CASE STUDY: How my Client, Mike, Built His Confidence During the Coaching Process

It is possible to enjoy both relationships and work when you do it from a place of confidence in God, in your identity in Christ, and in all the resources that are in you through the Holy Spirit. From that place, it is much easier to do the hard work that needs to be done in order to achieve your godly goals.

Here is how that happened for my client, Mike — a very smart, overly-responsible leader with a deep love for the Lord and a desire to grow in all areas of his life.

The story is being shared with my client’s permission, and his words are reproduced verbatim, but his name has been changed, and some details omitted or changed to protect the client’s confidentiality.

The challenges that made Mike look for coaching

Mike said the following about the challenges that led him to look for coaching:

“I was on a business trip and realized that I was feeling stuck in life, work and relationships. If I did not find a solution, I think I would continue to be stuck and in vicious cycles of grinding through life until I burnt out. I had a tendency of throwing myself really hard into some task until it was achieved followed by seasons of feeling burned out and I think that pattern would have continued.”

Vision First, Goals After

As in all of my coaching processes, we started with creating the vision of the desirable future my clients want to live, according to God’s will. At first, it was a bit difficult for Mike, at least for some areas of his life. But after a while, he began describing his ideal life, and his energy changed, as well as his face — a lot of smiles accompanied his words. He seemed to light up while he was visualizing some of the specific elements of his vision: where he would be, with whom, what kind of life he would be living, what he would be enjoying, how he would be sharing the Gospel, what his own family would be like (at the time we started coaching, he was single and with a desire for a godly family, but not a lot of hope for it).

With his meaningful vision in mind, he established the goals of the coaching process:

1) showing up authentically (with strengths, weaknesses and preferences) and gracefully; 2) developing the skill of asking for substantive help.

After that, it became very clear to Mike what actions he needed to take in his work and personal life. He was willing to make the effort to change his life in the direction of his inspiring vision. But he knew he needed to transform his mindset in order to change his behaviors.

Mind Renewal

Before he embarked on the coaching process, Mike had thought that the way I could help was to offer him external perspectives. What happened was different, but he liked it better.

I prompted him with questions and exercises that made him look at situations from different perspectives, from a more empowering position — he was the one who knew the best what needed to be changed. He realized he was the one who held the answers, and I only accompanied him in discovering them.

And this built His confidence in God and in the gifts and knowledge He had already given him. Mike only needed someone to be a sounding board to him, to receive his beliefs and assumptions and reflect them back without judgment, so he could discern gaps in his logic and clarify the desires and fears affecting his choices and the new thoughts rooted in God’s Word.

Here are a few of Mike’s mindset shifts — I hope they can be an encouragement for you as well:

• My identity is in Christ, not in work and achievements, and this gives me unshakable joy.

• Mature relationships involve interdependence, so asking for help is a normal behavior in relationships.

• Living in alignment with my values gives me joy, enthusiasm, and energy to do the hard work.

Taking Action

Those thoughts, and many other mindset shifts, helped Mike to take some new actions in his professional work and some not so new actions, but coupled with a new attitude. He dared to ask for help, send emails that used to be difficult to write and send, give constructive feedback.

Also, after Mike learned how important it is to be aware of, and live in alignment with his identity, he also helped his team get more enthusiasm in their work by clarifying the vision and their values as a team.

Mike also dared to take actions in the direction of having his own family. We had only one coaching session where we focused on this objective (and did some exercises that encouraged him to clarify what he was looking for and what were his romantic competencies and his “developing points”), but the insight he got about his fear of rejection and the way he reframed his thoughts, together with the willingness to “give it a try”, helped him find a lovely girlfriend soon after. Recently, he told me they are moving forward towards marriage. (I can’t tell you how much I rejoiced at the news!)

Results

After 12 coaching sessions, my client Mike said:

“The coaching process has helped me to gain confidence in my values and beliefs as an expression of who I am in Christ. Instead of taking for granted the opinions, practices and beliefs of the ‘real world’ as gospel, I’ve learned to accept myself as Christ has accepted me and to live and act out of that identity instead of constantly adapting it to please others. This has made a remarkable difference in both relationships and business because it lets me show up authentically and graciously as a way to love others instead of needing the validation of others.”

Isn’t that amazing?

For me, it is — and it’s what makes my work and my life meaningful and joyful.

And I know God is glad as well to see His children growing in confidence and living the life He designed for them.

If you are wondering whether you might also benefit from my encouragement and support, use the button below to schedule a 30-minute free breakthrough call. This call will help you have a breakthrough in your mindset and also give us the opportunity to know each other so we can both decide whether we are a good fit to work together.