Hire a Life Coach to Help Clarify Career Goals

You Can Do Work You Love

A life coach works with you to examine and clarify your needs, values and beliefs and develop the goals that help you grow. One of the most important things that a life coach can help you do is to clarify your career goals to determine if you are on the right track or you need to make some changes. Once you have accomplished this, the life coach can help you set up a specific plan that will take you right to the finish line.

A life coach can make this process much easier and much faster. A coach will help you take an objective look at where you are compared to where you want to be in your career and help you realize talents and skills that you may not even know that you have or thought could be a help to you in your career. With a coach working with you on your career plan, you will always have someone to support you and motivate you to keep going when you feel like giving up.

You may do this with a career coach or a life coach who understands the needs of someone creating a career plan. If self esteem and lack of belief in yourself is a factor, your coach can help you there too.

Since what a coach excels at doing is very individual, you can discover how to get your needs met in your communications with potential coaches before you might hire them.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

Letting Go of Clients Is Like Letting Go of Butterflies

Life Is a School

I fully subscribe to the concept that Life Is a School and so the events of my life often take on powerful meaning and personal growth. They serve as signposts along my life's journey. On Election Day one of those significant events occurred. (If you want to read about it, click here .) The long and short of it is that we ended up with 7 year newer, better car, a car payment and a new source of revenue - a new client.

Which brings me to the new client. We are such an amazing energy match! She is my perfect client: aware, spiritually-oriented, bright, creative and has a somewhat limited view of how truly fabulous she is. I love our conversations and know our work together will bring us both to new heights.

As often happens in the beginning of a gigantic personal growth journey, something very big happens in your life - most often a truly important outer experience reflecting your inner resistance. My car incident could easily be categorized as an example of that. Well, my new client ended up with a very big experience of food poisoning.** It had her being taken back and forth to the hospital and experiencing gigantic pain and scary pre-diagnoses prior to the doctors figuring out what was really going on physically.

All of this threw her into big turmoil and apprehension and she put our coaching on hold.

Switch to me now and think about my experience of all this. Of course I feel real concern for her physical condition - and then there's that other niggley little thought, "what if she changes her mind and I don't have this source of income?" Now I know who that voice belongs to. It's the voice of my ego in it's incarnation as a worried mom. I know that is the voice of no trust, fear and not-enough. From  my  own  personal  growth, I know to ignore that voice and not let it take over. But it did not fully heed my snub. While sitting on the couch minding my business, it snuck right in and started shouting!

I   had  to  use the tools that I  have taught to  my  clients in  their own personal growth.  It was the mentality  of "Life is a  School" that put my energy  and feelings  into a more positive place.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching 

Why Do I Need a Professional Life Coach?

Has Life Gotten in Your Way?

If you're one of those people who's somehow always on top of your goals, you probably don't need a professional life coach. However, if you're like most of us, life tends to get in the way of achieving those long term life goals. Work, the kids, chores, TV, family time, gardening, chores all help distract us from our dreams and long term goals. And then there's that really subtle bug-a-boo - the one that makes us think we can't have what we want or accomplish what we want.

How would it be to have someone focused just on you and your goals? You are the star! If you think it would be wonderful, you'd probably do great with a professional life coach. Coaches focus 100% on you achieving your chosen future goals.  A professional life coach will concentrate on you -actually helping you figure out your goals and how to execute what you want to achieve. The result may be that you get what you want and then learn to enjoy having what you wanted in your life.

Each individual professional life coach has their own particular something special to add to the mix. It might be their extraordinary intuition. Or their gentle holding up the mirror of truth for you so you don't go into denial. Or their vast experience in the business world.

Whatever you are looking for in support and wonderful help, a professional life coach could be just the ticket.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching 

New Relationship Advice

What qualifies me to hand out new relationship advice? Well, I tried it the “old way” twice and it ended in divorce both times. So I figured I better learn and do something differently then I did before if I was ever going to have a relationship that worked.

So the questions became for me:

• “What wasn’t working?”
• “What should I do differently then I was doing before?”
• And “How do I do it differently?”

