Coaching |

Coaching

Positive Psychology and Coaching are the perfect match. Coaching gives you tailored 1-to-1 support for your professional and personal life, drawing on the knowledge and tools of the science. The USP of Positive Psychology Coaching is that it is an evidence-based coaching practice that draws on the trio of positive psychology, coaching psychology and clinical psychology. It’s defined as “a scientifically-rooted approach to helping clients increase well-being, enhance and apply strengths, improve performance and achieve valued goals” (Kauffman, Boniwell & Silberman, 2014). Another USP is that Positive Psychology Coaching is also known as Strengths-based Coaching. Your strengths are your assets and give you your greatest potential for growth. You’ll get to know your strengths in the coaching sessions, which are the tools we use in coaching. Strengths are your assets, the talents and positive characteristics that help you succeed and support your wellbeing and resilience. All of our training programmes can be delivered one-to-one in coaching sessions.

Coaching can support you to:

Develop a positive mindset
Achieve your goals
Raise and recover your wellbeing
Enhance mental functioning
Build psychological capital
Manage stress
Support resilience
Discover your strengths
Perform better
Develop a growth mindset
Grow your confidence
Learn optimism
Overcome imposter phenomenon
Identify your sense of purpose
Find meaning in life
Manage transitions
Change careers
Spark creativity
Prevent burnout
Transform your life

We offer coaching online from our base in the UK. Previous clients have spanned the globe and come from across Europe, North America, the Middle East and Australasia.

“Miriam is an excellent coach with a wonderfully warm personality. Prior to the coaching, I felt that I was drifting through life, neither happy nor unhappy. Under her direction, I found myself crystallising my priorities in life & what I truly wanted & where I saw myself in the future. This led to the realisation that much needed to change. Miriam helped me to see the steps I needed to take to redirect my life and I now feel very optimistic & excited about the future. Life is too short to have regrets.” Annie C, Accountant.

Miriam’s expertise is in the-positive-psychology-approach-in-coaching. She trains coaches in this methodology for the Association for Coaching and in-house coaches. Please email Miriam to find out more and book a chemistry call.

“Thank you so much for the wonderful session. It was interactive, informative and uplifting! I can truly say it will change how I coach and mentor!” Dr Maria Mastrantonio, Executive Coach, Clinical Advisor, GP Appraiser.

EXECUTIVE COACHING: Tailored support for your professional life

“During the process I discovered my key strengths and have found great joy at bringing them into my work and life – they have significantly improved the results I am getting, the overall sense of happiness and wellbeing I feel every day and the confidence with which I live has soared. I feel more connected to myself, aware of who I am, confident in what I do, and hopeful about what the future holds for me, my business and my family. I would recommend working with Miriam to anyone looking to inject more positive potential into their lives and I would recommend to anyone interested in positive psychology to come with an open mind and a willingness to really give it a go. If you do, the results could be amazing. Mine have been.” Gareth Despres, Business Leader, Management Consultant.

“After relocating to a new job, I approached Miriam to equip myself with the right tools to adapt successfully to these changes. We outlined three key objectives that we tracked through our six coaching sessions. I achieved all of these objectives through being empowered by the tools provided by Miriam that were relevant to my own personal context. From my point of view, it was her personable, calm and approachable style as well as her knowledge of positive psychology which were the two key factors in the success of the coaching relationship. It has been a great journey and I will use her guidance and positive psychology techniques throughout my life” Carlos Torres, Head of Talent.

“Incredible team coaching from Miriam Akhtar. We came out of the coaching with a fresh outlook, she helped us to see how we can be using our strengths to create a more dynamic and energised workplace. Her approach is one which perfectly balances asking the right questions and actively listening to each team member. It’s something we’ve found so valuable to our working practice.” Lucy Barfoot, Director, Lightbox.

BUSINESS COACHING: Help your business to thrive. Miriam has a strength in strategy and a track record in spotting gaps in the market. She built her business around her strengths and helps clients to do the same. She is a fellow of the School for Social Entrepreneurs.

“Miriam has a way of bringing ideas to the table that have not only challenged me but also helped me to grow as a leader in my business. I kind of expected that the focus of the content would be positive, since the topic is “positive psychology”, but the entire way each session was delivered was geared towards the positive – the delivery of each session was positive, the mindset encouraged was positive, and the ideas exchanged were motivated by the positive potential. I absolutely loved it.” We can all beat ourselves up, give ourselves a hard time, sit on our doubts and fears and be influenced greatly by them. Working with Miriam was totally different! It wasn’t about ignoring the negative or the difficult situations, it was more about focusing on the positive potential of what could be created, done and delivered and that I found to be extremely motivating.

THE PERMA PROGRAMME is a coaching package of 6 sessions which gives you extra benefits. As well as coaching, you gain an education in one of the best-known wellbeing frameworks – the PERMA model, where you experience first-hand the benefits of this approach. We explore Positive Emotions, Engagement (Strengths), Relationships, Meaning and Achievement with an extra session to cover any other key areas in positive psychology such as resilience and optimism. If you’re thinking of becoming a positive psychology professionnal then this is a good way to get first-hand experience so that you can ‘walk the talk’.

