What is a life Coach

I was talking with a client the other day and after a pretty big breakthrough, she said, “I didn’t know what to expect from coaching” and I realized that might be a good thing to explain! I view myself as a life facilitator. Someone who is by your side to help you sort out the complexities of life. And lately life feels super complex. Then we work through the challenges you may be facing and get you to a point where you are ready to move on and face the world on your own.

Life coaching starts with helping you find the pain points in your life. Areas in your life that you aren’t at living up to your own personal expectations. Some people come to me knowing where they need some help and some people come with a general feeling of being stuck.

If you aren’t sure what area you need some help with then we review the basics: health, relationships, romance, career finances, your environment, personal growth, and fun or recreation. Whichever one of those are sticky then we will hone in on, find the problem and work to remedy it.

It is a very collaborative process. My job is to help you reframe the narrative that you’ve been telling yourself into something positive and affirming. You already have the strength, courage and knowledge with you and it’s my job to bring those things to the forefront for you to move forward in your life.

Coaching can also help hold you accountable to the changes you want to make in your life. I then give you the tools to become accountable to yourself and keep moving forward.

Basically, if you are stuck in the mud, my job is to help you find the ladder out and into the world. I might help you get cleaned up first!

If you are interested in exploring coaching then please sign up for a free coaching consult.

You can also sign up below for my newsletter and receive a free webinar and worksheet to help you get engaged in your life. This is great if you are feeling a little stuck and need a nudge forward.

Engaged

You may have seen an article that made its way through the interwebs last year about Languishing. It described so well what many of us have been feeling. It’s not a full on depression, but it is also a lack of interest in life. I would say that there have been many points in my life where i have languished but the pandemic has definitely accelerated the problem. The antidote to languishing is ‘flow’. Flow is basically when you become lost in the doing of something and you lose all sense of time. There’s a whole book on it called Flow: The Psychology of Optimization if you are interested in reading more. If you want a great summary of Adam Grant’s antidote here you go.

I get lost in ‘flow’ when I read a really good book, when I crochet, weave or sew, when I am learning something new like a language or playing guitar (Although some people find learning something new to knock them out of flow, but learning new things is kind of written into my DNA.), and when I’m baking. Even writing this blog post gets me in ‘flow’. Basically anything that keeps my hands or brain lost in the moment. There’s a reason why doing puzzles swept the nation during the pandemic. It was a way to be in flow and sometimes be in community. I work with a coach who when she heard I was struggling said, “Have you been crafting?”. Um, no. No I had not and it was having a real impact on how I was feeling. So, I have to do something daily that engages me and usually that is some crocheting or weaving. Things that are small and don’t require a lot of space, unlike sewing. Sigh.

What if you don’t know what lights you up or keeps you engaged. Well, here’s a list to get you started. I’ve broken it up in four different groups based on how you are feeling. If you want to be active, then check out ‘Move’, but if you need something quiet to do, or your energy is low, pick something from ‘Think’ or ‘Create’. Another way to get engaged and connected is being in community, so there is a ‘Social’ section just for that. It may take trying out things before you find what helps you get lost in flow. In fact I took pottery classes for over a year, which I loved, but it made me realize that my true love was textiles. It helped me return to sewing and crafting.

Do you have anything you would add to the list? Please drop me a comment. Let me know if you find something that intrigues you and if you need help finding an activity or hobby, then sign up for a free call and we can talk through some options.

Engaging Activities- The antidote to languishing

Move-

High activity Sports:

Rugby

Soccer

Football

Dodgeball

Kickball

Running

Biking

Moving and Grooving

Table tennis

Badminton

Gymnastics

Ice skating

Yoga

Dancing

Bowling

Outdoor

Hiking

Foraging

Gardening

Biking

Rock Climbing

Glamping

Birding

Think

Games

Cosplay

Poker

Board games

Chess

Collecting

Plants

Antiques

Books

Art

Chairs (I have a chair problem!)

Quiet activities

Reading

Writing

Meditating

Photography

Puzzles

Blogging

Learn a language

Book Club

Geneaology

Sudoku

Create

Arts and Crafts

Painting

Watercolor

Drawing

Weaving

Crochet

Knitting

Scrapbooking

Pottery

Jewelry making

Sewing

Woodworking

Social

Circle back to some of those sports

Food and drink

Cooking and baking and sharing your knowledge (mmm)

Cocktails

Brewing

Wine, Beer or Cheese club

Other

Storytelling

Improv

Stitch and Bitch

thoughts on time

I have been doing a lot of reading lately, which is actually not abnormal, but most of the books have centered around burnout, busyness, overwhelm, strategic thinking and hibernating. I request books from my library a lot and you never quite know when a book is going to show up, especially if there are people waiting. So the fact that all of these books showed up at the same time made me think-ok Universe, I hear you.

One thing I struggle with is that our identities are tied to our jobs. When you introduce yourself it is usually your name and your job. I’d love to introduce myself as an empath, a reader, a crafter, a coach, a person slightly obsessed with Ray and Charles Eames, but instead I give my job as my identity. When our job is our identity we don’t leave space for all the other very important things, like family/family of choice, friends, cooking, reading, playing the ukulele, writing stories, going for hikes, or all the innumerable things that make up who we are.

On top of that our second identity is tied to how busy we are. We are all trying to out busy each other. Why? Status is now tied to busyness.

All of this to say that we do have time. Years ago I banned the word busy from my vocabulary because I realized I was using it as an excuse. Either an excuse to a friend who I didn’t really feel like spending time with, or an excuse to myself because I was afraid to do something like taking a pottery class or a comedy class. What happened was I became less busy. I still had stress, don’t get me wrong, but my lack of time was due to how I was choosing to spend my time.

What if you were to carve out fifteen minutes for yourself each day? What would you do? What if you could expand that time to fit thirty minutes and then an hour. What could you do just for yourself?

Here are some books that have really influenced how I use my time:

• 168 hours: You Have More Time That You Think by Laura Vanderkamp

• Do Nothing: How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing and Underliving by Celeste Headlee

• Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May

If you have any favorite books or resources, please drop them in the comments.