Turning intention into reality: The power of coaching to make clarity, focus and lasting change easier
- Lorna Thomas
- Mar 10
- 5 min read
Julie Norburn is a multiple award-winning businesswoman who founded and runs a successful charity, Art4Space, as well as her own business, Creative Chance. Julie is a clear-thinking and strategic creative leader with a passion and drive for making a difference, who gets results.
At the start of 2024, Julie set her new intentions for the year ahead and decided that she needed a coach. Here she talks about the power of coaching and the support she wanted to maintain focus, stay accountable, and ensure she was giving the right amount of energy to both her charity and her business.
“Lorna’s online messaging about being a busy creative leader, needing more time to reflect and look after myself, as well as the business, resonated with what I needed. I thought it would be helpful to get a coach to help me be accountable and set some targets month-by-month for my own business.
I'm very time bounded, and I love working to time constraints, so I set myself a limit of 12-months for the coaching and had a real focus about what I wanted to get out of it.
And my expectations were high about what this could help me achieve, both because my time is limited, and because it was an investment.”
Julie approached coaching with clear goals, and she was looking for structured guidance to ensure she followed through on her intentions...
“My expectations were met, obviously, but it was about someone else getting inside my life and brain and helping me to really come up with proper action steps, and then being assertive and saying, “Well, actually, when we meet up next month, I really want to see this and that..."
I have been too much self-led and I could have read a book and set my own targets, but given my other ongoing responsibilities, they wouldn't have happened without Lorna making me accountable.”
One of the pivotal moments in Julie’s coaching experience was the deep dive into her core values. Initially sceptical, she soon realised how powerful this work would be for aligning her personal and professional life...
“After a few sessions, Lorna said, “We need to do some values work, because everything you're talking about will be underpinned by your core values.” I've never done values work before, and I'll be really honest, I didn’t really see the relevance and I was like, “Oh, let me just get these values done and dusted.”
But in fact, I found it fascinating. They are really authentic and powerful values, and I now find them very useful. I’ve aligned my personal values to my business values and to the charity values.
Knowing my core values cuts out all the fluff and mess. I can just look at one of those core values words, and I think it gives weight to my self-worth.”
Through the values work, Julie also gained clarity on setting boundaries, something she had struggled with due to the high demands of her role and her natural tendency to want to help others...
“I have also found my values very helpful in boundary setting... For example, ‘ease’ is one of my core values. I am faced with many demands in what I do and I'm a people pleaser, thinking I have to fix everything. And actually, by applying my core value of ease, I am clearer about what I don’t need to do, and I've stopped being self-sacrificing because I’m clearer about my self-worth, and I don’t have to justify who I am or what I'm doing. There's got to be an ease to the way I do business.
I get my boundaries tested all the time. I am better thanks to the work we did in understanding why I need them and why I need to put myself first. It's not a tick box and there’s always work to be done, but I'm learning.
I have become more deliberate in what I'm giving my business and what I'm giving the charity. I’ll take myself away and spend five hours in a café or a co-working space and turn off notifications. Going with an understanding of the importance of answering my own needs means I have no guilt about what else I’m not doing and no regrets.”
With stronger boundaries in place and a renewed focus on her own priorities, Julie saw tangible results. One of the most exciting milestones was attracting interest from a publisher for her book...
“Carving this important time out for my own work has meant I've got a publisher interested in my book.
This achievement is also the result of the work we did on testing my self-imposed upper limits and challenging my default belief of "I'm not good enough", which meant that when I went in for the meeting with the potential publisher of my book, I was able to really challenge the "Exactly who the hell do think I am?" thinking and able to see it and deal with it in a very calm way.
I'm a working-class lass from a mining community and who do I think I am to be able to achieve this? It is such a destructive way to think. This is partly why the work I do with the charity is to tackle those social divides and the inequalities and looking after the underdog. However, it’s different, and more difficult, to feel so empowered at a personal level, but it's getting better.”
Reflecting on her experience, Julie is clear about the value of investing in coaching and the difference it has made in her life and work...
“Investing in coaching was like making a commitment to myself, and I put the effort in.
It was absolutely value for money and worthwhile and Lorna didn’t just offer the coaching sessions, but she also sent me links and homework and accountability and virtual cuppas and useful small group workshops which were really brilliant.”
Julie also emphasises the importance of working with a coach who truly listens and understands what’s needed to create real change...
“Lorna really gets to the core of what you really need with good listening. If you're going round in circles with the same frustrations in life, you can really get those moving with Lorna.
Lorna is sensitive and empathic and in tune with people. She creates a genuine connection and a trusting relationship. I had to give a lot of myself, and you can only do that if you feel safe with someone.”
To find out more about the power of coaching and how Lorna Thomas / Be The Best You In Business coaching and mentoring could support you to increase your confidence and grow your business with clarity, focus and control, book a call...