“After completing the coaching programme with Miriam, I grew from a rather despondent outlook on life to one where I take the time to savour the moment while working towards goals that are important and meaningful to me. Miriam’s uplifting and encouraging manner is highly effective in teaching the positive psychology techniques and in guiding one to see various aspects of their life from a different perspective. The practice of positive psychology tools have increased my general sense of calmness and well-being and have also given me the confidence in knowing that I’m fully able to handle the challenges and opportunities life brings. Thank you Miriam!” VC, Senior Business Development Manager, Canary Wharf, London.

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What others say

“Miriam coached me through consideration of options at a key transitional point in my life and career. Her positive and supportive coaching style was very helpful in enabling me to focus on my strengths, recover from recent challenges and explore different opportunities without any sense of being judged or steered. Miriam is generous with her wealth of knowledge and wisdom without ever imposing and I am truly grateful for her expert facilitation and flexibility which has enabled me to navigate my journey at my own pace and direction. I highly recommend Miriam as a coach and an expert in the practical application of Positive Psychology.” Ali, Senior Project Manager

“The positive coaching sessions were great. I learned a lot about positive psychology, what was getting in the way of me being positive and what to do about this. Identifying, recognising and building on my strengths has really helped me. I am finding myself achieving things and taking action towards goals which I’ve had for ages but never acted on. Miriam is a good guide – provided loads of practical tips, pointed me in the direction of some really helpful books and resources and helpfully put forward positive psychology theory to explain what was going on for me. Thanks.” Ellen, Management Consultant

“I feel so much better now, in fact I feel better now than I have done for a very long time. I feel that positive psychology and mindfulness meditation go hand in hand together and this combination has been life-changing for me. Positive psychology has helped me retrain my brain by stopping old thinking patterns, which has resulted in being able to bounce back quicker and stop the cycle of downward moods and getting upset. I’m now able to think in a way where I know I won’t always stay sad or anxious and the feeling will pass. It has also helped with looking at a situation realistically and knowing any bad feeling is temporary. I try to focus on the good in my life and doing this helps any bad fall away naturally. Doing this has increased my positive emotions and I am generally very happy. Practising both positive psychology techniques along with mindfulness has really helped me be authentically happy without having to do anything drastic and not too time-consuming. I would recommend doing the two together to anyone as I know how much it has helped me.” Kelly Thomas, Account Manager

“I attended coaching with Miriam as I had just completed a masters and was unsure of how to use it. I’d also been feeling directionless and frustrated in my current role. Miriam helped me to work out how I could implement the skills from my masters into my job and we formulated a ‘plan of action’ for the next few years. It was really interesting to reflect on my unrealised strengths and think about how I could develop them; Miriam also guided me through a number of exercises to help me gain a sense of purpose. Overall, I found the sessions very beneficial and I enjoyed working with Miriam: she is very down-to-earth, as well as being a real expert in her field.” Mel Ricketts MAPP, Teacher.

Positive Psychology is a great way of focusing on the strengths we hold inside (instead of dwelling on the negatives!) and putting them to best use. It provided me with a wealth of tools and techniques to use when I feel as though I am struggling and I am using these on a daily basis. At the end of our course we put together a life plan to take away and focus on in the future. I have found this incredibly beneficial as it gives me a way in which to focus on achieving my ultimate end goal – to be happy! Miriam is a fantastic teacher, whose warm and genuine nature is apparent from the very beginning. I feel very fortunate to have worked with her. Mel, South Glos.

“A combination of Miriam’s natural desire to help people thrive and the science of Positive Psychology makes for a great coaching experience. I am now much appreciative of what I do have; I am practising mindfulness with more success and I now feel I have a set of goals and a sense of direction. Rather than thinking ‘when I achieve this, then I’ll be ‘happy’ I am enjoying, savouring the journey of getting there.” Peter Kershaw, London

I approached Miriam Akhtar for some personal coaching having found that her CD on the topic went some way towards helping my anxiety and depression from which I had suffered occasionally over a number of years. I had been given a variety of medication but found that my body could no longer tolerate the side effects. I had also quite recently undergone an 8-session face-to-face CBT course which had given temporary relief only since I was not given any self-help tools on which I could draw. Miriam’s training was different and more effective in that it gave me those tools to cope with down times and to accept that by focusing on things in my life that gave me happiness I would be better equipped to find a positive solution to those difficulties that had dogged me before. I feel more positive about my attitude to life having completed Miriam’s 6-session telephone coaching as she had helped me identify my strengths and use them to pursue that elusive goal of happiness. I was very comfortable with coaching by telephone and felt that it offered no barriers at all to sharing my most personal thoughts and experiences with somebody whom I grew to regard as a friend.” TH, Hants

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