Inna ShikolayStop Proving. Start Creating.

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We like to believe that once a woman’s income grows, the rest of her life will fall into place. I’ve seen the opposite many times. The money grows — and so do the tension, the exhaustion and the loneliness next to the person closest to you.

From the outside, it looks like success. That’s exactly why it’s so hard for a woman like this to say out loud that something inside isn’t right.

Inna is forty-seven. She’s been married for more than twenty years, has two children, lives in Brest, Belarus, and has worked online for six years — moving from marketer and producer to business psychologist and mentor for successful women. A few years ago her business was growing and clients were coming in, while at the same time her relationship with her husband was falling apart, her mother fell ill, and she was dealing with anxiety and migraines.

We’ve known each other since 2024; Inna joined Clirium in 2026. What I value most is how honestly she draws the line between the tools she was given and the work she did herself.

Money was never the problem here. The problem was what she was paying for it.

Victory Naydenova · Founder of CLIRIUM® ME

As told to the editors of Clirium’s Magazine

Business psychologist and mentor Inna Shikolay on money, marriage, inner strength — and building a life where growth no longer has to feel like a constant fight

We like to believe that once a woman’s income grows, the rest of her life will fall into place, but in my work I’ve seen the opposite many times: the money grows, and so do the tension, the exhaustion and the loneliness next to the person closest to you. From the outside it looks like success — and that’s exactly why it’s so hard for a woman like this to admit that something inside isn’t right.

Inna Shikolay’s story is about exactly that. She is forty-seven, has been married for more than twenty of those years, has two children, lives in Brest, Belarus, and has worked online for more than six years, moving from marketer and producer to business psychologist and mentor for successful women. A few years ago her business was growing and clients kept coming, while at the very same time her relationship with her husband was falling apart, her mother fell ill, and anxiety and migraines set in.

We’ve known each other since 2024, and Inna joined Clirium in 2026. What I especially value in her account is how honestly she separates the tools she was given from what she did herself. Money was never the problem in this story; the problem was what she was paying for it. Here is her story.

There was no single beautiful moment after which everything changed. It built up gradually, and at some point I simply saw how much energy I was pouring into fighting with my husband, into proving how strong I was, into constant tension — and how much I was investing in my business without getting a matching return. My anxiety was growing, the migraines started, the conflicts at home never stopped, and one day I realized I simply wasn’t okay with what was happening in my life.

I feel like I’m capable of more, but I don’t understand why I keep myself stuck here.

That’s when, for the first time, I stopped looking for yet another business tool and started looking for the answer to a completely different question: what is going on with me?

I met Victory in 2024 completely by chance, when I landed on one of her livestreams where she was doing in-depth readings of people based on what she calls their “givens” — their date of birth. It was a revelation for me, because she showed me things I couldn’t see in myself: how numbers, patterns, inner programs and life scripts work, and how they can affect money, relationships and decisions. After that we had deep one-on-one sessions, I took part in her programs and stayed in her orbit. After the first stages of that work, my income began to grow step by step — from around 500,000 rubles (about $6,000) to 800,000 (about $9,500) and then to a million (about $12,000). I put together a group, and clients started coming to me much more easily.

I joined Clirium in 2026 with a different kind of goal. I didn’t just want more money or another result; I wanted to understand myself more deeply — my state of mind, my reactions, my relationship with myself and with the people I love. Above all, I wanted to learn to manage my own inner state instead of living in constant tension and control.

At Clirium I saw how much my inner state affects absolutely everything, and I began noticing things I had never seen before or had blamed on outside circumstances. First of all, I started hearing myself better — and along with that, I started hearing my husband. That’s very telling for me, because in our relationship it used to matter most to prove that I was right and that I was strong.

I saw that many of my reactions were driven by certain inner programs and scripts, and that I didn’t have to keep living by them just because they were familiar. There’s no magic pill, and deep work on yourself really does demand honesty. But once you understand what’s happening to you, you gain the ability to do something about it.

The decision that changed the course of my life the most sounds simple: stop looking only for outside causes and start looking honestly at myself — admitting that if I’m not happy with where my life is, simply working harder won’t fix it. That was the hardest thing to admit, because working is something I know how to do. I’ve worked my whole life.

I need to see what state I’m making decisions from, which scripts I keep repeating, where my energy goes and what I forbid myself.

— key points

My second important decision was not to stop at my own transformation, but to pass that experience on.

