Lieke Beijen Coaching

09/12/2024

Digital nomads, expats and remote workers, I need your help😊.

Settling and working in a new country or leading a nomadic lifestyle comes with incredible adventures, but also with unique challenges that can impact your mental health and well-being.

I coach digital nomads, remote workers, expats and other globetrotters who struggle with stress, get stuck in recurring patterns or 'lose' themselves along the way.
Together we create peace of mind, balance and greater self-awareness.
By developing new behaviours and making conscious choices that are right for YOU, you'll regain control of your life, wherever you are in the world.

🔎 I'd like to deepen my understanding of your specific challenges and needs, so that I can offer you even more tailored and effective support.

To do this, I've created a short questionnaire to gather insights from digital nomads, expats and remote workers (or anyone who lives and works outside their home country).
I'd love to hear about your experiences, challenges and the lessons you've learned along the way.

🎁 What's in it for you? 🎁
As a thank you for your time and input, I'll be giving away a 1:1 coaching programme worth €1000 to one lucky participant!

𝗙𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfrzT0DKcRyFPAiSsc6KNcHcI_aWwrilXgkrD0bW5eABobs7w/viewform

Thanks for your help! I Really appreciate it 🙏🏻

www.liekebeijencoaching.nl

29/11/2024

𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐲, 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐞𝐧𝐣𝐨𝐲 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞!

Read on and get my free, easy-to-implement and achievable tips!
Also available in Dutch.

One of my coachees regularly felt overstimulated and overwhelmed after a busy day at work. He loves to meet friends, plays sports regularly and often has activities after work.
His enthusiasm meant he did everything he did with his full energy.

And yet, on a regular basis, he felt that he was not really enjoying himself.

During his coaching process with me, he discovered that he was mainly in contact with others and that he found it difficult to feel what he needed.
As a result, he often said yes to suggestions and appointments, and these moments often passed in a blur.

When you are preoccupied with things around you and connections with others, it is easy to forget the connection with yourself.

You live your life, your agenda determines your week and you often do not realise how pleasant or unpleasant something was until afterwards.

My coachee has now built in daily 'check-in' moments and is enjoying his weekends (and working days) more as a result:
Small, easily achievable moments when he checks in with himself. Turning his attention inwards and being aware of what is going on inside him at that moment, without distractions from phones, emails or other people.

In this way:
- He trains his awareness,
- He can make timely adjustments
- If he can maintain this awareness throughout the day

With the result that he feels less overwhelmed after a busy day.

Would you like to experience this? You can!

💪🏻 I have compiled 5 tips for you in a PDF file. No difficult tasks, just short, powerful exercises that will bring you right back to yourself.

📍Reply in the comments with '𝐈𝐍𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐂𝐊 𝐌𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓'.
I'll send you my tips right away.

For Dutch: comment 'INCHECK MOMENT NEDERLANDS'🌍

23/10/2024

Last year, I decided to dive into the deep end. My work with Teaming Up was coming to an end, and after several short stints working remotely, I wanted to see what it would be like to live and work abroad for a year.

I also wanted to revive my coaching practice, which I had neglected for a while. This seemed like a great time to do it.

I left for Cape Verde in December 2023 and have been travelling for over 10 months now. I left without a plan, a way of travelling that suites me.

I wanted to stay in Cape Verde for a few months and then see what would happen. As expected, everything turned out differently. A small sample of my experiences over the past year:

⚓ I crossed the Atlantic with no sailing experience as crew on a sailboat with my then boyfriend.
🏄🏻 I had a part-time job as a kitesurfing instructor.
🧜🏻‍♀️ I got hooked on freediving and became an assistant instructor.
❤️‍🩹 I ended my relationship.
⛵I lived as crew on an English sailboat for 3 months and then learnt real sailing.
👩🏻‍🏫 I gave two team sessions at the Dutch Government Real Estate Agency in Curaçao.
🌊 I lived on a friend's empty sailboat for a few weeks.
And in between, I coached coachees and worked on my business.

And to think that my very first 'plan' was to drive my car around Spain and Portugal😁.

More than once, I was scared to jump into the proverbial deep water (I rather literally dive to the bottom of the sea😉 ). After all, fun things are often scary.

By letting go, doing what felt right and not shying away from difficult decisions, I learned a lot of new things.

Now I am in Portugal with my sister and her partner. They live here and it feels like my second home.
As you can understand, over the past year I have been regularly distracted from my goal of taking my coaching practice to the next level🙄.

So this week I made another exciting decision: I am starting a coaching programme with Sterk in Sales.

This is because my expertise is coaching and not marketing and sales. I find these tasks exciting and a bit scary and I still have a lot to learn. As an entrepreneur, these tasks are thrown in your lap anyway, so I want to do something with them.

So you will be hearing and seeing more from me in the near future. A dive into the deep again. This time not on a sailing boat or with long fins in the water, but 'safely' behind my laptop from the Portuguese mainland.

I'll keep you posted ✌🏻.

---
➡️I coach expats, digital nomads, remote workers and other globetrotters in their challenges.

