A lot of times I feel like life is one big toolbox, stocked full with everything we need to succeed but some of us are either too intimidated.......
to go rummaging through it to see what’s in there & available to us or maybe we’re just plain lazy & excuse makers on why we can’t open it up for ourselves. With any handy job you may find yourself doing, one thing is for sure, your work will be significantly eased when you have the right tools. Taking this a step further, I’ve noticed that when we pray for help or things from God, He often sends people from within the body of faith to help us or He shows us a different way of accomplishing what we need to get done.
A very long time ago, my parents divorced. On the surface, I was “fine”. I was a normal functioning child. I blended in with all the other children of divorce which was pretty much everyone I knew. I wasn’t overly depressed or acting out like many teens might. But all the damage was done internally. More on a mental and emotional scale. So, just a note to all you divorcees with children, don’t be fooled because your kids grades aren’t slipping and they’re not breaking their curfew or anything crazy. Sometimes you have to look into their sad and questioning eyes or prolonged periods of silence to really understand what might be happening to them internally.
My mom suggested that maybe I should see a therapist or psychologist. I immediately turned my teenage nose up at the idea and got offended. Thinking, “Is something that wrong with me”? I always thought therapy was for extremely disturbed people. I definitely didn’t want to identify myself in that category. I couldn’t get past the stigma associated with therapists. Fast forward ten years later after life continued to dropkick and sucker punch me and I started looking for my own therapists. None of them ever really sat right with me because they weren’t believers and would almost for certain miss out on the spiritual battle that I was also facing. I never pursued my therapist search long enough to actually find one and I ended up just forgetting about it and found myself becoming a frequent shopper in the self-help section of Barnes & Noble.
Fast forward again to January of 2019 where I link up with an Instagram contact who I’d met for the first time while in San Diego and hit it completely off with her. We talked like we were old friends. I had no idea at the time that she was also a Life Coach as she never mentioned anything to me when we met. But something was pleasantly strange after I left our meeting. I just knew that God had set it up but still wasn’t sure exactly why.
Fast forward one more year to now, 2020 and I decide that I’m tired of feeling stuck and I knew I needed help to get me out of my rut and motivation for a project idea I’d been holding onto for years. So I called her up and booked my first session. The launching of this site, and finally beginning to walk in my purpose is a by-product of my meetings with her. So, yeah, it’s kind-of-a big deal!
Here are the following reasons I’ve come up with on why you may want to consider hiring a Life Coach.
1. Before you can walk it out, You need to talk it out: Most women process their thoughts during conversation. Sometimes very lengthy conversations at that. To way both sides of the coin, to consider all possibilities. Have you ever been to a girls night out?? A girls night out is very different than a guys night out. Guys can order a round of drinks and play darts, trivia, watch a game or whatever they do, say very little to each other and still have a “good night”. Women on the other hand, will most likely drive their waiter/waitress crazy because they’ll order a round of drinks and then maybe an hour later order food after they get around to looking at the menu. This delay is only due to answering the “how have you been?” question, not even scratching the surface of actual life updates. They can arrive at 5pm and not leave until 10pm because they’ve been “talking”. If you have a group of friends you can do this with….WONDERFUL but frankly, not everyone has the strength or ability to listen that long. You also need someone who’s going to be able to sift through your words and pull out what you’re really trying to say. The meat and potatoes of the point you're trying to make or the attitude you're ignoring or false mindset you’ve grown accustomed to. This takes skill. To be able to repeat back to you what you said and didn’t even know you said. A translator for yourself if that makes sense. Not everyone can do this. But a Life Coach can. Before my project really got off the ground, I had to address some areas that I was needing work on internally. So talking things out really helped me process what I was struggling so hard with in terms of getting motivated and initiating my first steps. Not only is talking it out for bouncing ideas off of someone, but it's the time and place to receive your wise counsel as talked about in Proverbs 11:14
2. Someone to hold you accountable: To put it bluntly, you need someone to call you out on your crap. A perfect example of this is when I go running by myself versus running with a good workout buddy of personal trainer quality. I always cut myself some slack on speed and distance when I’m by myself, but when I run with my friends, they don’t let me stop. They flat out tell me, “you're not tired keep going”. I usually run farther and faster when I have a friend along side me. Same with a Life Coach. If I’m being unreasonable or flat out unrealistic with my ideas or plans for my ideas, she’ll call me out on it ASAP. This project probably wouldn’t have been launched until late 2020 if it weren’t for her. But here we are, a little more than 5months after the idea was birthed and Voila! You're reading a published work way ahead of any schedule that I could’ve created. You're Welcome!
