I have been on a few back to back coaching calls this week – a couple on “Power Tools” and Advanced Coaching. I have had some real food for thought from all of these and the messages and learnings seem to be connected.
I am at a halfway point in a contract I took as a way of easing myself out of my comfort zone (full time corporate job) to building a coaching practice and life that I want. If I am going to help others find their bliss, I think it is important to follow mine! I have lately really struggled with letting go of this contract, even though I know I have no choice. Funny thing. The job has been the best I have ever had and a part of me wants to stay. I was on a coaching call last night about “UAC’s – Underlying Automatic Commitments” which basically are the unconscious or conscious behavior or thinking we repeat that get in the way of getting what we want. We keep these commitments because on some level, we are being rewarded for it. My resistance is coming from wanting to stay in a comfort zone where I am getting paid regularly, where I am successful without taking much risk, and from the discomfort of not knowing what lays ahead for me. I learned that I needed to revisit the reason I took this job in the first place, why I want to be a coach, why I think I would be good at it. I realized that these are not things you can just affirm once with yourself and then get on with it. Every time the gremlin jumps on my back, I need to have this conversation with myself. This is also powerful for working with a client, to help them examine what thinking, behavior, beliefs they may be holding on to that cause them to repeatedly delay or sabatoge their goals. I also experienced feelings coming up about my work in HR and found a pattern repeating itself about how I feel about my work and how I perceive other feel about it. All of this served to renew my comittment to my coaching journey. I’m scared as hell, and yet I will keep ploughing through. Another thing that helped this week was hearing from other ICA students and one workshop leader about their own journey. I am not alone in this. Everyone struggles with self doubt and fear when they are taking a risk, stepping out of their comfort zone to do something different than they know. One coach told me that sometimes it’s good to be bad at something. It means you are pushing your edges. So I will keep pushing mine and hope I don’t fall over!
