We recently connected with Yulia Burova and have shared our conversation below.

Yulia, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

I took a risk to convert my Mercedes Sprinter van by myself, without help, knowledge or major prior experience. But what I didn’t realize is that it turned out to be much more than a DYI project to build out a tiny house that would take me on nature adventures. It turned out to be portal to rebuilding Myself, my Self-Trust and Self-Identify. It helped me to evolve not only personally but also as an entrepreneur and a life coach.

In the summer of 2023 I built my electrical off-grid system with no experience. It was very scary and risky. My nervous system was firing a billion alarms, telling me what I am doing is really really unsafe. That could get electrocuted and die. That women should not be doing this. That I am incapable and completely delusional. I would pause to cool off, breathed, walked barefoot, had a cup of tea, called a friend… and continued slowly. It took 2 months for just electrical work.

Then I invested over a thousand dollars into power tools and slowly learned to use them – impact drivers and drills, table saw, jig saw, mill saw, router, and multitool. I am now learning how to build cabinets with hidden hinges and drawers.

I grew up with a single mom who had a lot of insecurities and fears and inherently projected a lot of them onto me. I only learned to swim in my 20s and ride a bike in my 30s – because it felt unsafe before. I didn’t have a dad who would show me how to use tools, in fact, until a few years ago I didn’t even know how to fix holes in the drywall after hanging photographs on the wall. It was like a big mystery to me how those holes get fixed so nicely when people move apartments!

I got into vanlife in 2018 when my ex-partner and I converted a van and travelled together on extended roadtrips. He designed and built things, and I followed his instructions but never got into framing, electrical, plumbing or cabinetry making. I never believed that I could ever build anything on my own, anything remotely beautiful and perfect as his work was.

But Nature is the place of ultimate creativity, freedom, inspiration, and peace for me, and it was calling me. So I took the risk to buy my own van and build it in baby steps. As I did it, I rebuilt my confidence. I saw evidence that I am capable. That I can protect myself. That I can make good decisions. That I can trust my intuition. That I follow through on my promises.

It was one of the scariest risks and the most worthy investment I ever made. An investment in myself.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a Life Coach, a passionate creative, an adventurous traveler, and a nature girl who loves Mother Nature. I am most passionate about helping individuals to remember their life purpose and set aligned goals that lead to authentic life fulfillment. I was searching for myself and my own purpose for so long that it feels I had multiple lives in this lifetime. I wish I had access to the resources that I do now, and that’s why I love helping others on their path.

I utilize a unique Self-Discovery Process with diverse modalities: NLP & Hypnotherapy to access & reprogram subconscious beliefs, IFS and Somatics for Nervous System regulation and Human Design for deeper discovery of life purpose. I am also a certified Health Coach and working on ICF Coaching accreditation.

In my 17 year long career in corporate Finance, Marketing, and Business Analytics, I was a superstar performer, tried different paths and created various positions for myself but so often felt depressed and unfulfilled and shamed myself for not being grateful enough for all opportunities. I always listened to voices of people around me – my family, my romantic partners, friends, co-workers, but ignored my own intuition or actually didn’t quite know how to connect with it.

To cope with everything, I constantly escaped to nature – did 2-3 weekend roadtrips a month and lots of local hiking. I became a nature photographer and later got into video, which was so healing to my nervous system. But it always felt temporary. As soon as I was back at work and in my life, my battery was instantly depleted again.

Because of my lifestyle practices and knowledge of herbs and alternative medicine, for decades I was an unofficial health coach to my friends and family. So in 2020 I got an official certification as a Health Coach. Initially, my big focus in working with clients was physical health – eating, moving body, building healthy habits. But I saw the pattern with clients not being able to be consistent with changes they committed to making. And many clients didn’t even know exactly what they wanted, what their dreams were. In many ways their subconscious beliefs and unregulated nervous system were preventing them from moving forward.

I really wanted to help so that led me to studying subconscious mind, nervous system, and somatic practices. I took classes in Internal Family Systems (IFS), Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Trauma and Nervous System Regulation. I also got fascinated with Human Design, which is a powerful tool to understand your life theme and who you are by design. Having versatile tools and modalities has been so instrumental in helping my clients to achieve breakthroughs because when it comes to self-development work, there is really no one size fits all.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I had to unlearn and rewire a belief that in order to be successful I must follow advice from the smartest, most accomplished people. I completely underestimated my own intuition that is beyond intellectual knowledge.

