so much in the content, I wasn't able to step back.

I could now be present, and in a know-nothing state rather than being lost in the content and chasing my client's words. I felt a lot more confident, and even looked forward to coaching sessions. I could see that people were getting more out of coaching sessions.

My confidence helped me a great deal with turning coaching into my job. It also helped that others could see how much I had improved. One of my colleagues referred me to one of her clients who was looking for an in-house coach. I've been working there for 6 months now and I'm doing a lot of coaching and helping the organization create a coaching culture, which Femke is mentoring me on at the moment. Without Femke's help, I would never have felt comfortable with accepting that job.

It has taken me 40 years to find this job, but this is what I'm meant to do. That's an incredible feeling to have.