Crafting My Own Path: Serving as a Life Coach, Even Without a Client
When people turn to life coaches or therapist to help with their daily roadblocks and setbacks, they trust that they’re turning to someone that has cracked the code of navigating this thing called life. Ironically, it’s the furthest thing from the truth. Despite years of education and endless passion to help others, we still don’t have all the answers. We still face hardship. We have questions that we don’t know how to solve or answer to. Sometimes, even if we come to a solution, we still find ourselves unsatisfied with the solution we’ve come to because it’s not an immediate fix. We aren’t always content with the outcome. We realize, we’re still learning, and life is continuing to deliver us lesson after lesson. As I type this, as a certified life coach, I’m in the midst of navigating one of life’s storms myself.
In April 2022, I started my journey of becoming a certified life coach. I stumbled upon The Life Coach School to receive my certification. The feeling of uncovering my purpose and pursuing it was a high that I never wanted to come down from. That was until I realized the cost of pursuing this dream would cost me a whopping $21,000. For someone who’s shunned college due to the hefty expense, I was hesitant of this significant financial commitment. After a lot of going back and forth, I finally talked myself into applying for a personal loan to pay the expense needed to receive my certification. My thought process was I had six months of training and then I’d have the tools necessary to start securing clients. I envisioned all the people that I’d help and how this was an investment that I would soon see my return on. This was glorious because I had grown bored of my job, and I finally saw this as the opportunity to break free and venture down a whole new career path that’d bring me more fulfillment. As I sit here today, I beat myself up over the naivety of my own thoughts. I worked hard through certification to learn the material, practice my skills, and finally receive my certificate in October 2022. Now over a year later, certified and all, I still work at my job, and I have yet to obtain one paying client. Not to mention that each month, I find myself angrily making payments towards my personal loan. It left me wondering, was it worth it?
Once I received my certificate, it wasn’t long until I realized that I only had one piece of the puzzle. I knew how to help people, but I knew nothing about running a business. Hell, I didn’t even know how to start a business. I turned to others for guidance and mentorship, but every helping hand came with an additional price tag attached to it that was out of my budget, which left me with the scary realization that this was something I was going to have to do on my own. I cracked down and began my research, but the more I read about marketing, niches, and branding, I became even more confused and the more hopeless I started to feel. I couldn’t fathom the thought of failing, so I started doing multiple different projects. I taught myself how to build my own website. I started posting on social media, but after months, still nothing. I was burning myself out and I wasn’t seeing progress. I shifted gears and told myself that I needed to make more money, so I could invest in further education, but that only sent me down a deeper rabbit hole of wrestling with the job market. Each rejection I received from job applications only made me feel worse. I even started envying the other life coaches that were successful. I desired to be them, but I didn’t believe I had it in me.
I would have endless coaching sessions about being stuck, but nothing quite solved my problem. When I was on the verge of quitting, I decided to tune inward one last time. When I looked within, I realized I didn’t see myself as a life coach. I went to work at my corporate job, then I got off to be the mother to my child, and at the end of the day, I was mustering up whatever energy and resources I had left to try to show up as a life coach. How could I possibly expect grand results with partial effort? I couldn’t because I wasn’t all in.
During my introspection, the question that changed the game for me was: How can I be a life coach in my day-to-day life? BOOM! Just like that, the flood gates had opened. I was so blinded by how bored I was with my job that I didn’t realize the opportunity I had sitting in my own lap. If I truly believed I was a life coach, I would be seizing the opportunity in my current role to work as a life coach. Where could I see improvements or opportunities for better results amongst the people I worked with? I was always an employee that loved engagement activities, but I knew creating food days was not rewarding and often offered temporary gratification. I yearned for something long term that made an impact.
During one of my one-on-one meetings with my supervisor, I shared my idea of fostering monthly workshops for the team. I had noticed that over the year, our team had lost motivation, experienced decreases in production and quality scores, hardly participated in meetings or events, and the communication between the team members and management was subpar. My goal was to combine my skills as a life coach into my everyday role to create a stronger team. To my surprise, my supervisor was stoked to hear of my initiative to transform the team and he shared that this was something that he’s wanted for a while now, but he saw no way through. This was my golden ticket. I wanted the challenge, but more than anything, I wanted to see results, and I was willing to go the lengths to get it.
Now have I made my first paying client yet? No. But remember how I told you that even life coaches come to results that don’t always give them the outcome they desired? Well, here’s a perfectly good example. However, let me show you the perspective I’m looking through. I’ve spent countless hours trying to convince strangers that I’ve got what it takes to no avail. But what new outcomes would come from showing the people currently in my corner I’ve got what it takes? Who would they tell? Who would they connect me to? Is it possible that working on my leadership skills to repair a team is the beginning of my story of how I became a corporate coach? I mean hey, that’s a possible niche which is progress if you ask me. Instead of chasing followers on social media, I’m creating a life around me for people to come to me, so I can showcase my passion and skills.
This is the start of my journey, and I want to share all of it in real time — The setbacks, the successes, and all of the emotion in between. This may not be your typical story with an ending with all the answers, but hey, I’m a life coach. I’m just showing another perspective, and sometimes that just means enjoying the process.
