Article RéalISE Coaching EN - Virginie Jullien

Work-life balance: what if it wasn’t just a question of time? – Article

We often talk about work-life balance, but what is it really?

During group discussions with my clients, one common point emerged: for them, private-pro balance is above all the ability to be fully present in what you’re doing, whether at work or at home.

In other words: being mentally and emotionally where you’re supposed to be, so that one area doesn’t encroach on the other.

In the end, this balance is above all linked to our ability to live in the present moment.

A personal, shifting and constantly evolving balance

Clearly, this balance is neither rigid nor set in stone:
it evolves according to our stage of life, our energy, our priorities, the seasons…

We don’t have the same needs when we leave school, when we become parents or when the children leave home.
The energy we have when we’re 30 is not the same as when we’re 50.
Our priorities and needs change, and so does our balance.

The balance between work and life is therefore deeply personal.
There is no universal recipe: it is intimately linked to our values, our needs and our desires.
Some people love working and thrive at it; others need much more personal time.
Everyone has to find their own path.

Systemic and individual obstacles

Even with a clear definition of our balance, it is not always easy to achieve it, because of multiple constraints:

On a systemic level :

Restrictive working hours
Work-related travel
Workload
Family organisation (where women still often take the majority of the mental burden)

Teleworking can sometimes help… or, on the contrary, blur the boundaries even further.

On an individual level :

Perfectionism
Difficulty letting go
Difficulty saying no
Compulsive need for control and responsibility

Result: even with ‘reasonable’ working conditions, you can feel overwhelmed if you can’t mentally separate the two spheres.

Once again, staying in the present moment becomes a key lever.

A few concrete ways to rebalance your life

Of course, it’s not enough just to think about private-professional balance… It’s essential to make it a reality by taking action.

Here are some powerful levers:

Rethink your priorities
Prioritise the quality of time spent rather than the quantity
Agreeing to lower your demands
Learn to say no without feeling guilty
Delegate certain tasks
Letting go of what’s not essential
Take real time for yourself
Getting away from injunctions such as ‘I must’ or ‘I have to’.

Practical examples:

Practising cardiac coherence or meditation to get out of mental agitation
Stick to fixed working hours
Give the children household chores (setting and serving the table, putting away the washing, etc.)
Apply the 80/20 law (80% of the result comes from 20% of the effort): better done than perfect!
Don’t say ‘yes’ automatically: let your answer mature.
Take out a subscription to a sporting activity (a worthwhile investment!)
Find a buddy to motivate you to take care of yourself
Limit the amount of time you spend on your smartphone to avoid wasting unnecessary time and energy

The diary: an essential tool

To make it all happen, our diary is our best ally.

To plan :

Breaks from work
Time with friends
Sport sessions
Time for you, quite simply

Because if it’s not planned, it won’t get done.

A final word of advice: think small!

Don’t overload your diary with a thousand new resolutions.

When setting up these new habits, it’s a good idea to think small. If you go too fast, too hard, you run the risk of quickly running out of steam and giving up.

So start small:

3 × 5 minutes of cardiac coherence
10 minutes meditation
15 minutes of yoga, walking or just time for yourself

That’s 40 minutes that can transform your day… and your balance.

Where are you in your quest for work-life balance? What tips are working for you?

3 tips for finding a new job – Article

Looking for a new job is often a stressful time.

Researching, sending in CVs, interviews, waiting for replies…

All this takes time and energy, and can lead to moments of doubt.

So how do you get through this difficult time?

1. Avoid spreading yourself too thin

Prospecting everywhere means prospecting nowhere, and that can waste a lot of time and energy. It’s a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack.

So it’s vital to start by defining what you’re looking for. What profession, what industry, what skills, what region, what status…?

Some introspection may be necessary to redefine what you want (or, on the contrary, what you no longer want), what you like, what you are good at…

Here’s a useful exercise: make a timeline of your various professional experiences to assess what gave you energy (or not) and, above all, why.

