Claudia Masina is a Wellness & Stress Management Coach, and Founder of BeTruWell.

After spending 10 years in corporate HR, Claudia is now a qualified practitioner trained by Australia’s leading institute in coaching for managing wellbeing and stress.

Balance the Grind spoke to Claudia about transitioning from HR to wellness coaching, working with a wide range of clients on managing their stress, her meaning of work-life balance and more.

This conversation is brought to you by HelloFresh, delivering delicious ingredients and simple recipes straight to your doorstep each week.

1) To kick things off, could you tell us a little about your background and career?

Getting to this point in my career hasn’t followed a traditional trajectory, as it took me time to identify and feel really confident with my passion of supporting others.

Funnily enough, I was originally enrolled in Psychology post high school only to change to Business after my first year of study. I entered the Finance industry and soon discovered I should have stuck with Psychology!

Luckily I was able to lean on my HR studies within Business to move into Human Resources roles where I uncovered my strong passion for supporting the wellness, performance and progression of others.

This led me to continue studies in the wellness space and now completing Graduate level studies in Psychology as I work my way towards being a Clinical Psychologist and adding this to my wellness coaching offering.

2) What is your current role and what does it entail on a day to day basis?

As a wellness coach I work with a variety of different client groups including corporate clients, elite athletes, gastric by-pass/weight loss clients and individuals wanting to work on managing their stress and wellness.

So, my day mostly depends on who I am seeing! Most of my engagements are one on one by phone as this helps with accessibility to coaching support services where I have spoken with people in different states and overseas.

One of my passions is delivering well-being education sessions for organisations, where I aim to provide corporate teams as much evidence based information around key areas of interest with regard to their wellbeing and engage individuals on their own experiences and examine opportunities for improvement.

3) What does a typical day in the life look like for you? Can you take us through a recent workday?

A typical work day for me will depend on the clients I am booked to work with. This could be setting up for a day of phone calls, getting ready for a group education session on site, or heading to Olympic Park to meet up with athletes. This is in addition to fitting in as much time as possible for uni studies and assessments during uni semesters.

After a full day of working with others or studying I like to unwind with a decent walk followed by time with hubby and bub usually with Friends streaming in the background.

4) Do you have any tips, tricks or shortcuts to help you manage your workload and schedule?

Organise, then organise some more. Weekly planning on the weekend is essential, in addition to meal prepping to help save a load of time during the week, especially for dinners, so I can enjoy my family time at the end of the day without me and hubby having to split our time between each other and the kitchen.

5) In between your job, life and all your other responsibilities, how do you ensure you find some sort of balance in your life?

Balance for yourself is essential, it can be difficult to provide support for others if you aren’t taking good care of yourself. Even so, there will be some days when you can’t fit everything in and that is okay. When this happens, I try to make sure I fit in some non-negotiable time for myself whether through exercise or getting to sleep early a few nights per week.

6) What does work life balance mean to you?

Work life balance to me is the feeling of having good flow between all facets of your life.

Knowing that your work should be purposeful and meaningful and connect to the non-work aspects of your life, including family, relationships, and fun. Balance doesn’t just mean having equal time, it means being the same person at work and at home. To feel balance is to connect what you do for a living to everything else you do with your life and your values.

7) What do you think are some of the best habits you’ve developed over the years to help you strive for success and balance?

Patience, persistence and leaning on others for support. The journey is tough at times and it is harder to go through it alone than with the help and support of others.

Patience is key, because it takes time to uncover what you truly love doing and how to go about making something of it. Finally, it takes persistence to keep going when things are difficult or not going the way you hoped.

8) Are there any books that have helped you improve over the years?

In between my uni readings I don’t get a lot of time for leisure reading (but that will all change one day!). When I do get time, I love reading Malcolm Gladwell’s books, I feel that they help to bring immense perspective on life and life events and how it can be helpful to be aware of some of the interesting concepts he brings up to keep you grounded.

9) What is the number one thing you do to make sure you get the most out of your day?

Starting the day proactively helps ensure that I will get the most out of the day – getting up early, getting ready early and fitting in as much as possible before I get my day fully started – helps me to feel super accomplished and organised as I get the niggly things out of the way early and can focus on everything else without being distracted.

10) Do you have any last thoughts on work, life or balance that you’d like to share with our readers?

The meaning of work life balance I feel is a unique concept to everyone so don’t feel hard pressed to attain what another person believes work life balance is.

Find out what it means to you and strive to achieve this, which should closely align to your values and what is important to you as a person for your life. If you haven’t figured out your values, I would recommend doing this first!

Once you figure this out, don’t be disheartened if it takes a little bit of time to achieve, or if it seems untenable, because chances are that you will find a way to work it out and you will eventually reap the benefits of creating your own version of work life balance.

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