If you needed to pick a word to describe me, it probably would be ambitious. I have a lot of projects and hobbies, and I go after a lot. Yet, this week, I hired and met with a life coach for the first time.
What I didn’t get (but should have)
Normally, kids get some direction about what they’re good at or might find success in from their parents. Mine, however, were in a poverty household. From my perspective, the concern thus wasn’t to provide any long-term direction, but just how to manage whatever immediate thing was on the table. So, whatever accolades there were, they were never followed by, “Maybe you should…,” because there was no way to guarantee that there would be enough time, money, attention, or other resources available to make the suggested path a reality.
The bottom line? I’ve never had anyone present potential career paths or help me map out what to do to enter a field. At the same time, although I recognize I stink at a lot of things and can grow, I’ve also been extremely fortunate in that I’ve never completely fallen on my face in anything. So, mostly, I’ve just done as much as I could, thrown spaghetti at the wall, and tried to see what stuck.
But it’s been a while. My arm is tired from throwing.
What my life coach is supposed to do (as I see it)
My coach’s job is not to tell me what to do. No ethical life coach should do that. Rather, it’s just to help me objectively figure out what’s likely most viable and sort out the logistics of how to get where I want to go. My hope is that they can take all the little pieces I’ve been throwing and whittle them down to what genuinely deserves prioritization. That’s not going to be easy, because at the moment, I have a lot of variables and plates spinning. But I’m at a point in my life where choosing where to put my influence matters.
It’s never too late
The takeaway for you? It’s never too late to sort out what you should be doing. If you didn’t have anybody to give you the direction you needed, there’s no shame in finally going to someone to get the guidance you should have had in the first place. It might take a little money out of your pocket, and there’s some unfairness in that when you consider others don’t have to pay to understand. But you’re worth investing in, and if anybody is going to do the investing, it might as well be you.
A word of caution
Before I hired my coach, I did my homework about the industry. Like any field, life coaching has bad participants and good ones. As I wrote on LinkedIn, many individuals who advertise coaching might not be the most ethical or effective choice. So, if you’re considering hiring a coach yourself, make sure you thoroughly vet everyone you’re considering.