This will help you clarify things and define the criteria for your job search, some of which may be non-negotiable.

Armed with this information, it will then be easier for you to embark on a search, to revise your CV in line with the skills you want to highlight and the new direction you want to take.

2. Communicate what you want

Looking for a job often involves sending a CV and covering letter for specific positions, or doing so spontaneously. But it’s important not to neglect other channels of communication.

Make yourself visible on online recruitment platforms and networks (especially LinkedIn), contact companies that interest you, recruitment companies, temporary employment agencies, headhunters, etc.

Also activate your personal network, whether professional or private. Talk about your career plans with people around you, former colleagues, friends, family… All these conversations are like seeds that you sow, and you’ll probably be surprised by the one that grows!

3. Stay authentic in interviews

During my coaching sessions, I notice that interviews are a source of a lot of stress, as if you were sitting an exam again. But an interview is a meeting, not a test! It’s a meeting so that the company can assess whether your profile is suitable, but also so that you can assess whether what the company is offering is right for you. So this is the time to be curious and ask questions. Before the interview, find out all you can about the company and the person you are talking to, and prepare a few questions. Above all, breathe and be yourself!

Good luck!

If you want to clarify your next career step before starting the job search, I can definitely help you. Here is a link to book your discovery coaching session.

5 tips for keeping your resolutions – Article

That’s it, it’s January! The month of good resolutions: get back into sport, go on a diet, stop smoking…

All these good intentions are usually made at the start of the year, only to disappear very quickly. Here are five tips for keeping them for longer.

It’s true that the start of a new year is a good time to take stock, start new things, put an end to bad habits… But as we all know, most good intentions fall by the wayside within a few days, or even a few weeks…

How does this happen? It’s very likely that not all the ingredients for a good resolution are present!

Five ingredients are needed to make them a reality: a clear intention, a clear why, an action plan, a way of measuring progress and, finally, a little courage and patience.

A precise intention

The statement ‘I should do more sport this year’ isn’t very precise. What’s more, all the ‘I should’, ‘it would be nice’, ‘I must’… are not intentions but sound more like obligations or distant dreams, far too vague for a good resolution. ‘I’m going to do 2 sessions of 1 hour’s sport a week’, for example, is already a more precise, defined and concrete intention.

A clear why

All that remains is to define a ‘why’, which should be more important than all the good reasons not to do it! ‘I know it’s good for me and gives me energy. I’m fitter and in a better mood with 2 hours of sport a day’. A clear ‘why’ helps you to stay on track and remember the reason for your good resolution, in case of doubt or slump.

A real action plan

Next, let’s not forget the action plan. We need to fit in the two hours of sport. On what day? What day? With whom? If you don’t plan it in your diary, it’s likely to fall by the wayside very quickly. So get organised to remove any constraints that might prevent you from taking action or allow you to find a good excuse not to keep your resolution.

A measure of your progress

It’s important to measure and/or visualise your progress so that you can see how far you’ve come, especially if the resolution takes time. Here are a few examples: the number of sports sessions per week, the weight on the scales or the family time planned over the month.

A little courage and patience

It’s not easy to change our habits. It takes repetition and therefore time. It takes a bit of effort at the beginning to get into action. It also takes a bit of courage to stick with it over the long term. Patience is often required to achieve the desired results. So give yourself time to achieve your good resolutions, without giving up at the first sign of trouble…

It’s up to you now !

And if you would like a little bit of support in keeping your 2025 resolutions, I can definitely help you. Here is a link to book your discovery coaching session.

5 “drivers” that hinder our personal and professional development… – Article

What is a “driver” ?

It is an order that we give ourselves or that is given to us.

It is little voice telling us ‘I must’ or ‘I have to”’.

We learn about these drivers most often in childhood.

Sometimes they are explicit instructions: ‘Hurry up, there’s no time!” So we quickly understand that it’s important to hurry.

At other times, they are small, seemingly unimportant remarks: ‘It’s a shame that…’. Nevertheless, we can deduce that we disappoint by making mistakes… So all we have to do is try to do things perfectly.

We may also impose certain drivers on ourselves. Faced with parents who seem to have a lot of problems, we unconsciously decide not to add to their worries and do everything we can to please them.

The drivers of transactional analysis

Transactional analysis, a branch of psychology developed by Eric Berne, has highlighted 5 drivers:

‘Be perfect’, “Be strong”, “Hurry up”, “Please me” and “Try hard”.

These drivers, even if unconscious, are very present in each of us and dictate many of our behaviors, often preventing us from taking the decisions or making the choices that would suit us best for fear that…

This is because each driver hides one or more fears, and obeying the driver is often easier than facing up to our fears.

Let’s explore each driver and its underlying fear together.

“Be perfect”

Few people want to be perfect, but the fear of doing things badly is so strong that the only way to avoid being judged or criticized is to do things perfectly or even to be perfect. This is how this driver and many perfectionists are born.

“Be strong”

The belief behind this driver is that showing your emotions is a sign of weakness. For fear of showing vulnerability, the opposite approach is to trust only in facts and rationality. So we show ourselves to be strong, listening only to our mind, ignoring our emotions and the signals sent by our body. A way of doing things that can ultimately lead to exhaustion…

“Hurry up!”

Don’t waste time, hurry up, always be in action, be useful, that’s what’s behind the driver ‘hurry up’.

So we get busy, we get things done… and we forget to settle down, to rest. Being busy, always doing something, shows how important you are! And it’s often a good excuse not to face up to ourselves for fear of what we might find.

“Try hard”

Underlying this driver is the belief that you have to suffer, deserve and struggle to succeed. If things are too easy, if they are pleasurable and not painful, then it’s not normal. So we fight, we make the effort again and again. Even if it’s difficult, we can’t give up, because stopping or changing our minds would make us people without values, without principles. So we keep trying, even if unfortunately it’s in the wrong direction.

“Please me” or “Be nice”

Or when in the end we always say yes, we always agree, we’re up for anything because we’re so afraid of saying no and not being a nice person. The fear of conflict leads us to accept situations that don’t suit us, that don’t respect our needs or our values, but the fear of offending is too strong.

This is how these drivers condition us to behaviors that may ultimately be far from what we would like to do or be.

How can we get rid of those drivers ?

It is definitely a process…

The good news is that becoming aware of these drivers is already a first step towards a better understanding of ourselves, our patterns and our repetitions.

The next step is to take action to deconstruct these little voices and free ourselves from them and this is exactly what I propose in coaching.

If you recognise yourself in any of these drivers and realise that it’s becoming very heavy to carry, I’d be happy to help you lift them.

Here is a link to book your discovery coaching session.

A career change, THE solution? – Article

the wonders and challenges of humanitarian life

These days, many people are thinking about a potential career change. The need for a change of environment, the desire for more freedom, less stress, more meaning are all running through them, and professional reconversion may seem like the ideal solution.

But what is the reality? Is career change always THE solution? Aren’t there other possibilities?

Let’s explore them together in this article!

Different scenarios

I coach many clients on the issue of career transition and I’ve come to realise that career change isn’t always the answer, and that there are different situations.

I’ll simplify them as follows;

I like my job, but not my environment
I no longer like my job or my environment
I don’t like my job any more, but my environment is fine
I like my job and my environment

At this stage, it’s probably not very clear… So let’s break down these different situations.

I like my job, but not my environment

People who are starting to think about a potential career change would first like to carry out a skills assessment to find out where they stand so that they can then explore the options available for a change of direction. We then work together to help them rediscover their personality, their talents and their desires.

It often happens that, along the way, they realise that their job actually suits them very well and that it’s another factor that’s causing them problems: the working environment. This environment weighs so heavily on them that they hastily conclude that it’s also the job that no longer suits them.