Of course, I didn’t know I was asking those questions consciously but I was asking and searching – as you are – to get some new relationship advice.

My previous teachers were my parents. Their relationship sucked. Very unconsciously I married at 22. Basically I knew nothing about how to succeed in a relationship. I just knew I didn't want theirs.

I’ve been asked recently if one person can work on a relationship and expect improvement. It depends on many things.

• How bad is it?
• Did you get into this relationship because you desperately needed to be in a relationship?
• Did he?
• Is their basic love and respect back and forth to each other?

I did not understand that I needed to communicate how I felt or it would grow into bigger and bigger unmanageable resentment and lower self esteem than I already came to the relationship with.

New Relationship Advice:

• Find out how to communicate effectively. Go to a marriage counselor or search online or let me teach you but find out how to do it without blame so  you’ll be heard.

I knew nothing about a partnership where both parties honored what the other wanted and who they were. Now I know that in 2014 in the Western world (and maybe everywhere), partnership is what it’s about. We each bring some special things to a relationship and we need help with other things. Who is better to be your partner than someone who loves you and wants the best for you?

New Relationship Advice:

• Learn how valuable you are as a person and that your wants and needs matter. Do not think that “7 Steps to Good Self-Esteem” is going to solve your self image and self esteem issues - the issues that keep you making poor choices for potential partners.

I have spent the last 30 years figuring out how to do that for myself and what I’ve learned works quite well. It does work and has taken work but I am worth it – and so are you. I came into my relationships with a past. It needed to be worked on and healed. So does yours.

I didn’t know that defending myself was not how to be understood by another. It just put up a wall – of fear, of feeling misunderstood, of disconnection and fueled by deep shame. Nothing good came out of that for me. Now I know that I can trust the feedback from my partner of where I fell short somehow because I want to hear. I want to improve. And so does my partner.

New Relationship Advice:

• If you don’t value yourself, how can you expect anyone else to do so? The core of a good relationship is the coming together of two people who value themselves and are open to growing along with each other.

I didn’t even know that any relationship advice existed. Now, in the age of the internet, advice abounds but you wisely chose to look for “new relationship advice” and you got it. Hope it leads you into a new relationship with yourself and with anyone you choose to partner with.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

WHY HURT? - Expressing Emotional Pain

Expressing Your Emotional Pain

Are you afraid of your feelings?

You could have looked at this subtitle and thought one of two things:  "What's the big deal? We all know how to deal with our feelings" or "Yes. I think my feelings are too big or too many or too scary". For those with the second comment: sometimes when we find a challenge, like in addressing our emotional pain, their are benefits. Only, if we look.

I don't know what it's like in other states on other freeways but you've probably heard we have lots of traffic here in L.A.

Well, I'm scared of driving on the freeway and so  I usually don't unless someone else is driving. A couple of weeks ago my husband was driving in pretty heavy weekend traffic going south on the 405. Sometimes when we drive we chat about this and that (in between grousing about the traffic and drivers). This day we were chatting about how lucky we are to have been trained how to deal with our feelings and emotional pain when along comes a license plate saying WHY HURT.

WHY HURT  can mean more than one thing. It can mean:

• First- "You don't have to hurt" and I agree with that. We can make a choice. Unfortunately, many think they can't, but still, WHY HURT?
• Second (this is the reason it struck me so) - A reason to feel  hurt (if you are really in touch with your feelings and know how to let them flow as they were meant to) could mean you are on your way to healing your emotional pain. HURT is milder than ANGER, on it's way to having one know their FEARs and a bit closer to LOVE and FORGIVENESS.

So I ask you: "Why hurt?" you are so close to being in a place of love and forgiveness. Why not learn and move on and become that much closer with yourself?   In the pursuit of not feeling our feelings, at the very least we become disconnected from ourselves and have problems relating to others deeply and well.

Why hurt?

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

Healthy Relationships – The Coming and the Going

Healthy Relationships

It is a scientific fact that healthy relationships make us healthier and happier. And this includes all different types of healthy relationships - friends, family, partners and colleagues. All different types of relationships but bottom line - no matter what type of relationships you have, when it's healthy, so are you. The healthier they are, the happier you will be and the less stress you will have in your life.