There is a lot of goodness in following other people’s journeys, listening to their voices and reading books written by accomplished individuals. Many of my clients are so sharp and read tons of books… but they forget to pause and integrate it. And they often get confused which voice is from a book and which voice is actually theirs. When I ask them what they think, they start quoting from books or podcasts.

I believe that each one of us is on a unique path in life and a true challenge and the ultimate fulfillment comes from being able to fully express your unique gifts and to connect to your own intuition in this busy world full of loud voices and opinions.

The answer lies in building self-trust so you can fully trust yourself to make that decision and not constantly experience regret or shame yourself. A big part of Self-Trust is listening to intuition. That’s why I am so excited about my coaching work – I get to help others to connect with their own inner wisdom. It takes practice. Just like I practiced self-trust converting my Sprinter van with no experience and taking baby steps, you can accomplish that by consistently showing to yourself that you can follow through on your promises and have your own back, no matter what. That is the only way you can live a successful, meaningful and joyful life.

As a relatively new small business owner, I see it especially important for entrepreneurs who have to do a lot of things they have never done before. How do you even begin to make decisions? What’s even harder is there are now a million of “experts” selling solutions and offering advice on social media. So how do you narrow it down to what’s right for your business and life and what is not?

And as an artist I have struggled with a comparison syndrome and an imposter syndrome. The truth is there are many incredibly talented people in this world! So it’s easy and natural to feel that I am “not good enough”. So I remind myself that I am on my own unique path, with my own experiences and my own voice. I didn’t grow up with entrepreneurial or creative parents, in fact I was conditioned with deep fears of those areas and was taught to only want a stable desk job at a big company. I am choosing my life differently by practicing trusting my own self-guidance every day.

I made myself a promise to follow my dreams no matter how unrealistic they may seem. And one of my now realized dreams is to help others to discover their dreams. I help my clients to really step into who they authentically. It lights up my heart when I see them shine!

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

In March 2023 I took a leap of faith to become a full time coach. I didn’t feel financially ready and I don’t have anyone in my life who can support me financially so it felt extremely scary. But it also felt scary to stay because I wasn’t on board with changes happening at the company I was working in. Having a corporate job gave me a sense of security and also evidence that coaching is my path because even on hardest coaching days, I felt incredibly alive in the evening. On my corporate days I was depleted and wanted to rest on the couch at the end of the day.

So when changes were happening at the company, I knew it was a nudge from the Universe to pivot and to trust that it would be ok and that I am ready. Interestingly, I thought my immediate focus would be actively building out my coaching business and getting as many clients as possible. But my intuition took me on a different path. I tapped into my savings and was prioritizing self-care practices, worked with a therapist and a coach – it felt like a major detox and rebuilding my foundation of beliefs. Then I worked on my Sprinter van, and that physical work rewired my nervous system and helped me to establish self-trust.

If I didn’t trust my intuition to take me on a detour, if I had surrounded to the fear and pressure to earn money as soon as possible, I probably would have returned back to corporate within a few months. Because my foundation of beliefs and all my behavioral patterns would still be the same while trying to build something new. Now I know that doing things the same way and expecting a different outcome simply doesn’t work.

In 17 years I hit major burnout and quit my corporate positions three times, trying to figure out who I want to be. One of those times was to start a photography business, and everyone told me that photographers don’t make any money. So of course, I listened and believed them. And guess what? A couple of months later I returned back to a desk job. (Again listening to those external voices and not believing my own inner truth.)

This pivot to go full time as a coach was one of the most courageous decisions I made in life. And also trusting my intuition to take me on a detour to first focus on myself before getting more clients was a huge pivot because it helped me to stay the course and not give up on my dream of building my own business. Now I feel so much more grounded and confident in myself and my business.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://yuliaburova.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yuliainnature
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yuliaburova.wellness/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yuliaburova
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@yuliainnnature

Image Credits
Yulia Burova Photography