And that’s understandable, because the work environment can prevent people from fulfilling themselves in a job they love!

Too much work, too much stress, too little recognition, too little team spirit, too little support… all these systemic criteria can have a huge impact on the person, making them think that it’s the job itself that’s the problem. These are all factors that can lead to burnout.

The solution here is a change of context.

The aim of the support will be to restore the person’s energy and confidence so that they can review their CV and cover letter and find another environment in which they can once again flourish in their job.

I non longer like my job or my environment

Here, everything is called into question. The person no longer enjoys their job and therefore probably no longer recognises themselves in the values conveyed by their environment.

Either the person has simply moved on and is in a different phase of life with different needs, values and priorities. Or the person has never really enjoyed their job, but they were quite gifted or successful at it, so they never really asked themselves the question and just kept on going…

In this situation, coaching will help to give the person a new direction while exploring what assets they can use in their reorientation. Even if you completely change direction, there are always more skills to re-use than you initially think!

Questions such as these will surface:

Should I take a training course?
What status should I take in this new direction: employee, self-employed, hybrid situation combining the two
What’s the right timing for this change of direction?
What is the financial risk involved
What support is available for retraining?
…

The coaching journey will guide the person through all these stages and help them to take action by giving them confidence in their new diraction and their skillset.

I don’t like my job any more, but my environment is fine

In this situation, the person is staying because they like where they work. They’ve made friends and found a great place to work, but they don’t like their job any more.

We’re social animals, and a strong social bond can lead us to stay in a job that ultimately doesn’t fulfil our potential.

In this case, coaching will help the person to find a new direction and change environment without guilt or regret.

I lke my job and my environment

Er, so what’s the problem?

I can’t take it any more!

During some coaching sessions, my clients realise that it’s not the job or the working environment that’s the problem, but the way they approach their work and their work-life balance.

They’re generally perfectionists who put a lot of pressure on themselves, who want to do everything perfectly without asking for help and who, as a result, can no longer cope with managing their work/life to the beat of a drum because it exhausts them and ultimately ruins their enjoyment.

In this situation, professional retraining is not appropriate, as a change of environment would certainly bring about renewal, but the problems will reappear later… So it’s the relationship with work that needs to be deconstructed.

Coaching will help you to understand the underlying reasons for perfectionism and its impact, so that you can look at things from a different angle and rediscover lightness and pleasure at work and at home!

To conclude…

A career change is really great! It’s a new adventure, a new challenge, a way of reinventing yourself and your life. But it’s not for everyone and it’s not for every situation.

So career change needs to be approached with caution, because it takes time, money and energy! It’s not something you can do overnight, it’s something you have to think about and build on, and your ‘why’ has to be solid enough to cope with any difficulties that may arise.

So if you’re looking for a change, you should certainly explore the possibility of professional retraining, taking all the factors into account!

If you’re tempted by a career change and would like to explore it, I’d be delighted to discuss it with you! Book your free discovery session!

For more information on career change, click here!

The Wonders and Challenges of Humanitarian life – Article

If you work in the humanitarian field, you can be proud!

Proud of yourself, proud of your impact on the world, proud of making a difference for some of the most vulnerable people in the world every day!

You're making a contribution, and your work is probably a true vocation!

As part of your job, you also have the chance to discover the world.

You travel and live in countries other than your own, exposing you to other cultures, religions and ways of life. It's really wonderful!

However, being an aid worker isn't just a career, it's a choice that has an impact on your whole life, and this can sometimes be a challenge!

In this article, I'd like to highlight 3 important challenges I've observed in my coaching conversations with humanitarian workers.

Because being a humanitarian worker is so much more than a career choice!

The role of savior, precarious contracts and the gilded cage

Most people starting their careers in the humanitarian field have to accept temporary contracts. This seems to be the rule. You start at the bottom and have to prove yourself and prove that you really want this kind of life.

