My Coaching Journey
Coaching isn't just a strategy I advocate, it's a practice that has shaped me. The ideas I share here come from lived experience: from moments of doubt and discovery, and from learning what it means to lead with questions, not answers. This is how my journey with coaching began.
My journey into coaching began not with a grand plan, but with a question: How can I support others without losing myself in the process? As a teacher and leader, I was constantly striving to do more, help more, fix more. But there came a point when I realised that pouring from an empty cup wasn’t sustainable, for me or the people I cared about.
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It was during my training with Persyou, on their Fundamental Coaching Programme, that things began to shift. At the time, I was navigating a period of professional self-doubt. I found myself frequently seeking reassurance, worrying that if I didn’t have the answers, I was somehow failing. Coaching gave me a new lens, not just for helping others, but for holding myself differently. I discovered that I didn’t need to prove my worth by knowing everything. I could create space instead for reflection, for listening, for trust.
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Learning how to self-coach was a turning point. It gave me tools to navigate the inner critic and reconnect with my purpose. It didn’t quiet the doubts entirely, but it gave me a way to meet them with compassion and curiosity. Through regular reflection, often just a few honest questions each week, I began to reclaim a sense of agency and self-belief. And with that came a quieter kind of confidence.
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As my practice deepened, so did my understanding of coaching as a cultural force. This wasn’t just about one-to-one conversations or performance reviews, it was about reimagining the dynamics of education. I started embedding coaching principles into everything: how I led my department, how I taught in the classroom, how I approached curriculum design, staff development, even strategic planning. It was at this time that I was fortunate to be asked lead on our whole school coaching culture initiative.
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The more I leaned into coaching, the more I saw it as a philosophy of education, not about fixing deficits, but about noticing brilliance. About believing that every student and every colleague has the capacity to grow when the right questions are asked and the right conditions are created.
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Today, coaching is the thread that runs through all that I do. It’s in how I teach, lead, parent, and write. It’s what allows me to be both ambitious and kind, both strategic and human. And as I continue to grow, I remain convinced of one thing: coaching doesn’t just change people, it changes cultures.
