Kellie Hick - Managing your coaching studies, your job and your daily responsibilities

Studying for a new diploma and preparing for a career change can be exciting yet challenging, especially when balancing a full-time job and other daily responsibilities. Many have families to take care of, caring for children, for teenagers, for the elderly or even some combination of this.   While studying, Kellie Hick balanced her life as a full-time HR professional, planning a wedding, prioritising exercise and learning French! 

“I first experienced coaching about 10 years ago when I was made redundant as one of my roles. And as part of that package, I was lucky enough to have some coaching offered to me and I just fell in love from the very first session.

It was amazing for me to be able to have the space of the capacity to put my thoughts down and really understand what was challenging me and what was in my way but where I wanted to get to as well. And so, I knew from that point that coaching would be a big part of my career.

But at that time, I chose to further my career in HR because I wanted to get a little bit more experience of working with different types of leaders and different types of organisations. And so I started my coaching journey about 18 months ago and I absolutely love it.

I find that I'm learning so much, I'm growing, and in the last 18 months my self-awareness has totally changed.”

So how did Kellie manage her coaching studies around her life, full-time job and other responsibilities?

Kellie focuses on 4 key habits:

1. Planning the week: set goals and schedule time for your priorities

“I set myself objectives of what I want to achieve, I make sure that I have enough time and place to do those, and I carve out time between my full-time role, my coaching, and then what I want to do for exercise or downtime and things that I really enjoy as well.

When I’m planning my week, I think it’s important to separate all of those elements so that I know that I have that balance.”

2. Set up visual reminders

“I have a board that sits around my laptop in a space that I work.   So, on one side, I have my goals and my vision of where I want to be.  Across the top, so directly in front of me, I have my overall vision of what the future holds for me. Then down, the left-hand side, I always have the things that I have achieved because I think it’s just so important to recognise the successes that we’ve had, recognise the achievements that we had no matter how big or small, and make sure we are celebrating those."

Note – if you’re more of an auditory or kinaesthetic learner, how can you make this tip work for you? Here are some ideas to consider:

• You might want to listen to a motivational audiobook for 10 minutes every day or create a playlist that reminds you of your goals and dreams.
• Experiment with movement and incorporate it into your routine, maybe through painting, dancing, yoga or even sports.
• Try creating a ‘living board’ with things that you can touch to remind yourself every day of all the things you have achieved and what you’re working towards.

3. Set a timer

“This is really important for me personally, that I get really wrapped up in my studies, just because I genuinely enjoy them. But sometimes I’ll set myself a timer and say that I'm now going to focus 40 minutes on a certain piece of reading or a certain piece of research.   Plus, I really understand what I want to achieve during that time. And by setting myself up, carving that time allows me to plan for the rest of my evening, or the rest of my weekend as well and it gives me a real focus on what I want to achieve during that time.”

4. Find some study buddies

“I do have two furry friends, my cats, who will come and sit with me. But actually, it's really important to connect with other coaches, connect with maybe people who are doing the same course, or are interested in similar things as you, and find those study buddies, people that you can bounce ideas off of. Studying as an adult has taught me a lot about myself - my self-awareness, my resilience and how I actually balance a full-time job, studying and the rest of the responsibilities that we often have within life.

One of the things that was on my mind a lot was what my niche would be. And I know that as coaches we talk about this a lot, it’s something that is very important to us. I found that my practice clients were invaluable for this. I learned what I really enjoyed through coaching, what I was passionate about, and that led me to my niche. So very much listening to myself as part of this process.   My niche is career coaching and leadership coaching which pairs nicely with what I do as part of my role in HR and the prior experience that I’ve had within this.  My plan moving forward when I finish my studies is to set up my own practice around coaching and go into to the world to help people move forward, unblock their barriers and create the lives that they really want. It’s what I’m truly passionate about and it’s something that I'm really excited about and can't wait to be doing!”

Now it's your turn…  What are your study habits and how do you manage multiple responsibilities? 

We'd love you to share them on the social post that accompanied this blog so as a coaching community we can all learn from each other!

Start your Coaching journey?

If you're interested in finding out more about life coaching and training to become a coach, just like Kellie did, start by joining us in our free Introduction to Life Coaching webinar - choose from available dates here.