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About Me

Hi, I’m Helen.
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I’m a coach, facilitator, leadership specialist and, like pretty much everyone I know, a human being figuring things out as I go.

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I’ve spent more than twenty years working with people around leadership, development, change and the wonderfully complicated business of being human.

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I’ve coached senior leaders, executives and teams across technology, healthcare, finance, automotive, education, recruitment and the public and non-profit sectors.

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I’ve worked with people stepping into bigger leadership roles, navigating organisational change, dealing with difficult relationships, building confidence and influence, making complex decisions and trying to lead well when there isn’t an obvious answer.

 

But somewhere along the way, I became increasingly interested in a different kind of question.

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What happens when the life you’ve built no longer quite fits?

 

Not because everything has gone wrong.

Quite the opposite.

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Sometimes you’ve done everything you’re supposed to do. You’ve built the career. Raised the family. Created the home. Achieved the things you once wanted. And then, somewhere in the middle of it all, you realise you’re asking a different question.

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What now?

 

I’ve become fascinated by these moments of transition — the spaces between one version of life and another. The bit where you know something has changed but don’t yet know what it means. The bit where the old identity is becoming uncomfortable, but the new one hasn’t arrived. The season where you desperately want a plan because not knowing feels so bloody uncomfortable.

 

I know this territory personally.

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I’ve experienced the unraveling of things I once thought were certain. I’ve changed direction, questioned long-held beliefs, navigated divorce, watched my children grow up and leave home, and found myself standing in the middle of my own next chapter without a particularly clear map for how to get there.

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And I’m learning, rather reluctantly at times, that not knowing isn’t necessarily a problem to solve.

Sometimes it’s where the interesting stuff begins.

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That’s a big part of what brought me to liminality — the threshold between what has been and what is yet to become.

It’s also at the heart of the coaching I provide. 

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Because I don’t think we need more people telling us exactly how to live. I think we need more spaces where we can slow down enough to hear ourselves think.

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Where we can question the rules we’ve inherited. Where we can explore who we’re becoming. Where we can be honest about what isn’t working without immediately having to know what comes next. And where change doesn’t have to mean blowing everything up.

 

Sometimes it means staying.

Sometimes it means leaving.

Sometimes it means changing the way you show up.

Sometimes it means giving yourself permission to want something different.

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My role isn’t to tell you which one it is. It’s to help you discover it.

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How I work

 

My coaching is grounded in the principles of Co-Active coaching and the ICF, alongside years of experience in leadership development, organisational and team coaching, psychology, personality work and human development. But you won’t find me sitting there with a clipboard and a ten-step plan for your life. I’m curious. I’m direct when it matters. I’m interested in what’s underneath the obvious answer. I’ll challenge you when I think there’s something worth looking at, and I’ll sit with you in the uncertainty when there isn’t an answer yet.

 

There will probably be laughter.

There may be some uncomfortable moments.

There will definitely be questions.

And there will be space for you to work things out in a way that is your own.

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Because ultimately, I don’t think coaching is about becoming a better version of the person you already know how to be.

It’s about becoming more fully yourself. And having the courage to find out what that might mean.

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Welcome to the Unknown.

I’m glad you’re here.

Helen x

BA(Ed) QTS

CPCC Certified, PCC accredited

Trained through CTI and ORSC

ICF accredited

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© 2022 Helen Cottee Coaching

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