Anyone whose ever been in any kind of  relationship knows there are sometimes (or often) challenges. You might get disappointed by the other but by accepting the people that we love for who they are and not expecting them to change for you, you have a good start towards having healthy relationships in your life.

Take the time to really talk to the people in your life and actually listen to what they are saying – you know, communication - a key factor in maintaining healthy relationships with anyone.

In recent years my disappointments in relationships have been about certain people disappearing from my life. I've kind of been mourning the loss of a couple of people from my life recently and lo and behold! – I was sent this reminder by one of my clients:

People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime.
When you know which one it is, you will know what to do for that person.
When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed.
They have come to assist you through a difficulty, to provide you with guidance and support,
to aid you physically, emotionally or spiritually.
They may seem like a godsend and they are.
They are there for the reason you need them to be.
Then, without any wrongdoing on your part or at an inconvenient time,
this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end.
Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away.
Sometimes they act up and force you to take a stand.
What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled, their work is done.
The prayer you sent up has been answered and now it is time to move on.

Some people come into your life for a SEASON, because your turn has come to share, grow or learn.
They bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh.
They may teach you something you have never done.
They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy.
Believe it, it is real. But only for a season.

LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons,
things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation.
Your job is to accept the lesson,
love the person and put w hat you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas of your life.

Yesterday I was talking to my husband about my feelings of loss and not understanding why these people left our lives and he said he's given this a lot of thought and this is what he concluded: friends have a certain give and take. When the give and take no longer works for one, they usually disappear. They don't always disappear forever. They may come back into your life when they see they can get what they are looking for again. Depending on interpretation of these words, that can sound very cold but, on the other hand, it takes the pain and judgment out of it. It requires a very wide perspective to be able to see that.

Remember that everything and everyone changes and although that may be scary, it doesn’t mean that it is a bad thing. Be sure to make plenty of time for yourself and take care of yourself especially because if you have been putting someone else’s needs ahead of your own. Eventually, this will become a habit until you begin to resent the other person even though you are choosing to put their needs ahead of yours. They aren't choosing it for you. Preferably do not focus your life on just one person rather than yourself and the other people in your life.

Keep your own identity as long as it is not at someone else’s expense.

Another important factor in healthy relationships is following through when you tell someone you will do something. It is crucial to the trust in relationships to do what you say you are going to do or don’t say that you will do it to begin with.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching 

What Are My Barriers to Personal Growth and Development?

I believe that my denial or reluctance about personal growth and development affects the balance of what I attract into my life, affects my mindset and the progress of me as a continually developing person.  If I don’t acknowledge my barriers to personal growth, I will be in terrible discomfort.

Can a friend relationship be one of my barriers to personal growth?

Here’s an example from my life: Over my lifetime in the past, I have formed powerful relationships with certain women to whom I willingly gave my power or, if I didn’t give my power away exactly, I denied the truth of some clear and subtle aspects of the relationship. I thought I was done doing that.

But several weeks ago I realized that a relationship I’ve had for 15 years had many aspects OUT OF BALANCE and I had indications and feelings for years.

For example:

• Almost all of the emotional support was going in one direction – from me to her – and had been for years
• I felt like it was an obligation to give her time and she felt like it was an obligation to give me time
• Truth be told, I no longer feel proud to call her my friend as she lives her life in ways I do not feel good about – let’s call it stagnated personal growth and development.

I could tell you stories that support the above but those stories would cloud the truth. The truth I had to be willing to allow myself to know was it was time to let this relationship go. I have done that. It was hard. I don’t like to think of myself as not loyal or a rejecting sort of person but for my own personal growth and development as a human being on Planet Earth for a fleeting lifetime, I did it. I hope it somehow has a positive effect on her but I did this for me.

I feel the peace of growth and the positive “backlash” of balance I’ve achieved.
Anything niggling at you? Take a look at your barriers to your own personal growth.

Now that you've finished reading, I have one thing left I'd like you to do.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching