I Have the Title of ‘Coach’… But That’s Only Part of the Story
I have the title of Coach.
The Mind Coach, actually.
And I’m very happy with it.
But the truth is, the word coach only tells you a small part of what I actually do.
Because when someone sits opposite me, I’m not simply listening to where they want to go next and helping them create an action plan to get there.
I’m curious about something else too.
What might be stopping them from getting there?
And very often, the answer isn’t sitting neatly in their conscious mind.
It’s somewhere underneath.
The toolkit you don’t necessarily see
Over the past 30+ years, I’ve skill-stacked.
And skill-stacked.
And then skill-stacked some more.
My rather enormous toolkit now includes:
- Clinical hypnotherapy
- NLP
- EMDR
- Inner-child work
- Emotional intelligence
- Timeline work
- Mindset and behavioural change
- And quite a few other tools I’d need another blog to explain!
I don’t particularly promote the therapeutic side of my work.
But it absolutely informs the way I work.
Because human beings are complicated.
We don’t arrive in adulthood as a lovely, clean sheet of paper.
We arrive carrying experiences.
Messages.
Memories.
Beliefs.
Things people said to us.
Things people did to us.
Things we decided about ourselves when we were far too young to understand what was really happening.
And sometimes those experiences continue to influence the way we think, feel, react, love, lead and live today.
Your unconscious mind has a very long memory.
You might consciously be saying:
“I want the promotion.”
While another part of you is whispering:
Don’t get too visible.
You might consciously want a wonderful relationship.
While somewhere underneath sits:
People leave.
You might desperately want to slow down.
Yet something inside you insists:
If I stop achieving, I’m not enough.
That’s why simply telling ourselves to “think positively” isn’t always enough.
The conscious mind can make a fabulous PowerPoint presentation about why everything is absolutely fine.
Meanwhile, the unconscious mind may be running a completely different programme.
And guess which one tends to show up when we’re triggered?
Sometimes we have to look backwards to move forwards.
People sometimes misunderstand work involving the past.
They think it means spending years digging around in everything that has ever happened to you.
That’s not my philosophy.
I’m interested in the past when the past is interfering with your present.
Abuse can take many forms.
Trauma can take many forms.
Addiction can take many forms.
And painful experiences don’t always arrive wearing a huge sign saying TRAUMA.
Sometimes they look like rejection.
Humiliation.
Being bullied.
Never feeling good enough.
Living with unpredictability.
Having to grow up too quickly.
Learning that love had to be earned.
Being repeatedly criticised.
Feeling unseen.
Or discovering very early in life that being quiet, perfect, useful, funny, successful or invisible helped keep you safe.
Those strategies may have served you beautifully once.
But what protected you at 10 can imprison you at 40, 50 or 60.
The past can become an anchor.
Imagine trying to sail your boat towards this extraordinary future you’ve created in your mind…
…but the anchor is still sitting firmly on the seabed.
You can buy a bigger sail.
Employ more people.
Set bigger goals.
Read another book.
Attend another leadership programme.
Work harder.
Manifest harder.
Put another vision board on the wall.
But eventually you might need to ask:
What am I still anchored to?
Because sometimes the next level isn’t about adding something new.
It’s about releasing something old.
An old belief.
An old identity.
An old fear.
An old story about who you are and what you’re capable of.
You don’t need to live there.
This is important.
I don’t believe we need to endlessly revisit our past.
Quite the opposite.
My work is about helping people become more present and create a future that genuinely excites them.
But sometimes, to do that, we need to understand why a certain situation still has such an emotional charge.
Why that comment from the boss ruins your entire weekend.
Why criticism feels like rejection.
Why you sabotage yourself just as things start going well.
Why you keep choosing the same relationship wearing a different pair of shoes.
Why being successful still doesn’t feel like enough.
Awareness gives us choice.
And choice gives us freedom.
You cannot change what happened.
But you can change the meaning you continue to give it, the patterns you continue to repeat and the amount of your precious energy you allow it to consume.
Maybe “coach” is simply the easiest title.
So yes.
I have the title of Coach.
But behind that title sits more than 30 years of learning, training, curiosity, experience and working with human beings.
I don’t just want to know:
Where do you want to go?
I’m also curious about:
What might be stopping you?
Because your past may have shaped you.
It may explain some of your patterns.
It may even have protected you for a very long time.
But it doesn’t have to keep anchoring you there.
You have a NOW to live.
And a future still waiting to be created.
Maryism:
Your past can explain you without being allowed to define you.
If something in this resonated, I’d love to hear from you. Follow me on Instagram at @marybarrettglobal for more Maryisms and mindset insights, or get in touch to book a conversation.
