I will be a great coach.
That's what my people have been saying.
My mom, who I can count on to be
the most honest and thoughtful and intentional person, asked:
What is coaching?
How is it different from a therapist?
The honest, the curious,
want to know what the heck it is.
Well, it is not therapy.
In a nutshell, coaching is:
me and you, sitting together, looking at your thoughts.
That's basically it.
So good.
I love it.
Which is, at the ground level, why I'm doing it.
You've heard the analogy of putting your oxygen mask on
before you put it on your loved ones.
Everyone has.
It's totally over-used.
The reason it is over-used
is because what we actually do
as lov-ers, as caregiv-ers,
is to vomit the chewed and swallowed food
into our little bird-baby's mouth.
We deny our own nourishment
in order to feed our loved ones.
Every time you get on a plane, for all of these many years,
the flight attendant, and now the audio recording,
repeats these instructions.
Every time.
Because they know our bird instinct.
The bird instinct is not bad.
It allows survival of the species, right?
You are feeding the youngest, so they survive and
have more babies.
My client might not be content
with her bird instinct.
My client might want a result in their life,
that they are not getting.
They might really want to take action,
but find themselves not doing it.
Sabotaging. Justifying.
Then guilting for knowing what they really want,
and what they are not doing.
My clients might really just need to vomit all their thoughts to someone else,
out loud,
and see the thoughts,
and not believe them.
Or make a decision they are putting off.
My clients might have a clutter issue in their home
and cannot take the first step.
Or be emotionally attached to 100 things,
or 10,000 things,
and need a little shift in perspective.
Curious questions. That's a lot of what I do.
And pointing at thoughts,
"Is that actually true?"
In the 1980s, Thomas Leonard, a financial planner,
found that his clients came to him
not only for financial advice,
but general life advice.
He became a life advisor, and called himself a life coach.
Today, a good coach does not give advice to their clients.
A great coach helps the client come up with their own advice.
Helps them see what they truly want.
It's like the Wizard of Oz:
"You've always had the power, my dear.
You've had it all along."
Today's Deep Breath: a practical juju nugget, a collective Next Best Decision.
A friend of mine, 2 years ago,
mocked life coaches.
I remember it because I had been following a life coach
primarily for weight loss,
for about a year.
This same friend now thinks there is value in
coaching and thinks it's amazing that I am one.
In just a few years, the perception of coaching
has changed.
Which brings us to the Rule of 7:
a research-based marketing principle developed in the 1930s
by the movie industry.
A potential movie-goer had to see a movie poster 7 times
before going to see the movie.
This principle is widely accepted in all kinds of realms.
The Mormon church trains their missionaries on this principle:
it takes seven times hearing about the Book of Mormon
before a person will accept the gifting of the book,
or say yes to reading it.
7 ads on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok.
7 pictures of thin women our little daughters see.
7 news stories to believe propaganda.
(Ohmygod It's true!)
Here's the thing:
we look OUTSIDE OF OURSELVES
for the answers.
These clothes, this weight, this job, this spouse -
we think ________ will make us happy.
Maybe this thing, or that thing.
Constantly looking for something to...
what?
Fulfill? Entertain? Distract?
With Covid2020, we all got a little uncomfortable.
Interrupted.
(This) will make it all okay, then we can go back to what we were doing.
2021: still interrupted.
What?
(This) was supposed to help!
So many thoughts, happening all the time.
Each person has 6,200 thoughts a day.
Our phones brings us ALL the marketing 24/7.
Which equates to a lot of Shoulds from outside sources.
The antidote for modern living,
to counteract life,
is Life Coaching.
Sorting through all of our thoughts
so we can live a life we want to live,
not only live the life someone else wants us to live.
This is not an algorithm's life anymore.
Not a religion's life, a husband's life, my kids' lives -
It's mine.
I am gifting it to myself.
Until next time,
Tami Lowe