Why a process helps
When you are already tired, choosing a coach can feel like one more task. Breaking it into steps keeps the decision small and manageable. The steps below are written for leaders in Lima, where many people work for large round-the-clock operations such as the city's long-running refinery, and for the owners and managers whose businesses depend on them.
Step 1: Name what is wearing you down
Take ten minutes and write a plain list. Is it hours, the unpredictability of on-call weeks, conflict on your team, or a job that has grown faster than your support around it? Cenovus lists more than 500 employees at its Lima Refinery, a site it describes as the longest-running continuously operating oil refinery in the U.S. In an operation that size and that constant, strain often comes from managing many people at once while also answering to leaders above you. Getting specific about your own version makes every later step easier.
Step 2: Decide what you want from coaching
Turn your list into two or three goals. Examples: protect one evening a week, delegate a category of decisions, or set a firm end to the workday. Coaching on this directory is non-clinical, so goals should focus on workload, boundaries and recovery time. If your concerns are about your health, speak with a health professional as well.
Step 3: Set your practical limits
Work out how often you can realistically meet, what you can spend, and whether you want in-person sessions in Lima, video, or a mix. If your schedule rotates, note which days or times are reliably free. This short list will save time in every conversation that follows.
Step 4: Reach out to a few coaches
Use Executive Burnout Pros to contact two or three independent coaches. The directory introduces you; it does not employ coaches or check their credentials. Send each one the same short message: your role in general terms, your goals and your limits from Step 3.
Step 5: Ask the same questions of each
On an introductory call, ask about the coach's background with leaders in similar roles, how sessions run, how they track progress against your goals, what they charge, and how they handle cancellations. Ask what they will not do, too. A coach who is clear about the edges of coaching is easier to trust.
Step 6: Plan rest close to home
Coaching tends to go further when you also build real recovery time into your week. The City of Lima's Parks, Recreation & Forestry division manages parks such as Faurot Park, Schoonover Park and the Buttonbush Wetland Preserve. A city brochure describes the Rotary River Walk as a 4.2 mile paved trail from Heritage Park in Shawnee Township to the Collett Street Recreation Area, extended by the Ottawa River Bikeway toward downtown and Schoonover Park. Pick one stretch or one park and put a walk on your calendar. Travel times from your home or workplace are approximate and vary by route.
Step 7: Choose and agree on terms
Pick the coach you felt most at ease with and whose answers were the most concrete. Before the first paid session, confirm in writing the schedule, fees, cancellation rules, how notes are kept and what, if anything, is shared with an employer who pays.
Step 8: Protect the gains between sessions
Coaching happens in an hour or so; the rest of the week is where change either sticks or slips. After each session, write one sentence about what you agreed to try, and one about what might get in the way. If a turnaround, an outage or a staffing gap swallows your plan, note that too, and bring it to the next session rather than quietly dropping the goal. A coach can only help with the week you actually had.
Step 9: Check in after a month
After four or so sessions, look back at your goals from Step 2. Are you protecting the time you meant to protect? Is the coaching relationship still useful? If not, say so directly, adjust the plan, or try a different coach. You are allowed to change course.
A note on urgency
If at any point you feel unsafe or in crisis, do not wait for a coaching session. Use the crisis line shown on this page and reach out to someone near you right away.