Coaching for Mission-Driven Professionals
Make an impact without sacrificing your well-being.
Hi, I'm Melanie.
I'm an ICF-certified coach with a decade of experience in non-profit and social justice work, spanning the fields of immigrants' rights, civil legal services for homeless youth, housing justice, refugee resettlement, and community health. I received my BA in development studies from Brown University and my JD from Harvard Law School.
Throughout my career, I've found my work extremely meaningful. At the same time, I've struggled with anxiety and burnout. I know what it feels like to care deeply about mission-driven work, to feel depleted, and to need to make a change.
Over the years, I've become interested in the question:
How can we do work that truly matters to us, while also nurturing our wellbeing?
In my coaching, I draw on my personal and professional experience as a mission-driven professional, as well as specialized coach training, bringing empathy and skill to every session. I'm here to help you:
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Craft a life that feels both meaningful and sustainable
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Enjoy the day-to-day of your work and believe in its big-picture mission
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Stop conditioning your self-worth on an external measure of productivity​
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Feel better doing work that matters.
Does this sound like you?
You care about making a difference in the world, through your work and in the way you show up for the people in your life.
This care for others’ wellbeing, and the values of compassion, responsibility and justice that are at your core, guide many of your decisions – both personal and professional.
These are incredible gifts to offer the world.
The problem comes when, in your desire to care for others, you forget about yourself. So you give until you’re empty or, more likely, past empty.
And you feel stuck.
While there’s no one way this can look, here are a few common signs:
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Your work, while meaningful, starts to feel like a slog.
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You rarely have time for yourself, because there is always a more pressing and deserving need to address.
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You fear that making a change that prioritizes your own wellbeing would be shirking an important moral obligation and violate values of compassion, responsibility and justice.
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- You keep saying to yourself: 'who am I to even want something else? The work is too important to step away.' Maybe you fear that making a change would be selfish.
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And even when you do convince yourself that it’s time to make a change, you’re so depleted that you have a hard time getting going. Maybe you don’t even know where to start.
My coaching is for you if you're ready to:
Envision multiple possibilities beyond the status quo for living a meaningful, values-driven life
Detach your self-worth from an extrinsic measure of productivity
Get clear on your values and start living by them now
Figure out what you really want
Unhook from painful thoughts that are keeping you stuck in cycles of depletion and burnout
Take concrete steps in that direction
1:1 Coaching
When we work together, we’ll meet for weekly one-hour sessions with unlimited email and text support in between. I generally work with people for a minimum of two months, because this work goes deep, and it takes time and attention to get there. I want to make sure that our work together is impactful for you.​ While my coaching is individualized – responsive to your needs, values and life situation – here is some of what we’re likely to cover during our time together:​
REDEFINE YOUR SELF WORTH
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Many of us derive our self-worth from something external – an observable measure of impact, the extent to which we meet a particular need, the amount we sacrifice. If we hitch our value to our perceived contribution, we will always need to be working at maximum capacity in order to feel like we're enough.
In order to make a change, we first need to shift our locus of self-worth from the external to the internal; from: my value is my visible, measurable impact, to: I have inherent value, and I care about making an impact.
CONSIDER YOUR NEEDS
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When we understand our own needs to be in direct competition with the needs of others, we perpetually sacrifice our wellbeing and justify it on the basis of our values of compassion and care. This zero-sum way of approaching care keeps us trapped in depletion and burnout. We will explore a more expansive understanding of this needs calculus, where ours and others’ needs are no longer in competition with one another.
CLARIFY YOUR VALUES AND FIGURE OUT WHAT YOU WANT
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As you prepare to make concrete changes, we'll reflect on some of the Great Big Questions: What matters to you? What matters to you in work? What do you want your life to feel like? What are the core values that you'd like to drive your actions (at home, at work, beyond)? We ask these big-picture questions as a sort of inner compass calibration, to ensure that your next steps forward are deliberate and values-aligned.
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We'll also begin to put your values into practice right away, starting small, building muscle as you prepare to make shifts towards a life that feels both meaningful and sustainable.
BUILD A FRAMEWORK FOR MOVING FORWARD
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We’ll work on a framework that integrates your values, your desire to make an impact, and the need to fill your own cup, too.
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The good news is that there are lots of possible paths to get you there. We’ll move beyond the confines of what you think you should do, and envision new possibilities for a values-based life based on what you're excited to do. We’ll prototype some of these ideas before you commit.
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This is a holistic process. We take a look at the whole self, identifying values and setting meaningful and attainable goals in multiple facets of your life. Because I promise you are more than just your job.
And, if a new job is in the cards, we’ll build a list of clear criteria for you to bring to your search.
TAKE ACTION WITH TACTICAL SUPPORT
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With the framework in hand, I provide tactical support when you’re ready to make a change.
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I provide job search, cover letter, resume and interview support as needed.
Testimonials
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Four Principles for Navigating Change
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Even if we know that we need to make a change to support our wellbeing, change itself is incredibly daunting, made even more so if we’ve hooked our identities, self-worth or sense of morality to the status quo. In this guide, I share a few principles that have helped me navigate change with a little more self-compassion and equanimity, in hopes that they can do the same for you.
