Top 3 Reasons To Work With A Life Coach

Day 10: Life Coaching

Today I want to spend a little bit of time sharing what exactly a Life Coach is and why you may want to work with one.

There are times in life when we can all use some outside perspective.

Times when things aren’t quite going as planned, or aren’t quite as clear as we want them to be.

When this happens, a Life Coach can be there to help you create forward motion.

The focus is not on your past, but rather on your present and future.

As a Coach, I am there to ask you powerful questions so that you’re better equipped to make powerful decisions for yourself.

It’s not my job to tell you what to do. It’s my job to help uncover what you’d like to do and why.

I’ve noticed 3 specific times when it can be extremely helpful to work with a Life Coach. Those times are:

1) When you have a specific goal in mind that you’ve been unable to achieve.

2) When you are feeling overwhelmed and uncertain of which direction your life is headed. You look up one day and realize life is passing you by.

3) You’re in a period of transition and wanting clarity around how to navigate the changes.

Let’s take an even closer look at each of these areas, and some specific examples for each.

You have a specific goal in mind that you’ve been unable to achieve.

• You own your own business, but it’s more of a ‘jobby’ then a job. Meaning, you work hard, but have been unable to generate the income that you had hoped to generate.

• You’ve been striving for work/life balance for the past 10+ years and have yet to achieve it. It feels like your days are defined by work and basic daily necessities (laundry, grocery shopping, kids and bill paying). You want more but are unsure of how to find the time.

You are feeling overwhelmed and uncertain of which direction your life is headed. You look up one day and realize life is passing you by.

• You started out with hopes and dreams of what you wanted to be when you grew up. Now here you are grown, with children headed off to college, and uncertain about where your relationship stands, what your purpose is and what’s next.

• Your house is a mess and you feel completely unorganized within your space. You can’t find what you need when you need it. Because of the chaos you miss deadlines, are often running late and feeling unprepared.

You’re in a period of transition and wanting clarity around how to navigate the changes.

• You’re in a relationship and unhappy. You feel frustrated and hopeless because you don’t see the other person changing any time soon.

• You’ve struggled with prioritizing, punctuality, and planning for most of your life. You’ve joked that you’re “so adhd” to friends and family. The problem is that it doesn’t feel very funny. You wonder sometimes if there’s something to it? or maybe you’ve just recently been diagnosed with adhd and you’re not sure what it means. Now what?

I can help. I’ve been there and have navigated those waters myself along with the help of my coach. It’s really changed the way I approach things and how I feel on a daily basis.

As a Life Coach I meet with my clients weekly for 45 minutes.

Our calls are done over Zoom (video conference), are private and can be done from the comfort of your own home. (If you prefer, calls can be done audio only so as not to distract you)

I offer a free 45-minute consultation to help you get started. Taking that first step is the hardest. After that, it’s so nice to have someone that you talk to weekly to clear out your brain, (and course correct if needed) so that you are living life on your terms, the way that you want to.

The 45-minute consultation is my gift to you. If you’re considering coaching, and are ready to invest the time and money to make the changes in life that you’re wanting to make, perfect! Book a call below.

We’ll use the time as a way to determine what you feel the problem is, how I can help and if we’d be a good fit. If you decide to move forward with coaching, we can get started right away and in 3 months you will feel so much better and more in control.

If you decide not to move forward with coaching at this time, no problem. You will have gained some clarity around what it is that you want. You will know what to expect if you decide to work together in the future.

The one thing that’s certain is if you keep going the way you’re going you’ll end up with the same results. The only way to have a different outcome is to try something different.

I’m invested in helping you make a decision for yourself one way or the other, and help you make sure that you like your reason. That in and of itself can be helpful. Coaching works when a person is ready.

If you’re ready, book a session today. ~Shaun

How To Feel Confident When You're Not Feeling Confident - Part II

In Part I of How To Feel Confident When You’re Not Feeling Confident, we talked about the concept of using triggers or cues when we notice ourselves feeling afraid or nervous.

We looked at the types of things people do to try and trick their brains into believing that they are able to do something that feels impossible. Essentially, how to feel more confident in their abilities.

If you haven’t yet read Part I, you can find that post here.

Today let’s take a look at how we may be able to use this newfound knowledge and apply it in areas that we may feel insecure.

If we successfully use cues in one instance (put on red lipstick and dominate in a power lifting competition), how can we then use that same strategy in another instance? For example, believing that we are capable of creating the business that we want.

Many of my clients are entrepreneurial in nature. They have a side hustle, and a side hustle to their side hustle. They have skills and are figuring out ways to monetize those skills and offer them to the world. Starting a business requires you to feel confident. (Notice I didn’t say requires you to BE confident.)

It requires you to feel confident long enough to take the next step, no matter how uncomfortable it makes you.

I will be the first one to say, while I’ve figured out how to make just about any type of trip or vacation happen, I’ve noticed the process is not quite as smooth when it comes to other areas of my life.

Let’s take my coaching business for example.

I spent the first year of my coaching business offering pro-bono coaching, as a way to gain experience and quite honestly to feel more confident in my offering.

