Helping Women Find Purpose and Fulfillment in their Career

“Are you stuck in your career and don’t know how to make a change?”

“Are you a business that wants to develop and support your female talent?”

Leading Career and Confidence Coach Nicola McGuinness is here to help you.

As the ‘great resignation’ continues its momentum, Nicola counts herself as someone who also took stock, re-evaluated her future and decided that staying stuck in a job she had long outgrown for a public sector pension wasn’t enough to keep her fulfilled for the next 20+ years.

All too often in life we hold ourselves back from being who we are meant to be. As a Career and Confidence Coach Nicola see’s this time and time again, amazing women getting to a certain point in their career and then getting stuck.

“It’s easy to find lots of excuses for not doing, being and having what we want in our lives. Women tend to have that external focus on EVERYONE else – almost to the point of martyrdom.  They give up on their dreams and live through their ambitions for their partners, families and children, sacrificing their own fulfilment” said Nicola.

Typically, we blame others for the circumstances we find ourselves in when we have the attitude that life happens to us and not for us. However, we need look no further than the mirror to discover what is holding us back.

When Nicola had that defining moment of “no-one’s going to change my life for me, I have to do something to make things happen” she still didn’t know what she needed to do.  That’s when she turned to a Coach for the help and support required to get her to take action to get her ‘unstuck’.

Of engaging with a Coach, Nicola said, “back then, I had a mis-guided notion that coaches were for the high-level executives of the corporate world and in typical (often female) fashion thought “who am I to have a coach?”.  But my views have long since changed and given how my life has transformed through this experience, I vehemently believe that everyone needs a coach!”

“My coach helped me get to know myself again, to see I was more than my roles as wife, mummy and public sector worker; to know and appreciate all my strengths and skills and to realise that my limiting beliefs were the barrier to change. That I was holding myself back because I didn’t feel good enough, experienced enough or confident enough to do anything past what I was stuck doing”.

With bolstered confidence and seeking an outlet for her lack of fulfilment, Nicola founded the Lean In Newry Network where she helps women achieve their ambitions and helps companies build inclusive workplaces.  Through this work she found her true purpose and passion; working with women who were taking control of their career, pushing back against ‘playing small’, making an impact and doing what they really wanted to do and then ultimately creating a more diverse and balanced work environment.  In a very short period of time the network grew to now having 400+ members.

Nicola became the heroine of her own story.  During Covid she achieved her coaching qualification and bit by bit began to carve out a space in the coaching industry that now allows her to work with women who are in the same place she was; frustrated with where they are in their career, knowing they are capable of much more but lacking the confidence, self-belief and know-how to make change happen.

As a mother of 4 children and in her late 40’s, her decision to leave a steady, pensionable and secure career of 20+ years was the biggest and scariest decision she had ever made, yet one she is the proudest of.  “I hope I am setting an example to not only the women I work with but to my children too; that you are only given one life, it is your duty to live it with purpose, passion and joy.  I walk the talk and that is what I want to inspire in my clients and those around me”.

“On the other side of fear is who we truly are, yet our biggest achievements in life are never accomplished alone.  This is why, more often than not we need to seek outside help to get us ‘out of our funk’ and start to take action to create a life worth living for”.

Nicola’s work allows her to create and deliver bespoke coaching programmes for females within corporates – to allow their female talent to gain the confidence to challenge bias, self-promote and thrive within their organisation and help create a more inclusive and gender balanced workplace.

On an individual level, Nicola works with women through one to one coaching and in her group coaching programme ‘Believe to Achieve’, where her clients are making career pivots, career changes and setting up their own businesses all with her support and encouragement.

For those who fear and dread interviews, Nicola’s very popular Confidence Boosting Power Hour has helped numerous clients do their best interview ever and instilled in them the belief that they are destined for success.

Nicola has also delivered many motivational talks across the globe on such subjects as leadership, growing confidence, resilience, self-compassion, self-esteem/self-belief, self-promotion, procrastination, setting boundaries and motivation (to name a few!)

On talking about her ‘why’, Nicola’s passion is inspiring, her mission is to show women that they have the ability to take action, to make the change required to live a life full of joy and achievement and create an impact thereby leaving a legacy they are proud of.

Nicola shares her top three things we can all do to improve our confidence and self-belief:

1. Keep a success diary, have it by your bed and begin to build a habit of placing an entry in each night before bed. There will always be a success in everyday, it doesn’t have to be momentous.  Overtime you can then track how far you have come and learn to recognise how amazing you actually are.
2. Begin to self-promote. This is one of my favourite topics.  We wrongly assume that our hard work and accomplishments will get recognised. However, the important and influential people are too busy to come to you to find out what you are up to. Your self-promoting peers are twice as likely to get a promotion, even if they are less competent! Time to take action, small steps; start to post and comment on LinkedIn talking about your achievements, plan a conversation with your manager/CEO to inform them of what you are doing or have achieved.
3. Keep a diary for a week on what you are saying to yourself (carry it around with you). You will see some things repeated on a loop and perhaps see patterns.  Once you are now aware of your inner critic, it’s time to question the validity of and the evidence of what it is saying because 99% of the time it’s not true!

To find out more about Nicola and how she can help you and your organisation visit her on: www.nicolamcguinnesscoaching.com and follow her on all the social media platforms below.