The Path Was Never Straight
Last week, within five minutes of completing my exam, an email landed in my inbox.
I'd passed. 🎉
Associate Certified Coach (ACC) - internationally credentialed through the International Coach Federation (ICF), the global gold standard for professional coaching.
The relief was immediate. No waiting on tenterhooks. No days of second-guessing. Just a quiet satisfaction that moved through my body slowly, like something finally settling.
And then, almost quietly, I could hear my inner voice: You can do hard things. Great things happen on the other side of discomfort.
This moment was four years in the making. Not four years of study, to be clear. The coaching education programme itself was four months. Intense, demanding, two x two-hour online sessions every week, peer coaching, mentoring, someone watching me fumble through conversations in real time and reflecting it back to me honestly.
Halfway through that programme, I lost my mum.
I won't pretend I took two weeks and came back strong. I was ready to walk away entirely. The programme, the credential, all of it. None of it felt like it mattered.
But I knew my mum. And I knew she wouldn't have wanted that for me.
So I came back. Not with momentum. Just with a decision.
After graduating, I needed 100 coaching hours to qualify for the exam. That took time. Life kept happening. When I finally reached 100 hours in September 2025 and applied to sit the exam, I asked for three extensions on my date. Each time, I genuinely wasn't sure I'd be ready by the next one.
My cognitive function was still in recovery. Some days I'd read the same paragraph three or four times before it landed.
Preparation for the exam was slow and deliberate. A fellow coach shared a GPT prompt that generated simulated exam questions. I worked through a few each day, questions that got progressively harder, building something I hadn't felt in a long time.
C o n f i d e n c e.
But it was what I did with my body and my mind before that exam that I want to talk about.
I was anxious. Genuinely worried that my nervous system would blank under pressure. So I prepared differently. I worked on phrases, not as affirmations, but as anchors:
I am well prepared.
There is no rush.
You can only do your best today.
If your best today isn't enough, there is always another day.
This isn't the end of the world.
I said those things not because they felt completely true, but because I needed something solid to stand on when the familiar confidence wasn't available.
Walking into that exam I flagged what I wasn't sure of and came back to it. Read some questions three times. Didn't fight it. Accepted that this was simply where I was.
And I walked out with a pass.
Here's what I know now: the journey to a goal is never a straight line. It doesn't run on motivation and determination alone. It requires you to lead yourself, especially when the version of you that shows up isn't the version you planned on.
That's what got me through. Not grit. Self-leadership.
And it's exactly what I want to explore with you.
That's why I've created the Behind the Shift Coaching Experience.
A 4-session coaching container designed to help you examine and shift the thoughts, beliefs, and patterns shaping how you lead your business right now.
Not how you should lead. How you actually lead.
You bring what's real. We look at what's underneath it. You leave each session with greater clarity on how to move forward.
The Introductory offer for you is: $600 (usually $750) with code SHIFT600.
👉 Learn more and book here
Your Momentum Shift for today Reader
🧠 THINK (mindset shift)
The path to your goal will ask more of you than preparation. It will ask you to lead yourself through the parts you didn't plan for.
💡 DO (practical action)
Build your anchors before you need them. Know what you'll say to yourself when confidence isn't available.
🚀 HAVE (expected results)
A version of you that can show up and complete things, even when you're not at your best.
💬 Your Turn
Where in your business are you still waiting to feel ready before you move?
If you're ready to uncover what's beneath the waiting, I invite you to give yourself the gift of coaching.
Behind the Shift Coaching Experience. Four sessions. Your real stuff. Real movement.
👉 Grab your spot here and use code SHIFT600 to access the introductory rate.
💛 Sandra