Let me be super clear here so the people in the back can hear…for over 250 hours I coached pro-bono. That means for free, yes free!

While I’m grateful for every hour of it and believe whole heartedly that it made me a much better coach today, the truth of the matter is, it just felt really hard to ask clients to pay for coaching. (Even though I myself had invested in coaching at twice the rate of what I was asking, and found it well worth it!)

I questioned my ability to provide results, I struggled with believing that it was possible for clients to want to pay me. I didn’t have past evidence that I could do it, therefore questioned whether I could. I struggled with believing and in hindsight wonder “what could have been my red lipstick in this scenario?”

Here are a few things that I’ve discovered that help me when I’m needing a boost of confidence:

1. Mel Robbins #5secondrule - This has been a game changer for me! If I think long, I often think wrong. As an intuitive person I have learned that when an idea comes to me, no matter how outlandish it may seem, there’s usually something worth looking at. Counting down 5-4-3-2-1-GO has helped to keep me from second guessing myself. It also keeps my #recoveringpeoplepleasing ways at bay. I try not to allow time to worry about what others may think.

2. Outer Accountability - I bring someone else into my plan. Speaking my commitment out loud and somehow tying it into a commitment to someone else is a good strategy for me. As an #obliger I have a tendency to show up for others way more than I tend to show up for myself. (I have been working on this, but am still very much a work in progress!)

3. Pain factor - If I really want to get something done, I need to invest in it. I value money and don’t like to waste it. If I pay and purchase, I tend to follow through. (Just like purchasing a plane ticket.) Those dolla dolla bills are NOT going to waste.

4. Take a look at my thoughts. They probably are not where they need to be. Thoughts that help me are:

   *I’m heading in the right direction and helping people along the way.

   *There are people that need what I have to offer and are ready to pay for it.

   *I saw the value in coaching, others will too.

   *Nothing can deflate me. I’m fearfully and wonderfully made.

Share your thoughts in the comments. I’d love to hear how you give yourself a pep talk and realign your mind to feel confident! What’s your red lipstick?! ~Shaun

ADHD Tendencies and Self-Regulation: The Struggle to Find The Perfect Pace

Cars have gauges to let them know when something is out of balance. Thermometers so that we know when the engine is too hot, gas gauges let us know when we're almost out of fuel, and speedometers let us know when we're moving too fast or too slow. 

As people we can overheat, we can run out of steam, or we can move at a steady pace. In general, our bodies are self-regulating. When something's out of whack, we experience a symptom of some sort. For those with ADHD tendencies, self-regulation can be a real challenge to say the least.  

Have you ever felt that one of your gauges didn't work? Or like maybe you were born without one?

As someone with ADHD tendencies, I have definitely felt like my time regulator or inner sense of time has always been a bit off. I have also felt that I may be missing an inner pace-setter. That part that tells me when to push harder or that I've pushed hard enough. How fast I should complete something vs how fast another hard worker would complete something, albeit someone without adhd tendencies. 

I've often thought what is the baseline? The industry standard? As someone who "listens in" and pays attention to others interactions, I've wondered how do they know what the pace should be? I have no natural sense for that. 

Here's what I mean:

In the past, when it came to how I lived my life, I would often say I was a "sprinter, not a marathoner", meaning I could go hard and fast for awhile and then would need some downtime. I wasn't good at pacing myself and didn't actually enjoy a slow and steady pace. 

Often I would channel an intense attention span (often referred to as hyper-focus) when necessary. When something really interested me I'd be all in, often at the expense of everything else.

It wasn't until I actually began running a few years ago, that I learned that I actually could run long distance if I paced myself. This made me consider what that would look like in my everyday life, in my work life.

What would happen if I paced myself? I had a belief that if I paced myself I would be holding back. Not giving as much as I was able. My challenge became, how do I overdeliver and yet set my own pace? When you don't have a pace-setter, how do you judge what is a perfect pace? If I used a frantic pace to determine when I'd worked hard enough, what did I use once I chose to drop "frantic" as a way of being?

When I found myself in job situations where the pace was fast and everchanging, I loved, loved, loved it, until I didn't. I would eventually burn out for lack of boundaries. The challenge of learning a new job, tackling a new challenge, solving a new problem was energizing. I would say "yes, sure, no problem, whatever you need" and then later wonder why I had hit a wall. For some reason, I believed it was my employer's responsibility to give me a reasonable amount of work. To have an idea of how long something should take. So. Not. True. 

My motto for this was "I can do anything for a week..., I can do anything for a year...I can do anything for a month." I was basically up for the challenge for as long as I could handle it. This wasn't a terrific way to live. I would let exhaustion be the key that I was done.

I'm still figuring this out. Not gonna lie. But I am getting better at it. I began planning more. Doing things on purpose, not because I could or felt I had to, or wanted to be a people pleaser. I began saying "yes" because I had time in my planner, or didn't and so would say "I can't today, but can by Monday" or "thank you for thinking of me, I just don't have time for that right now".

Want to chat with me a bit about some of your self-regulation issues? Book a 30-min consultation and see how coaching may be just the thing to help.