Last week, I held a webinar with coaching elements on the topic “The path of emerging from difficult business situations and improving life balance in 10 steps.”
During this session, I revealed the system I’ve developed to help business leaders overcome challenges such as:
- Conflicts with business partners, employees, or clients that cause frustration and lead to long periods of low productivity.
- A constant sense of stress, tension, and exhaustion from managing a team — always fixing problems, putting out fires, and holding everything together.
- The desire to grow a business while feeling uncertain about how to do it — and whether you’re truly capable of making it happen.
- The challenge of growing to the next level in the organizational hierarchy or expanding the business of the division or branch you lead. (Branches of large organizations are actually very similar to small and medium-sized businesses. The branch manager just needs to integrate some entrepreneurial skills and evolve as a leader.)
The content was designed for various types of leaders — from business owners to leaders in companies at different levels — and the attendees shared that they found it very useful.
That’s why I decided to write this article and share some of the insights we discussed with them.
This Sunday (Nov. 02, 2025), I will hold a second webinar on the same topic for those who couldn’t attend during the workweek. It will be in Bulgarian, and it will be the last one on this topic for this year. At the beginning of the new year, I will also offer it in English.
If you’d like to be the first to learn when it becomes available, subscribe to my newsletter “Holistic Success for Leaders” and follow me here on LinkedIn.
Although these topics may seem different, they actually have a deep connection. When I explore them with my coaching clients, we often uncover similar patterns. From my experience, I’ve developed a system with logical steps that helps solve these challenges and leads to amazing results.
Today, I won’t share all the steps How to merge from difficult business situations and improve life balance — I want to keep a bit of curiosity alive and encourage you to participate in the next event, where you can experience the full process.
But I will reveal some of them here:
- Accepting the problem and taking full responsibility
The first and most important step is to acknowledge that we have a problem and take full responsibility for it.
What do I mean by “we”?
People often blame others for the problems they experience. Yet, in any interaction, as adults, we have 50% responsibility for the outcome — and 100% responsibility for our part in it.
When we admit that we’ve contributed to a difficult situation with our share of responsibility, and we consciously take ownership of our behavior, language, attitude, actions, or inactions — we gain the power to change.
We cannot change others, but we can change ourselves — our reactions, our behaviors, our mindset. When we do, the other person can no longer respond to us in the same way. They must adapt — and that’s when true change begins.
If we can’t admit that we have something to shift inside ourselves, we’ll continue the same old patterns — often leading to deeper problems, broken partnerships, lost talents, clients, or even key team members.
Many clients come to me after experiencing such losses. Yet, those who seek help earlier can avoid these painful consequences and transform their businesses before reaching a crisis point.
- Releasing stress and negative emotions
The next step is to release the stress and negative emotions accumulated during challenging times.
You can use any stress-release tools you know — and of course, learn new ones — but until you make an internal shift in your unconscious patterns and inner dialogue, the same situations will keep repeating until you learn your “lesson.”
Thanks to the methodology I use, I can guide people through fast and lasting transformations. I’ve gone through this process myself, and that personal experience allows me to help others more deeply.
You’ll be able to explore this step during my upcoming webinar on November 2, 2025 (in Bulgarian) — and if you’re part of the English-speaking community, stay tuned for the next date when I’ll do it for you!
- Transforming leadership style and communication
I’ll combine several of the next steps into one BIG step — transforming leadership and communication style.
At this stage, we focus on developing empathic communication, improving collaboration skills, building healthy boundaries, enhancing confidence, and reshaping one’s relationship with money, along with many other important aspects. What and how we do this, you can learn in the upcoming event.
These changes help leaders become centered, calm, emotionally resilient, and connected with empathy and love, while leading their teams through warmth and authenticity.
This is such a powerful transformation that it completely changes how leaders perceive themselves and others. And even for those who have already done a lot of personal development work — there’s always room for growth.
- Preparation for growth
Growth has two dimensions — the growth of the leader and the growth of the organization.
Whether you’re running a small or medium-sized business or leading a corporate division, it’s better if you prepare for expansion consciously.
If your team is close to burnout due to a high workload, it’s time to communicate the needs of your people clearly and assertively with the higher-level leaders in your organization. Or if you are business owner, recognizing the needs of support for your team members is essential for good preparation for growth, as well as with many other aspects that business expansion needs to prepare for.
How to prepare the organization for expansion is something we will discuss in the webinar. One of the steps within this BIG step often involves exploring the effectiveness of existing processes, as well as the personal effectiveness and emotional resilience of team members. In many cases, the issue isn’t time management — it’s emotional management and collaboration.
Sometimes, the organizational culture itself needs to evolve before we start expanding. This is essential to improve effectiveness and avoid multiplying the same mistakes and gaps that make workflows inefficient. It’s also much easier to introduce a new culture in a smaller organization than in a large one. But this cultural shift cannot happen without a change in leadership first.
That’s why, in this phase, we fine-tune the leader’s skills, preparing them to grow to the next level — and to lead a larger, healthier, and more effective organization.
- Company culture
Once the leader transforms and gains enough clarity on how to expand the organization (you’ll learn more about this topic in the upcoming webinar), they begin to lead by example and communicate their strategic decisions and the need for change effectively and empathetically — and that’s where sustainable transformation truly begins.
We then work on helping the team grow alongside the leader through training and individual coaching.
However, if a leader believes they’re already “good enough” and that “there are no good people,” they will continue to produce the same results — until a dramatic change happens, such as losing key team members, business partners, or major clients.
Many founders reach out to me after such painful experiences. Similarly, leaders working within large organizations who can’t admit their need for growth often find themselves stuck — or even moving down the hierarchy. I’ve witnessed this pattern many times during my corporate career before becoming a coach.
So, if you want to learn more about how to emerge from difficult business situations such as:
- Conflicts with partners, employees, or clients that drain your energy and productivity.
- Persistent stress, tension, and exhaustion from managing your team.
- Feeling uncertain about how to grow your business or career — or doubting your own ability to do it.
- Expanding your leadership role or business division to the next level.
Join me on Sunday, November 2, 2025, from 6–8 PM Sofia time (in Bulgarian).
And follow me to find out when the English-language event will take place!
Leadership insights
- What is the main learning for you from this article?
- If you could take just one important thing from it — what would it be?
- How would implementing this one thing impact others — your team, your business, and even your family?
If you’d like to discuss your personal case in detail and find solutions — connect with me.
And I look forward to seeing you at one of the upcoming events!
Warmly,
Ivet
Ivet Pavlova, PCC (ICF)
NLP Somatic Coach & Mentor Coach
Business, Leadership & Life Balance Coach & Trainer