Curious about what I can do for you? Get in touch, I'd love to meet you.
💻 www.liekebeijencoaching.nl

21/10/2024

⚓ From sailboat to apartment: How small routines make me feel at home anywhere.

Working remotely or as an expat sounds great, but it comes with its own challenges. For example, it is not always easy to feel at home and settle into new places.

Over the past 10 months, I have lived in Cape Verde, Curaçao and Martinique for extended periods of time, as well as sailing around several Caribbean islands. I lived both on land and on sailboats, not always having a place to myself.

It was a fantastic experience and at the same time quite a challenge to focus on work each time I settled down with so much beauty and news around me.

Sometimes it is easier to settle down and feel at home than other times.
For me it has to do with place and company: living in a flat all to myself simply takes less energy and effort than living on a sailboat with three other people. At the same time, having good company makes me feel at home more quickly than living alone.

I have found that establishing habits and routines - no matter how small - helps me settle in faster, which in turn helps me be more productive.

For example, it helps me to:
🍓 Eat my favourite breakfast every day
🧘🏻‍♀️ Meditate for 15 minutes every day
🍕 Cook my favourite meals
🚲 Take time to get to know my surroundings
🙋🏻‍♀️ Meeting new people who live/stay where I do.

I also like to go for walks. It makes me feel calmer and easier to ground myself. Unfortunately, the last few months in the Caribbean, with temperatures of 35+ degrees, I often found it too hot to walk.
Luckily I am now in Portugal and walking a lot again 😊.

Does applying routines always go well and do I always stick to them? No, not always, it remains a challenge to stick to my routines and habits in new places with lots of distractions. I am easily distracted and before I know it my mind is somewhere else.
But every time I succeed, I feel the added value of the routine and it makes it easier to continue these habits.

--
➡️I coach expats, digital nomads, remote workers and other globetrotters with their challenges.

Curious about what I can do for you? Get in touch with me, I'd love to meet you.
💻 www.liekebeijencoaching.nl

30/09/2024

Looking for a better work-life balance? Then read on!

I have often thought about the term 'work-life balance', and although I understand what it means, I do not really like it. As if your life and your work are separate, whereas your work is part of your life.

In her article, Janice Marturano hits the nail on the head, I think:
‘Trying to achieve work/life balance, whatever that is, simply adds more stress and worry to your life. How much precious time is wasted worrying that you have not found the optimal combination of work time and non-work time? You do not need to even think about work/life balance. What's important is that you be present for each moment of your life, wherever you are.’

In both my work and free time, I regularly meet people who are busy. They work a lot, fly from work meeting to private meeting and often only reflect afterwards on what they have done and achieved. Recognisable?

As the author of this article so beautifully puts it: "So what's happening? Why do you miss your life? It is all about noticing your distractions and then training your mind to be present."

Fortunately, there are ways to train your mindful presence. As she writes, 'Meditation and mindfulness are ways to train your attention and focus. They help you to become aware of a wandering mind more quickly, even outside of 'formal' moments of meditation. You learn to bring your attention back to what you are doing in the moment.

During coaching sessions, I help my clients to regularly reflect on what is happening in the moment. This makes you aware of your thoughts, emotions and feelings, which helps you to recognise them more quickly in practical situations. You can then make a conscious choice about how to respond. And that in turn helps you break patterns and change your perception of your work-life balance 😊.

Link to the article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/janicemarturano/2024/07/11/achieving-work-life-balance-with-mindfulness/

➡️I coach expats, digital nomads, remote workers and other globetrotters with challenges they encounter.

Curious about what I can do for you? Get in touch with me, I would love to meet you.
💻 www.liekebeijencoaching.nl

Learn why chasing work-life balance adds stress and how being present can improve your life with practical mindfulness tips.

26/09/2024

I do not give advice to my coachees. I believe that you learn very little from advice. 🤷‍♀️

So what do I do? Good question!

This quote by Sir John Whitmore sums up my view on coaching well:
"Coaching is unlocking a person's potential to maximise their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them."

Coaching is about development and learning.

As a coach, I provide a platform, a space where you can bring all that you are and learn in the best way possible. I support you to find solutions that work for you.

You are the owner of your learning process and I support that process.

❎No ready-made advice on how best to approach something.
✅Together we go into depth and explore what works best for you in specific situations.

A problem is often not a problem in one situation, but it is in another. How is this possible, where are you getting yourself into trouble? And more importantly, what can you do to recognise this in time and bring about lasting change?

Of course I offer tools for this. I ask probing questions that challenge you to reflect, use exercises and models to clarify behaviour, thoughts and emotions, and help you to translate these into concrete actions.

This is how you get to where you want to be. 🌱

➡️I coach expats, digital nomads, remote workers and other globetrotters on the challenges they face.

Curious? Get in touch, I'd love to meet you.

www.liekebeijencoaching.nl

13/09/2024

How do you choose your coach? There's no point in coaching without a click.. 🧐

Last week, I received this wonderful feedback from one of my coachees. We met at the kitesurfing spot a few months ago and instantly had a click. We agreed to talk about our experiences of being self-employed. During that cup of coffee, it turned out that he also wanted coaching.

