50 Things That Life Coaching Has Taught Me
I can't remember exactly when I first heard of life coaching, but I'm sure that whenever it was, I rolled my eyes at the term and made a snarky comment. Life coaching was, for the longest time, a punchline to me. It was very Kardashian to me. I thought it was for ridiculous people seeking woo-woo help with non-problems.
Fast forward to today, when I've been getting coached for 5+ years and am now a certified life coach myself with a business dedicated to coaching others. While there's a whole world of coaching out there - some of it woo-woo, some of it practical, some of it helpful, and some of it total bullshit - I've learned enough through coaching experiences to be able to say that my life has, undoubtedly, improved thanks to coaching. And while
I err to the more practical myself, I know by now that even the wooiest of coaches can teach you something helpful if you're open to it.
To that end, here are 50 things that coaching (from my variety pack coaches and my own coach brain) has taught me over the last 5+ years:
The circumstances of our lives can't be changed, no matter how much we wish they could.
Our thoughts CAN be changed, no matter how sure we are that they cannot be.
Feelings are what drive our actions.
Yes, our results are created by our actions (but really by our thinking…..).
You can just let other people be wrong about you.
You can set up boundaries with people in a way that actually strengthens your relationships with those same people.
When you argue with reality, you lose 100% of the time.
Scarcity is just a thought. So is abundance.
Between scarcity and abundance is sufficiency, and it's perfectly fine to strive for that.
The point of setting goals is not to reach the goal - it's to see who you develop into on the way to it.
"I'm too old" or "It's too late for me to do that" is just bullshit thinking.
Most of our thoughts are not ours; they're coming from someone else's narrative that we just adopted largely unknowingly.
It's perfectly fine to say, "fuck the narrative," and do things your own way.
You will piss a lot of people off by doing #13, so you can lean on #5 when that happens to get you through.
Surrounding yourself with people who are into personal development and growth is the fastest way to get to where you want to go.
Your mental health matters but man, your physical health does too. They're two sides of the same coin.
Pay attention to how much time you spend thinking about what other people think about you.
"Enough" is an ever-moving goalpost. You'll never get there.
"I should" is a red flag - when you hear yourself saying that, stop yourself right away and get to work on your thoughts.
Money mindset work is as important as financial literacy, and the two should be taught hand-in-hand.
Debt is not a dirty word; nothing has meaning until we have thought about it.
You are not your thoughts.
Your past self was just doing the best she could. Let her off the hook.
Indulgent emotions (like guilt, shame, regret, or confusion) are a waste of time because they keep you stuck. Find another feeling.
Just because something is normal doesn't automatically mean it's that useful.
The capacity to have money (or love, or anything) is as important as the skill of obtaining the thing.
Self-sabotage is your brain's way of keeping you safe; you can avoid it once you recognize what your brain is doing and why.
Question everything.
You can't daemonize people with money and then become someone with money.
Humans can hold two truths at once.
Buffering with sleep, work, food, TV, exercise, Instagram, sex, shopping, or whatever is real and much more damaging than we tell ourselves.
The primitive brain will always run your life by default unless you engage your prefrontal cortex.
The motivational triad of avoiding pain, seeking pleasure, and conserving energy is real.
Your circumstances aren't the problem; your thoughts about them are.
You know what to do.
You can make any decision you want, just like your reason.
Anything is possible.
When you don't know what to do, just take the next best step you can think of.
Don't believe everything you think.
Everyone is making this up, and no one knows for sure what's going on. Just keep going.
"What would my future self do?" should be your motto.
There is clean pain, which is helpful, and dirty pain, which is not.
No emotion is bad, but some are more useful than others.
You need four positive inputs for every negative that you consume. Be careful of your inputs.
Learning to live in the "and" instead of the "or" is a hugely useful tool for happiness.
You can't jump into other people's models and live life for them.
You will never actually know what someone else is thinking, and once you embrace that, it's incredibly freeing.
You can decide to think literally anything you want.
Stop thinking it's better over THERE. Problems are forever.
The emotion is never the problem, resisting it is. Learn to process your emotions, and there's literally nothing you can't overcome or achieve.