I began to treat myself and my decisions differently. I stopped constantly proving my worth through results, money and struggle. I started listening to myself more, paying attention to my state and noticing where my energy was going; I began relating to my husband differently and feeling more at ease with money and with clients. By then I had already grown financially — now what mattered was not just repeating the result, but learning to live differently inside it.

Today I see changes in several areas at once. In money and business, I keep growing: I’m developing my projects, creating programs for women and working with clients from a completely different inner place. In my marriage, I hear myself and my husband more, and so much of the fight over who’s stronger and who gives more has disappeared. And inside, there is far more clarity. Where there used to be chaos, anxiety and paralysis, today I understand much better what’s going on with me and what I can do about it.

My body changed, too: I started losing weight, feeling my body better, changed the way I eat and began moving more. There was also a very concrete material result — buying an apartment — and Victory’s work with numbers helped me with that decision as well, letting me see why I needed it, how to move toward it and why the decision was coming together right now. But the main result, I think, is that I stopped seeing different parts of my life as separate problems and began to see the connection between my inner state, energy, relationships, money and decisions.

The moment I thought, “I really did it,” came when I reached around 800,000 and then a million rubles, put together a group and saw that clients were coming more easily, without the feeling that I constantly had to prove something. That’s when I understood that something had changed inside me. Buying the apartment was another one of those moments. And here I want to say something important.

Victory gave me tools and feedback and helped me see what I couldn’t see on my own — but I was the one making the decisions. I took the steps, I changed my reactions, I built the business and I took responsibility for the result.

Maybe that’s what grown-up transformation is: when you stop waiting for someone to change your life and start creating it yourself.

Today, women don’t come to me for advice on how to earn more — my clients already know how to do that. They come because they’re tired of looking for the cause outside themselves when it’s been inside all along: in unconscious blocks, family scripts passed down through generations and old inner settings that quietly hold them at the same level, drain their energy and damage their relationships. I help a woman regain her inner strength and the state I call “the woman in charge of her own life” — the right to have money, relationships, status and scale.

Femininity is a source of great power.

Right now I’m building my project Scale of Self, which includes a mentorship track called Scale of a Woman. It’s a living project that grows along with me, because I keep testing my method on myself before passing it on — I’m convinced you can’t lead a woman somewhere you haven’t been yourself. What I’m proud of isn’t how far I’ve come or how much experience I have. It’s that I didn’t stop halfway, at a comfortable version of myself, and that I keep choosing myself and taking responsibility for the life I’m creating, even when it’s uncomfortable.

My path isn’t a story about how one day I figured everything out and my life instantly became perfect. I’m still growing, still working on myself, still rethinking my decisions and moving forward. In 2025 I lost my mother. It was an extremely hard time for me, and it’s probably moments like that which show best how well you can really stay connected to yourself.

Today, transformation doesn’t mean becoming someone who never has problems. It means learning to move through the different stages of life without destroying yourself, without going to war and without carrying everything on your own shoulders — understanding and hearing yourself, and choosing what kind of woman you want to be in the next chapter of your life. Because our lives are precious, multifaceted and fascinating.

If you put the woman I was before Clirium next to the woman I am today: back then, I was an anxious woman who gave a lot, didn’t know how to receive and kept measuring her strength against the person closest to her, because she didn’t know where to find support within herself. Today I know my strengths and weaknesses, I know how to turn weaknesses into strengths, and I act from understanding instead of chaos, building a life where financial growth doesn’t come at the expense of my relationships and my health.

I’m deeply grateful that Victory came into my life exactly when I needed her and helped me see a depth in myself that I couldn’t yet reach on my own. She knows how to give feedback, how to see what a person may not notice in themselves, and how to point them forward. And to a woman who is now where I once was, I’d say: don’t just try harder.

Sometimes the problem isn’t that you’re not working hard enough or don’t know enough. You need to stop and honestly ask yourself why you’re getting exactly this result, and what inside you is creating this reality.

— key points

Because when the inner foundation you live from changes, what you create on the outside gradually begins to change, too.

Facts are as reported by Inna Shikolay.

Lives and works in Brest, Belarus. Has worked online for more than six years, moving from marketing and producing into business psychology. Founder of the Scale of Self project and its Scale of a Woman mentorship track.

Her pages: Telegram “Масштаб личности с Инной Шиколай” (Scale of Self with Inna Shikolay) · Instagram @inna_promarketing

Clirium’s Magazine was created by Victory Naydenova, author and founder of CLIRIUM® ME. It features women’s stories alongside her perspective on psychology, choice and quality of life.

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