Today is the day I hired a Life Coach. Seriously. I hired a Life Coach to help me develop short and long term goals, and create intention toward achieving successes. (And lets face it, I am desperate to talk to someone about me, even if I have to pay them)! I would liken a life coach to a self-help book or a Tony Robbins program, same ideas, same motivations, only a life coach is a live person who follows up and demands accountability! And I will note here that a life coach is not a therapist (I asked) as a therapist digs into the past and a life coach concentrates on the now and the future.
My life coach was a female and my age (yikes, my age? how embarrassing!), and very nice. (Truly in retrospect I am more embarrassed about sharing my issues and problems in the middle of a hot sexy Starbucks--apparently I am at a point of shame so low that I have no shame). We did a quick Q&A where I spilled the beans on all of my issues: from not being able to create relationships or friendships, to feeling out of place at work, to feeling like a failure for being single, to feeling like I am financially incapable, to feeling fear of letting go (of you know who), tom feeling disappointed at the speed of my growth, to feeling ultimately that I have lost my confidence. And alarmingly, I admitted that I don't know if I have faith (yes I have a general faith in God et al) but I feel like I am losing faith in everything happens for a reason, in if you let go of past relationships you open yourself up to new ones, and mostly, I feel like I have lost faith in love. I was honest, I feel a bit of a fool, but I was honest, more honest with my life coach than I bet I have been with most of my friends...what does that say? I think it says that we all put up appearances, and she confirmed such, we all want to appear like we "have it all" and are great at life and better at life than the next person, but inside, we are all struggling with something.
To reiterate, the best part of having a real live life coach is that they assign you homework and expect accountability. (Quick, one weird thing about my coach is that she attends the church I attend, and she leads a Hub (the hub is the small group I go to on Tuesdays), of course this connection only led her to ask how much I pray...well, I would like to grow spiritually so, hmm.) So my life coach assigned me some homework, and you my loyal reader get to be in on it.
1. Take 15 minutes every morning to do something that you enjoy such as reading or enjoying a cup of coffee. By doing this I will have a better start to my day. This means I have to get up early, and never in my life have I gotten up early to do anything, I have always slept till the last possible moment. But I am committed and I don't think 15 minutes has ever killed anyone.
2. Write down 10 things about myself that are awesome. What is my elevator speech?. First of all, are there 10 things? I will let you know.
3. I have to think about vulnerability. Meaning, I have to put myself in vulnerable situations where I do not feel comfortable and try to ask questions or share about myself. I have to do this every week at the Hub which is why I skipped this Tuesday's HH...guess I need to get back on the wagon.
4. I need to eliminate the word should from my vocabulary...as a result of how many times I said I should...be in a relationship, be better at my job, be more outgoing, etc, etc. I can replace should with I would like to.
5. I shall (a fancy should?) not be too hard on myself.
6. Think about the relationships in my life, while understanding that letting go makes room for new relationships to enter my life. As formerly noted, do I have the faith to believe this to be true?
7. Visualize the best case scenario of what could walk into my life. I countered this with questioning whether I would deserve that? She said that deserve is another dangerous word to be eliminated from vocabulary...to expand on next week. And excuse me, but I spent my middle school years visualizing Jonathon Taylor Thomas being my next door neighbor and falling in love with me...visualizing doesn't work! But okay, I will try.
8. Pray, honestly.
And my own on-going homeworks:
1. Drink more water
2. Try to improve diet and exercise.
Apparently, diet and water intake do affect mood and lead to depression. Maybe cheese causes depression?
I will be honest and tell you that I do feel extremely guilty for not feeling happier with my life; I do recognize that I have an amazing life, a great job, a wonderful family, and excellent health. I am unbelievably lucky, blessed, and fortunate in every way imaginable, but I am human and susceptible to feeling discontent. Maybe its the cheese.
So anyway, I will be meeting with my LC weekly to review progress and reevaluate focus. I just thought of my first "awesome" thing about me: I am trying.
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