Ann Zimmerman Coaching

The wisdom
of head and heart

One of the biggest challenges for accomplished, driven, and curious people is getting “unstuck” when our normal ways of solving a problem aren’t working.

When it comes to gaps in our self-awareness, self-knowledge, and self-confidence, our logic, reason, and linear habits may let us down.

Thinking about the problem and thinking about it some more leads to frustration instead of learning. Research doesn’t provide a solution because the answer isn’t “out there.” How-to advice falls short because the stumbling blocks are fundamentally personal. Our own introspection lets us down as soon as we start to mistrust our intuition and second-guess our choices.

A different sort of problem requires a different kind of problem-solving.

My path until now was what you might call head-heavy:

I’m grateful for the opportunities I’ve had to hone my abilities to think clearly, critically, and with discernment.

And…

There’s a complementary route to understanding, which, through coaching, I now strive to nurture in my clients. This path to knowing travels inward, to the clues lying within individual values, needs, and aspirations. Accessing these answers takes a heart-centered approach; it requires patience and emotional capacity to hold feelings, sit in discomfort, and wade for a while through uncertainty. That’s not easy, and it’s especially hard to do on your own.

 I am trained and certified by the Co-Active Training Institute, which is widely recognized as the most rigorous program in the industry. I am also a Professional Certified Coach through the International Coaching Federation. I have completed Tara Mohr’s Playing Big Facilitator Training, and I am a certified Designing Your Life coach. 

Accessing those deeper, truer, personal answers isn’t overtly linear or purely logical. And this is where my brainy, thoughtful, and curious clients get stuck.

I typically hear from clients who are thinking, feeling, or asking themselves:
  • Am I too close to see what’s really going on?
  • Is this what I want, or have I internalized outside expectations?
  • Am I on the right path? How do I change now?
  • Who am I to do this work?
  • If I say yes to x, how will it affect a, b, c, d, e, f, g?
  • Could my work be more meaningful? More fulfilling?
  • What can I change to help my life support my work and my work support my life?

If any of these questions are weighing heavily on you, and your problem-solving defaults – thinking more, working harder, researching endlessly, and taking courses – aren’t getting you closer to answers that feel right, for you, I’d love to discuss whether a coaching partnership would serve you better. 

As partners, we’d work through your questions, thoughts, challenges, and possibilities. We’d explore your assumptions, resistance, and patterns. We’d be guided by method, purpose, and your desired destination. And we’d build in space to explore along the way. Through this process, we’d surface what’s in your heart and establish the most-aligned way to make possibility become reality.

If you’re interested to learn more about my thoughts on creating a strong relationship with work, listen to my podcast interview with Ghada Khalifeh.

I’d be delighted to have a conversation about possibilities and partnership.

Let's get in touch

“Ann was wonderful… she helped me figure out what is important and how to bring my life into a more satisfied place.”

“In the short time we’ve been working together, I feel like I can share things with you. It feels like a privilege to be able to share it with someone who is going to listen.”