Meet Your Guide to Personal Growth
Real-world tools and stories to help you thrive - one episode at a time.
My Life & Coaching Philosophy
My background is psychology, and my passion is personal growth.
Throughout my career, I’ve strived to better understand the systems, social constructs, and cultural structures that influence our behaviors. Life can feel like a river flowing around us, pushing us in one direction or the next.
If we build the skills to understand why the river flows the way it does, we gain the power to decide when to embrace it, redirect it, or even swim upstream. As a coach, I will never tell you where to go next. Instead, we’ll uncover the river’s hidden influences together so that the direction you choose is grounded in your own wisdom.
People Grow From Experience
When I was first getting started, I learned two things very quickly: 1. Formalized learning is a foundation on which we’re meant to build, and 2. Personal growth is wildly transferable.
During my time as a student worker at Louisiana State University, I facilitated partnerships as part of the university’s Center for Community Engagement, Learning, and Leadership (CCELL). I saw firsthand how volunteering in the local community could provide an intentional space for students to learn new skills, experience diverse perspectives, and actively investigate career paths they might not have considered otherwise. Service-learning provided a playground for students to transform their classroom knowledge into practice, and accelerate their professional growth.
After I graduated with my degree in psychology, I took that service-learning experience a step further by volunteering with AmeriCorps’ National Civilian Community Corps. There, I traveled the country with a team of twelve young adults, providing support for short-term projects across a wide range of disciplines – from disaster response to education to community gardening and land preservation. There hasn’t been a day in my professional career since then that I haven’t relied on the skills I learned during that year-long heat experience.
Redirecting Can Feel Like a Stall
After experiencing such a wide range of ways to “get things done” (AmeriCorps pledge), I began to wonder how I could improve the way humans get things done together. A friend who was pursuing her Master’s degree in Industrial/Organizational Psychology pointed out that some of the most impactful human collaboration occurs in… well, industries and organizations. And there it was – my next step. I moved to Fairfax, Virginia, right outside of Washington D.C., to pursue my I/O degree at George Mason University.
During my time in the D.C. area, I learned (and re-learned) that there was no such thing as having “made it.” I thought for sure that because I’d found a career that fit so well with the problems I’d always wanted to solve, I would be able to coast. My learning was complete. The solutions would come to me. Every next step I needed to take in my life would be clear. Right?
Wrong.
After landing my first job out of graduate school, I had a hard time grappling with what I thought was success. The work environment was incompatible with my personal goals and values, and it was slowly crushing me. One pandemic later, and I was done. I desperately needed to redirect, but I didn’t know where to start.
It was at that point that my therapist casually mentioned to me that she was also (drumroll please) a coach. I had no idea what that meant – what to ask for or what to expect – but I understood that I needed to move toward a life that aligned better with who I wanted to be. She explained that she could help me break down my next steps.
I’d already had enough of the heat. It was time to get out of the kitchen.
Align What You Do With Who You Want to Be
I got a new job. I moved closer to home. And most importantly, I reacquainted myself with the things I care most about by either making them part of my work or holding stronger boundaries so that they fit into my life.
The first step in making this possible was finding a job that fit what I needed from work, not what I’d once assumed would make me feel successful.
My coach helped me prioritize my values by encouraging me to consider not just the job itself but the flexibility it would provide me to do what I wanted through it and outside of it.
In the organizational sciences, we call this job crafting. It’s the intentional design of your time, tasks, and talent in accordance with both your needs and goals. People who do this tend to be more satisfied with their jobs and their lives. It’s certainly been true for me, and it can be for you too.
We Create the World We Want to Live In
Ten years ago, the young woman who joined AmeriCorps was also anxiously watching the 2016 Presidential election cycle unfold, and she struggled to find ways her voice and actions would make a difference. Even now, I spend a lot of time grappling with my own agency, and helping people understand theirs. I’ve learned from my own mentors, sponsors, and heroes that everything we do is a step in the direction of a world we’re all actively creating.
My motivation in each coaching encounter is to connect my clients to ideas, resources, and support systems that provide clarity on their own ability to make an impact. I engage in continuous learning through my professional role as an applied researcher at the Center for Creative Leadership. I also pursue opportunities to steep myself in knowledge from communities that don’t reflect my area of expertise, like those being generated through Doughnut Economics Action Lab.
The key to change isn’t just knowledge; it’s motivation. Through our work together, we’ll form long-term habits that support the psychological resources you need to continue reaching for your goals, especially when it seems like the world is falling down around you. We do this inner work in the hopes that one day, through our collective efforts as humans, it won’t be anymore.