Meanwhile, we are a few months and a great coaching process further, in which Jelte is taking visible steps towards his desired future! 💪

Because it is not possible for everyone to sense at the kitesurfing spot whether they have a click with me, I am now offering a 𝐟𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐬𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧!

Simply the full 1.5 hours as I always offer, but for free. No strings attached.

This way you can see if you feel a click with me and are confident to start working on your development together.

🌱Curious? Send me a message to schedule a session!

www.liekebeijencoaching.nl

12/09/2024

🔎 How do you give direction to your life?

In coaching, I regularly come across people who don't have a clear understanding of their core values.
Core values characterise you; they indicate what you stand for and they guide your thinking, views and actions. You are proud of them and they recur in different situations. Knowing your core values also contributes to self-confidence and increasing your self-esteem and self-respect. 💪

You can imagine that if you're unaware of your core values, it can make it difficult to give direction to your life, you're more easily be led by others and you make choices that don't quite fit you.

So an important part during many of my coaching sessions is to zoom in on that deepest layer of the hashtag and explore what your core values are. Because knowing those will get you further.

Besides knowing your own core values, it can also be beneficial to know those of your partner/friends/colleagues. If friendships or relationships change then it could be that over time there has been a shift in core values in one of you.
If your core values no longer align with each other then it can cause friction or difficulties in connecting, especially if you are not aware of this.

✨ A small exercise to gain more insight into your core values:
1. Make a list of up to 6 core values and rank them.
2. Think about the meaning you attribute to these values. How do they influence your life?

It can also be interesting to do this exercise together with someone.
In that case, have a conversation with each other about the meaning you give to your values and discuss similarities and differences. How does this affect your relationship?

🎯 Would you like dive deeper? Feel free to contact me for a non-binding session!

www.liekebeijencoaching.nl

27/06/2024

What do coaching, mindfulness and freediving have in common?

As a coach, I help you make changes with an eye on the future. However, looking to the future and achieving your goals works better when your self-awareness is high. This is where mindfulness comes in; mindfulness focuses on the present moment. It's about being attentively present in the here and now, allowing you to become aware of your emotions, feelings, and physical sensations. In short, it clarifies your perspective. 🧘‍♀️

In my own experience with freediving, I notice the profound effects of practicing mindfulness. To dive deeper and achieve a new goal, I need to turn inward, relax so my heart rate decreases, and be acutely aware of all sensations in my body and mind. The signals your body gives are all you have underwater. Mindfulness helps me focus on achieving my goal while also feeling when it’s enough and not pushing further. It’s about focusing with a gentle gaze.

➡ The techniques I use during freediving, I also apply in my coaching sessions. During coaching sessions, I utilize what I observe in the here and now. By reflecting what I notice, it’s no longer about a past situation but about concrete behavior/feelings in the moment. This reflection and awareness lead to new insights and practical tools for real life.

Mindfulness can also reduce stress, improve focus, and increase emotional resilience. By practicing mindfulness, you learn to notice your physical sensations, thoughts, and feelings without being carried away by them. This reduces worrying and negative thoughts. It increases your ability to deal with difficult emotions, focus on what is real, and have less self-criticism.

All these qualities contribute to personal development within your coaching process.

What helps you achieve your goals?

www.liekbeijencoaching.nl




Photo by: Jeannine Quesor (https://www.libera-empowered-woman.com

23/05/2024

As a coach, I work with people who live and work abroad for short or long periods of time (expats, digital nomads, remote workers, give it a name 😉). I coach them on the challenges they face. This can be specifically about the challenges presented by living in new countries, but also about other topics.

From my own experience of living and working around the world, I know what challenges one might encounter.
I have spent the past few weeks conducting interviews with people who, like me, regularly or permanently live and work abroad. In this way, I hope to be able to even better tune in and connect with my coachees.

I was surprised by the number of people willing to share their stories with me. People from all over the world with different backgrounds and motivations helped me and, as a thank you, I offered them a free coaching session. 🌍

It was hugely inspiring, informative and, above all, incredibly fun to hear such a wide range of experiences and be able to help people take a step further towards their goals!

Although most people I spoke to were very positive about their life abroad, it certainly brings challenges at times:

🏞 Different cultures handle appointments differently and the concept of "time" is sometimes viewed differently. It takes time and adaptability to learn to deal with these differences.

🗣 Despite good language skills, the interviewees know that they will never become native speakers, which sometimes limits opportunities abroad. People sometimes keep feeling like outsiders.

⚖ It can be difficult to find a good balance between building and maintaining a new network and maintaining one's social network in the country of origin.

Fortunately, there are not only challenges:
🌱 One thing everyone agreed on: living abroad stimulates personal growth and self-development!

🍀 People like having access to a coach when major changes occur. Coaching is seen by many as a way to gain new insights, perspectives and tools on new challenges.

What are your experiences with these topics? Let me know in the comments! 👇