3. Someone to cheer you on: C’mon, who doesn’t love a good cheerleader? I wasn’t a good one back in school days, so I can appreciate the effort of a good one when I see it. Someone to let you know you’re on your way, you’re on the right track, that your own efforts matter and are worth it. To praise your new ideas, to be excited with you when you’re all passionate and fired up and everyone else around you is just “meh” 😒 because they can’t see or appreciate your vision. (Side note, that’s ok, not everyone is going to be able to see your vision) But with a Life Coach, you will always have a fan club, just as long as you’re ok with a member count of one.
4. Someone to challenge you: When you get to be in your 30’s, you can become set in your ways. It may be hard to think any way other than how you’ve always thought, especially when you have no one to bounce ideas off of or to clash with you or question you. We were not meant to do life alone and here is a perfect example of how trying to go it alone can hurt you more than help you. Frankly, not everyone in your circle may feel bold enough to even do this with you, especially if you have a history of lashing out when anyone has an opposing viewpoint or if you tend to get easily offended. A Life Coach ain’t scared of you. They will call your bluffs. They act as your Mirror Holder and Iron Sharpener (Proverbs 27:17). They should be mature enough to understand that your pushback isn’t personal, it’s just what you’ve grown accustomed to. Sometimes we’ve grown too accustomed to our culture or towards our fears and need a point back to the Father in Heaven. Then they do this thing where they come at you from an angle you weren’t prepared for, or get your mind to shift to a place that it’s never been invited to by the people who always want to play it safe. Life Coaches are your perspective shifters and you need that when going through life and finding yourself in a place of stagnancy. Obviously something isn’t working and an adjustment needs to be made. But first, you need someone to bring that need to your attention or you’ll continue humming along in the wrong direction or figuratively speaking, be broken down on the side of the road without a tow truck for entirely way too long. “Ain’t nobody got time for that!”
5. Someone to pray you through : This might be one of the most important benefits to having a Life Coach, especially a Christian Life Coach. Some things we go through are totally spiritual and we need someone to get down and dirty and fight those spiritual battles with us or on our behalf. Having someone who goes to God and pleads on your behalf is really priceless. Nothing compares to having a friend be in the emotional and spiritual trenches with you.
6. Get you unstuck and motivated: This point kind of piggy backs off of Reason #4. Needing someone to hold you accountable. You need a voice of encouragement, a push when you’re feeling inadequate or maybe even just lazy. They saw your vision from the beginning with you and they will not let you let it go. They check on you often to see how your progress is going, if you happen to fall into a rut after a few days. They give you an assignment or homework, something to research or read or “tap into” as my Life Coach says so often. There’s always more to explore and they give you the boost you need to do just that and keep things flowing.
7. Sounds better than, “I have a therapist”: Life Coaches fall under the First Responder category. I also look at them as spiritual nurses. Maybe Life Coaches are trending now because some celebrity made them cool but either way, we all need someone to do life with during the different seasons we may find ourselves in. When we’re kids, its our siblings, or cousins or school friends and kids on the block. When we get older, we find other friends in college or a great coworker, maybe even a professional mentor. Eventually we get married and our spouse becomes our life partner. But what about those silent seasons in between or if you have no plans to get married? Sometimes it's just you and God and that’s totally fine. Maybe you’re more of a solo rider or introvert. But sometimes, having someone to check in with or check on you is so worth it. Seeing a therapist sometimes has a stigma attached to it. Maybe that’s just me and my hangup, don’t let me push that on you. I don’t mind checking in with my Life Coach. I don’t mind sitting on my couch telling her my whole life and processing childhood pain. Maybe they’re not all officially licensed by a board or anything but they are licensed by life, hence the title. They’re also a lot more down to earth and personable and don’t look at you as just another client or patient.
I hope this has helped you if you’re considering hiring a coach. Here is the link to mine, the fabulous, fantastic, & highly favored Lauryne Wasan. Although I’d love to keep her all to myself, I know her calling is much greater and I mention her to many people I meet. Check out her IG here and give her a follow, right after you follow @HealedHoney on IG.
Happy Healing!
Love,
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