DAY 7: In the mucky middle
Wednesday, January 25, 2023
WFIW of the Day: I’m writing this at 8pm. I was laying in bed playing Animal Crossing WHILST listening to a podcast (because I need not one, but TWO devices to drown out the incessant noise in my head). And suddenly, I got the urge to sit down in my dark office and write.
I think I’m turning a corner with this life coaching shit.
It’s week three of The Best Fucking Coaching course and for the first two weeks, it was NOT the fucking best, not for me. It wasn’t the fucking worst… but it felt pretty fucking “eh.”
Whenever I told people I had signed up for a life coaching certification, I got the response, “Oh, you’ll be so good at that!”
Felt good.
But that’s ALSO the response I got when I told people I was going to law school.
And I was a damn good lawyer. Especially the junior kind who so wants to “be good” that she answers all her emails right away and says “yes” to every assignment and stays late into the night because the client might need something.
So…. I guess I thought I would be immediately good at coaching too?
Or maybe I thought, “Yikes, just because people think I’ll be good at something doesn’t mean it’ll be good for me…”
I was not (and still am not) immediately good at coaching. I was skeptical and robotic and resistant to practice…
None of it felt natural; it all felt forced. It seemed like every day, there were dozens of people in the course jumping with glee, prancing about having fun, and declaring the lessons a goddamn MIRACLE.
Meanwhile, I was going to all the classes and taking meticulous notes like a textbook perfect student…
….but rushing through all the practices, skipping the bonus practice sessions, hesitating on setting up any practice outside of the course…
For this entire two weeks, I’ve been battling the nagging question in my head, “Is this really for you? Do you even WANT to be a life coach?”
>>> Here’s where I get confused. There are two equally legitimate voices in my head:
THE “FOLLOW YOUR JOY” VOICE: This doesn’t feel good. You told yourself that you wanted your next business to feel more like PLAY, more joyful. Your highest, truest calling isn’t to be a 1:1 coach, helping people with their traumas and phobias. What you’ve always been drawn to is generating CREATIVE IDEAS and teaching those ideas in a clear and relatable way. If you really want to live an intuitive life fueled by DESIRE… you’ll ditch this course and go after something that lights you up right away.
THE “FOLLOW YOUR GROWTH” VOICE: This doesn’t feel good, and that does NOT mean that it’s wrong for you. It just means that it’s a magical opportunity for growth. Starting a calligraphy business felt awful a lot of the time, but mostly because it was new and you felt like an uncertain beginner (and you hate that feeling) and because there was SO MUCH at stake. Showing up to coach people… there’s a lot at stake there, too, and that can be so scary, but it’s also pulling you in for a reason. This course came into your world at exactly the right time - use this opportunity to let go of even more of your fear, learn to MAKE IT PLAYFUL and see what enchanting road it takes you down.
I’ve been fascinated by the idea of INTUITION for a long, long time.
The siren song is the promise of deep, true, always-accessible KNOWING that will never steer you wrong.
Like somehow learning to listen to my intuition will save me from all the indecision and difficulty and suffering in the world.
And now that I type that out loud… it seems a little ridiculous. Learning to listen to my intuition won’t save me from being human.
“Which voice is my intuition?? Which voice is right??'“ —> Maybe that’s the wrong question.
I get the feeling my deeper self is in there chuckling about my outer self’s obsession with “RIGHT.”
My soul is here to experience this specific human life. That’s what I believe.
So it’s all right. It’s alllllll right. It’s alright.
I think that’s the realization that helped me finally embrace this mucky middle, awkward learning part. On Monday, I spent two minutes writing a post for Facebook asking for volunteers to help me practice my coaching techniques.
And I’ve already started some of these coaching “playdates” with my friends.
And this morning, I joined a group of beginner coaches all taking the same certification and I just tried making it fun for the very first time.
I’m gonna fail a lot. I’m gonna be rushed and robotic and weird for a little while longer. And it’s all alright.
With Growth and (occasional) Joy,
Shinah
P.S. - The more I write, the easier it gets to write. That’s stupid and I hate that it has to happen that way, but I also hope it keeps happening that way.