Redefining success for a better work-life balance

The Challenge

Due to a combination of external events and inner longings, I started looking for new challenges in my personal and professional life. For over 25 years, I had worked for large corporations and lived in a big city. Most of my friends and acquaintances were professionals in related industries, which led to unconscious but constant peer pressure.  The city itself, so entrenched in ambitions of wealth and success, demanded an incessantly hectic lifestyle, with no boundaries between work and personal life. It was hard to break such an established – almost ‘natural’ – way of living and working after so many years.

The Objective

I wanted to explore new challenges that would allow me to balance my personal aspirations and dreams with my professional skills, while also meeting my financial needs.

The Outcome

After the coaching experience, I decided to move to a relatively remote Mediterranean island and work more autonomously within a small organisation. In my first year, this new professional arrangement resulted in greater economic rewards and much less stress than in my previous job. It also gave me more time to revive my personal interests, which I had neglected during my corporate career.

The Client’s Experience

Kostis helped me to appraise my personal and professional attributes and abilities more critically. Through discussions about my previous jobs and professional successes, as well as my future ambitions and dreams, Kostis was able to stimulate awareness of my professional achievements and enhance my self-belief. Through the coaching process, I gained a clearer appreciation of my skills, I became more confident that I could survive outside the traditional corporate environment, and I realized more clearly the ambitions, paths, and new challenges that I wanted to pursue.

I started the journey from a position of personal weakness and low morale. Peer pressure and the ‘rat race’ mentality had determined my ambitions and fears. I moved to a clearer understanding of what I had achieved in my professional life and how I could improve it further. I now know what I WANT TO do and what I do not want TO DO professionally.  This has provided me with critical tools to assess future professional opportunities.

I really appreciated Kostis’ ability to stimulate my awareness through a relaxed but thorough and inspiring dialogue. He was able to single out (and revisit in greater depth in subsequent discussions) the most important underlying threads in my words and thoughts.  It has been a very enlightening and inspiring journey, which has made me more confident and comfortable in making drastic changes to improve my life.