When Speaking Up Felt Impossible
Nicole (name changed to protect client confidentiality) came to coaching as a twenty-year healthcare professional who knew her field cold. As an account manager working closely with a network of providers, she was the person colleagues turned to for answers. But in meetings, especially with leadership in the room, something shut down. Her heart would race, her mind would go blank or spin too fast to follow, and she'd stay off camera and on mute, typing her ideas into the chat instead of saying them out loud. Afterward, she'd wonder why a room full of people she knew well could rattle her so completely.
Underneath Nicole’s nerves was a deeper pattern: a fear of sounding unprepared, a habit of using humor to keep people at a comfortable distance, and a deep-seated belief that she had to be the one who always had it together. She was smart, capable, and well-liked by her team, and she still worried that one wrong sentence would make someone think she didn't know what she was talking about.
Starting the Work
We started with six sessions over about three months, working from two directions at once: understanding the pattern, and interrupting it in the moment. Early sessions traced the anxiety back to its roots: a perfectionism that left no room for a fumbled sentence, and an old habit of pushing through rather than asking for support. From there, with her consent, we introduced EFT, or tapping, to work with the physical and emotional intensity of the fear directly.
The Turning Point
As we tapped, the shift showed up quickly. Working with the fear of being judged, the intensity of that fear began to ease, and she felt real relief and release. Out of that experience came an insight that would echo through the rest of our work together: she didn't need to hold herself to an impossibly high standard or push herself past her limits.
Building a Practical Toolkit
From there, we built a practical toolkit alongside the emotional work. She started reviewing meeting agendas ahead of time so she could plan a point or two to raise, either verbally or in the chat. She practiced tapping for a few minutes before high-stakes meetings, and again in the moment when her heart rate spiked. She recruited a trusted colleague as an accountability partner, someone who would nudge her, sometimes with a shared emoji cue, to speak up when the moment called for it. She began experimenting with lower-stakes visibility first, posting more in the team chat, before pushing herself to unmute in real time.
What Changed
By our final session, the change was tangible. She was contributing more in the group chat without a second thought. She was coming off mute more often during meetings, and while the nerves hadn't disappeared, they no longer left her wrung out afterward the way they used to. She'd also used the same momentum to put together a concrete one-year and five-year career plan aimed at a promotion, something she'd been meaning to do for months, but hadn't found the confidence or the bandwidth to start.
The Follow-Up
A few weeks after our work wrapped, Nicole followed up with news that said more than any summary could. It was exactly the kind of opportunity that could help her case for the promotion she was working toward. In her words: "I recently learned that I'll be taking on... one of the largest and most visible projects we have. It's a really exciting opportunity, and the timing of our coaching couldn't have been more perfect. This new role will have me speaking up well outside my immediate team, which would have felt much more intimidating a few months ago. Thanks to the work we did together, I feel much more prepared, still terrified but prepared with how to handle it!"
The goal was never to make the nerves disappear. What changed is her ability to feel them, name them, and act anyway. That capacity, to feel a strong emotion without letting it call the shots, is what coaching helped her find. She closed her note simply: “Thank you again for all of your support, encouragement, and practical advice. You gave me the tools I needed to tackle this next challenge, and I’m so grateful for that!”
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