A Life Coach? Really?
Will they think I’m crazy? Will the doubt me? Is this really what I want to do? Why am I scared to share with my close friends, family or anyone my dream of being a life coach?
I vividly remember listening to this podcast episode back in 2017. We were heavy into paying off our debt, so I was all about anything Dave Ramsey. I was working at home for GTM at the time and I went for a walk over my lunch break. It was a beautiful winter day, meaning it was warm and didn’t feel like winter at all, and I was about a quarter of a ways onto the dike overlooking the golf course and the lake when Marie said this:
My intuition just kept speaking up and speaking up, saying you’re supposed to do something else. You’re supposed to be making a bigger difference. But the frustration came in because the voice that said This isn’t it, didn’t tell me what I was supposed to do!
Ex-Freakin-actly Marie!!! It’s SOOOO FRUSTRATING!!! I continued to listen on about how she experimented with different careers which ultimately led her to life-coaching and how crazy she felt for thinking that people would actually hire a young life coach. But that she just kept following the thing that lit her up!
At the time that I listened to this, I knew GTM wasn't where I was supposed to be, but I had no freakin' clue what I was actually supposed to do. I knew that I wanted to do something with more meaning. I felt like day after day I was spending 8+ hours alone in my office wasting the gifts that God gave me and at the end of the day I was too exhausted for any sort of side-hustle. Ya'll talking on the phone all day and being chipper and excited and stuff, even though it comes fairly natural to me, is mentally exhausting. I loved this idea of life coaching that Marie talked about, but did I love it simply because I loved this podcast episode and her story and just wanted to get out of my current situation? Or is it something I should actually pursue.
One year later - in February 2018 - I quit that job without knowing what I'd do next. We had worked so hard to pay off our debt and could finally live on one income while I figured it out. That's when I decided to start coaching with Beachbody simply because I loved the programs and products and felt like other new moms & small town peeps with no gym needed to know about this too! Marie Forleo's words drove me through 2018:
Clarity comes from engagement, not thought.
This is the year. This is the year I will stop just thinking about the things and engage in the things. So what if people think I'm flaky because I'm over here not knowing what in the F I want to do with my life!! So what if I haven't thought everything through and don't know if it'll stick!! I guess I'd rather be a flake than never figure it out!! So I just kept following the feeling and the next right thing.
With those things, life coaching continued to come up. In April, I went to a conference at the Kansas Leadership Center. I rode down with a fellow Leadership Mitchell County board member and he happened to mention that he was interested in coaching and we could not stop talking about it! We then learned about a coaching intensive course and certification that is offered through KLC. Needless to say, it made me feel a little less crazy!
Over the summer, I was driving to Junction City to hang out with my bestie and listened to Kick Ass with Mel Robbins on the way. In this audible exclusive, Mel coaches 8 different people in overcoming the things that are keeping them stuck. I COULD. NOT. GET. ENOUGH! I wanted to keep driving! I couldn't wait to get back in the car to listen!! Then I thought to myself This isn't normal! It's NOT normal that someone is as jacked up as I am from listening to an audible program. This means something.
I continued to follow the feeling by hiring a life-coach in November. If I was going to do this, I wanted to see how the process worked. If I found value in it. If it was a process I could start incorporating and practicing with my Beachbody business. Working with Mildred didn't go as I'd expected. It was better!! It went in a direction that I couldn't even fathom before the process started. It was validating. It was encouraging. It was inspiring.
That is how I want others to feel. That is why I want to do this.
We get so caught up in doing the day to day things. We get so caught up in our self-limiting beliefs. We get caught up in the FEAR that holds us back from finding and doing the things that we were put on this freakin' earth to do!! So caught up in all of these things, that we could easily live in that state our entire lives!! But is that really want we want? So what will it take to break free? If we knew, we would have already done it, right? That's where the life-coach steps in. That's where I want to step in and help others break free!
I don't know how it's going to come about, but I'm going to trust the process that got me to this point. I'm going to keep following the next right thing.