Overcoming anxiety…

The challenge

We met CK when she joined our employability programme in Kent. She has issues with anxiety which has been hindering her personal life and impacting on gaining employment. She also has Autism and when nervous can at times struggle to communicate verbally causing a stammer in her speech. Obviously, this has caused her some feelings of frustration and further exacerbating her anxiety. Her CV lacked volume and appropriate content and she had no covering letter to help support her along her journey into gaining meaningful employment. Although still very young, CK had accumulated a variety of previous work experiences, one at a local hairdresser, one at dog grooming facility, as well as paid employment housekeeping at a local hotel.

What we did

The coach met CK and it was clear she lacked self-esteem and confidence and was understandably a little nervous meeting someone new for the first time.  She explained in the past there had been some issues with girls bullying at school. She openly discussed her mental health, diet, nutrition, and offered up ways that she felt Motiv-8 could support her during her coaching sessions. The coach and CK worked together on an 8-session action plan to help her visualise a structure of the sessions ahead. This helped her to feel less anxious and more confident about the future work. CK mentioned in an early session that she would become very anxious when travelling on her own, or walking alone or riding on a bus on her own. She explained that she only goes out if she is with someone. If she is on her own, then she is on the phone to her Mum for the duration of the journey. As this particular session progressed CK relaxed more and communicated pretty well. She made amazing progress and agreed with her coach that after today’s session she would walk on own to meet her Mum at M&S food hall (fantastic progress!).

During her next session CK commented that she is feeling much more positive since her first meeting, she said it felt great after walking to meet her mum at the end of the prior session. Fear of doing it was worse than doing it! CK also shared some coping strategies that she uses to help with her anxiety, one of them being drawings she makes in her sketch pad.

The outcome

The coach continued to work with CK over the next few weeks, helping her to practise interview techniques and helping her to adapt and improve her CV. She now had the tools that allowed her the opportunity to sell her skills and personal qualities. CK then went on to apply for a full time role in her local job centre, she was naturally nervous beforehand but felt relieved afterwards. She utilised the interview techniques that she had been taught. CK is now delighted to be working, her interview was very successful and she was offered a role within the cleaning department within the centre. Naturally she felt some anxiety but this soon disappeared as she said that everyone is really friendly and helpful, so she feels calm and settled. She has shown great resilience and taken lots of small steps forward to finally achieve her goal of getting a job. CK has said she will continue to use what she has been taught to help her to continually improve and overcome her anxiety. She feels she is communicating well with co-workers and speaks highly of them all. Her manager said he was impressed with CK at interview and that she had dressed really smartly. Her manager has also commented on the fact that she is very good at cleaning!

Another huge step for CK is that she is now travelling to and from work on the bus and uses the Headspace app with earphones which calms her on the journey. She is also doing this on her own implementing process and strategies we discussed during the sessions to plan her journey from point A to B

CK had this to say:

“I am using the strategies we discussed during the sessions to help my anxiety when travelling alone, I downloaded the Headspace app that you recommended to me. I use it on the bus to work. I also downloaded some E-books too on anxiety to listen to which all help. You have made me realise the fear of doing something is worse than actually doing it. I think afterwards it wasn’t as bad as I thought”