What the F&*k is a Life Coach, Anyway?!
(Or: How I Became a Martha Beck Wayfinder Life Coach)
I never really put much thought into what a life coach was, prior to say...2017 or so. I was really only familiar with executive coaches, who help business people become better at setting work-related goals and generally being better business people.
In short? Barf. I had no interest. The “business world” is the exact thing I was trying to get away from.
In late 2017, though, I came to a crossroads in my own life. I was really at my wits’ end trying to figure out how to live a life that DIDN’T make me feel like I was two completely different people trapped in the same body. I wanted a life that didn’t have that friction inherent in it. I wanted a life that felt more true to who I really was, deep down inside. It was then that I finally started to understand what a life coach is and does; I started to know the answer to the question "what is coaching, anyway?"
I first came upon the idea of a life coach when a friend who knew I was feeling this way recommended the book You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero. If you haven’t read it and are “seeking” something (and you like swear words and you like to literally LOL while reading) then I highly recommend it. While reading that book that I realized a couple things: 1) “self-help” doesn’t have to be all sappy or twelve-steppy or overtly religiousy. And 2) a life coach could be someone as frickin’ hilarious as Jen Sincero and didn’t have to be sappy or twelve-steppy or overtly religiousy.
I wanted what she was talking about in Badass: a change in self-sabotaging behaviors, increased courage, self-confidence and trust in myself, and basically just to live an amazing fucking life. And I wanted them BAD.
She listed Martha Beck in the resource section of the book and called her “refreshing and hilarious” so of course I immediately ordered, Finding Your Own North Star, to be delivered the next day. I was immediately hooked: as promised, she was refreshing, brilliant, and hilarious. Honestly, it was these two womens’ voices that kept me interested at all. Funny, candid, brutally honest, and smart in a way that just made sense to me, innately.
Shortly after inhaling three of Martha Beck’s books, I signed up for Wayfinder Life Coach Training to become a life coach my own damn self!
So what are these two women up to — and now also me— as life coaches, really? What is a life coach?
Well, friends. I’ll tell you what my experience has been: a life coach is a person who exists to help you identify and trust what we call “your inner compass.” This is key, because oftentimes the brain and its crazy train of thoughts can keep you from making the best, most true decisions for yourself. We’re also here to help you identify thoughts and beliefs that are holding you back, and work with you through those. Like I said: the brain can’t always be trusted!
We also give people methods to help them move through the change cycle, from the very first step when they realize that things must change, to the part where they imagine everything that they could be and do, to putting their dreams into action in the real world.
We don’t solve your problems for you. What we do is give you the tools to get un-stuck so you can solve them yourself.
My personal objective, as a life coach, is for everyone I work with to feel the lightness and freedom that comes from living in alignment with their true nature. I know it can happen because I’ve tasted that freedom and I. FRICKIN. LOVE. IT.
