Life Coach: Session 1

The keyword in moving forward: CHANGE

Today was my first life coaching session with Sally. I’m honestly surprised at how well it seemed to go (but who knows, I could have easily driven her to drink after hearing about my messy life).

Something I realized right off the bat was how good it felt to just talk to someone. She was listening. She was asking questions. Why is it none of us do that anymore (myself included)?

It was such a treat to talk to someone who wasn’t coming into the conversation with an agenda or any biases. For example – when we started talking about my miserably-constantly-failing-love-life, she didn’t remind me about that loser I wasted ten months on and all the verbal abuse he put me through or that I ignored all the red flags.

She didn’t judge. She just listened and asked questions at the right times.

After we hung up, one thing became clear – I want simplicity in my life. I’m not exactly sure in what areas (actually, all of them) or what I need to do to get there, but through our conversation, Sally kept peppering me with questions that all led back to the words: organization and simplicity.

All of my talk kept leading her to say the word focus over and over.

Being able to just talk and answer these strategic questions led me to another realization. I have two big goals in my life (one of them is getting my memoir published, though the hard part of actually writing it has already been done), and I’m not working towards either of them. Sally says it seems I can “conceive” a goal, but am not motivated to move to the next step. Spot on Sally, spot on.

Today’s conversation was actually the first time I’ve said these two goals out loud and man was it an eye-opener. I have two fairly attainable and highly-rewarding goals right in front of me, and they are just sitting there.

During our hour-long session, I did something I haven’t done in maybe forever. I put absolutely everything away and talked to her (our sessions are via phone). I wasn’t checking Instagram, the radio was off, I actually closed my computer, plugged in my headphones to my phone and just chatted.

Notes to share:

– She doesn’t come into our coaching relationship with an agenda – she says that’s for me to figure out. Yikes, no pressure.

– She pointed out that we all have a tendency to resist change and that I shouldn’t be surprised or discouraged if I feel resistance to our program. She told me to “lean into the process.”

– Our goal is to tune in with current priorities and values, then define new ones.

HOMEWORK: (I told her to be aggressive with me since we set a three-month benchmark to see some results or at least get more focused) I will be taking some online assessments to help me see what my strengths and such are. It may sound easy, but if you’ve taken these before (and you’ve taken them seriously), it’s pretty enlightening. And the next session, we’ll look at and discuss the results.

So after our first session, I’m sure she thinks I’m a basket-case. Guess we’ll see if she can work her magic on me! 

Check out her website here.

Stay tuned for our life coaching session and wish me luck!