But these temporary contracts can last for years, which makes for a very precarious career. You never know if you'll get another contract, or where you'll be living in 6 months' time... Under these conditions, it can be very difficult to draw up a life plan.

It is really stressful and the consequence is that you may take a job that doesn't suit you or doesn't pay well, because you want to stay in the game.

I find it quite brutal. You have people who devote their lives to contributing to the world, and they have to fight to do it... all while getting paid by the slingshot.

The organizations they work for probably know they are taking on the role of savior and would do anything to help! There is so much to do and they want to contribute to a better world! So they might sacrifice a bit of themselves doing so…

You might say, "No, the reason is that the associations and NGOs they work for have a limited budget...".

That's probably true for some associations, but others have rather colossal budgets and yet, in these organizations, it's only when you manage to land a permanent position that you can enjoy a very good salary and benefits that you are awarded in other careers.

The road to landing there can be long...

The irony is that once you've reached that grail, that permanent position, then the fear of losing that well-deserved job kicks in... and you can once again start accepting jobs that don't match what you really want in order to keep the position and the benefits... After years of precarious contracts, you've entered a gilded cage and you certainly don't want to lose everything you've worked for.

As in the world of business or politics, at a certain point, the work in the field, the impact of the organization starts to count less than the position and the salary...

Although there was a real vocation, the why is beginning to disappear.

Not only a job but an entire life

A career in the humanitarian field is not just a career, it's definitely a lifestyle choice.

Where you live will depend on opportunities and assignments. You'll be on the move and traveling a lot, which, at first, is very exciting. But at some point it can become a real challenge.

Many aid workers start to wonder "where's home"?

They've traveled so much that they don't know where to land. Home is no longer home, they've seen so much, they've changed so much, it's hard to imagine going back.

As for their relationships, they've met a lot of people over the years. They have friends in many countries. It's both wonderful and emotionally challenging, as people come and go. They build strong relationships in difficult contexts, and then people move on.

What about falling in love and starting a family?

That's not easy either. Aid workers often fall in love while stationed in another country.

Will they stay in that country? Is the relationship strong enough not to return home? Or will they leave for another country, depending on one of their new assignments?

In a more “traditional” life, all these questions aren't so hard to answer... We're talking about your town or my town, or somewhere in between. In a humanitarian life, we're talking about your country or mine, or even your continent or mine, or somewhere else?

Decision making is definitely more complex for humanitarian workers!

Challenging environments and little support

As you can imagine, many aid workers work in politically or economically unstable countries. This is where the most urgent and important work needs to be done.

Some aid workers have field posts and are there to manage emergency situations. This is their job, and they have to be available at all times to provide immediate responses to climatic disasters, waves of refugees, drought, war, and so on.

Others have office jobs but work in countries where tension reigns and war can break out at any moment. They are trained to be ready to deal with these circumstances. They take with them their emergency baggage with everything they need to be evacuated if the situation becomes too dangerous.

Are they helped to get through it all?

Yes, but not enough, I find.

I'm always amazed to learn that in the fields of humanitarian aid, justice, health... where workers can be confronted with very difficult situations, even atrocities, so little psychological help is offered.

In a way, they have to do the work themselves, seek help, get out of their traumas, PTSD,...

Challenging isn’t it?

How much courage, openness and vulnerability are needed to achieve this?

Let me end this article by saying "hats off" to all aid workers.

Not only is your work a real contribution to the world, but you often carry it out with insufficient external resources and have to call on your own resources to make it happen.

Please don't lose sight of the fact that you're human beings too, and that you can only take care of others if you take care of yourself first.

“You can't pour from an empty cup”.

So, if you feel you're losing your initial optimism, or even a part of yourself in the process, or if you're starting to have trouble making decisions about the next steps in your life or career, don't hesitate to ask for help. You need a little support too.

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