Dr Elena?s Life By Design Life Coaching Services

For my first blog I will introduce myself and introduce you to life coaching.

My name is Elena. My professional background is a veterinary surgeon. This is a dream I have chased since the age of 8 years old and have been fortunate enough to live my dream as a veterinarian for more than 20 years now.

During that time I also studied personal training and nutrition. This was inspired by my love of fitness and exercise.

When I was a child I used to think I was fat and unfit, so it came as a huge surprise to my 13 year old self (and all who knew me at the time) when I placed 3rd in our high school cross country race, therefore qualifying for the North Island Cross Country Junior High School Champs. I did not do well at all (having never run a race in my life prior to the qualifying race) but the training that followed for the champs unleashed in me a true love for exercise that I had no idea existed within myself.

This led to me becoming our high school’s only female competitive triathlete.

A few years into my university studies I developed chronic fatigue which put pay to my regular exercise regime for a couple of years.

I took up gentle weight training as a way to rebuild my lost strength and rehabilitate myself once the fatigue abated, a suggestion from my brother that had a profound impact on the course of my life. I discovered such a love of weight training that I became a competitive bodybuilder. Studying personal training and nutrition was the natural progression from competing in triathlons.

Having a medical degree means I have a thorough understanding of physiology, anatomy and kinesiology (how the body moves - what each muscle’s function is), which has added such a depth to my own training and ability to train/teach others.

I have at times worked as a personal trainer and nutritionist alongside my vet career; there had been times where being a personal trainer and nutrionist was my full-time career.

I have been and absolutely loved being a veterinary surgeon for more than 20 years. Working with and improving the quality of lives of animals runs very deep into the core of all I am, all I stand for and believe in. It is the very core beliefs and principles that govern my life, are the very essence of my being and who I am.

There was a time when I came very close to leaving the vet world due to burn out. Vet is a very demanding career, as well as rewarding. A very gifted life coach (a recommendation from a most precious friend of mine - one I will always be eternally grateful for) guided me through exceedingly powerful changes that shook up and restructured how I run my life and career, guided me to see possibilities where before I had only seen barriers and a feeling of being trapped with limited viable options. Being a veterinarian has been one of the greatest privileges and achievements of my life, without question.

I have been a student of life and spirituality since an awakening at the age of 14. A long journey of working with myself both by myself and with some very skilled teachers has broadened my knowledge of life and healing, taught me many skills and techniques to self-healing, self-development, improvement and ultimately self-empowerment. Key ingredients in living a full, connected and expansive life.

A few years ago my old friend fatigue reacquainted itself with me, again making me rethink my life. I mention fatigue here because as much of a curse as it has appeared to and at times feel to be, it has also been the catalyst for the most powerful and positive changes in my life. I have come to recognise and embrace that fatigue now as an indication that I am no longer in my truth, that there are changes that need to be made that I am shying away from facing and acknowledging.

This awakening lead me to look at where I would like the next chapter of my life to take me, what direction I now would like to go along. Deep introspection, and again the help of a life coach, brought me to the awareness that life coaching is indeed to be my direction in life. After all, over 20 years’ experience as a consulting veterinarian has given me a wealth and very diverse range of experience in working with people through very difficult situations.

So I decided to undertake the study required, and I am now a fully qualified life coach. Life coaching is a deregulated industry in NZwhich means no qualifications are needed and there is no organisation which oversees the quality of the practitioners. However, I felt it was important to have a recognised qualification in order for me to offer my clients the best possible services and hence the ability to live their best lives.

So, this brings us to the question….. what actually does a life coach do? A life coach is a person who will work with you, support and nurture you, hold you accountable but does not run your life for you, nor take over the controls of your life or the direction you take. They will cheer you on when you succeed, help redirect you and encourage you when you feel things are not as you would like, someone you can absolutely trust to have your best interests in heart. Confidentiality is always first and foremost priority.

A life coach gently helps you tease out what it is you really want out of life (and the answers can be quite a surprise at times!), identify the barriers stopping you from achieving that (be it real or perceived barriers) and aid you in finding your own creative solutions to achieve these goals. A life coach can help you lead the life you only thought you could dream of, one small step and identified strategic goal at a time.

My key fields of interest are personal empowerment, health and fitness goals, career goals and changes.. I work with traditional life coaching skills as well as less traditional mind - body tools. As a life coach, I can help people with a very wide range of goals, especially when the goal is unclear to yourself.

So, now you know a little bit about me, don't be shy in introducing yourself to me!