What led me to become a coach?
Throughout my career I have always worked with people. I love being person focused; really getting to know someone individually to make a positive change. Before I started Coaching with Alicia Tetley, I worked for over eight years within the field of acute mental health. I supported people to make small changes to help them to feel good about themselves; to improve their mood and their self worth.
I was made redundant due to NHS cuts and really had to assess what I am passionate about. I realised that my love for exercise and its benefits had increasingly become part of my mental health work. Exercise isn’t something that has always been in my life and I was never a sporty child. However, for the last five years it has been a constant. As most people do, I initially started out to lose weight and I thought exercise was about changing what you look like. But the feeling of challenging my body, feeling energised and improving my physical health took over and became my drive to continue.
I believe through the impact of diet culture we have such a focus on what we look like, and the numbers on the scales, that the true benefits of exercise have been lost. This leads us to feel shame around what our bodies look like, and feel guilty for the food we eat. This is what has led me to become a qualified Personal Trainer, to coach people to unlock the positive impact exercise can have, utilising all of my experience working in mental health on mindset and sustainable change.
My ethos is about coaching people to find their own true balance between exercise, health and wellbeing, that is actually sustainable in real life.
