3 Ways Becoming a Coach Changed my Life – By Melissa Clerc
I have been working as a holistic life & mindset coach for about 3 years and my life has drastically changed since I embarked on this journey. It has expanded in ways I could have never even imagined and I attribute the transformation to switching to this new career path!
Here are 3 ways becoming a coach changed my life:
- I have found meaning in my challenging past
They say everything happens for a reason, but when you are watching your entire life crumble and you have to deal with it, it can be hard to find meaning to life. By embarking on my coaching journey, I have learned to alchemise the adversity in my life into helpful learnings and resources that I can share with others.
As I have found ways to deal with my own anxiety, traumas, losses, grief, chaos, I have accumulated a lot of resources that I can personally vouch for.
While working with clients who have gone through similar difficulties as me, I have realised that they find it comforting when you can suggest a tool or technique that might help them deal with and overcome the challenges in their life outside of the coaching sessions.
Of course I never straight out tell them what to do because that isn’t what coaches do, and as someone who has been repeatedly told to “just breathe” or “just relax”, I know just how unhelpful it is. But there is something very comforting about talking to a coach who understands you at a deeper level, someone who can relate to what you are currently experiencing and simply suggest “how would you feel about trying this tool / technique? It is something that helped me tremendously when I was going through this”.
Having overcome similar challenges as the people you seek to help allows for a deeper understanding, deeper connection and therefore rapport, a part of the equation that makes the coaching even more powerful. Every person who steps into a coaching session wants to be seen, heard and understood.
Not to mention, as a coach, you are showing up as a living example that whatever your clients are going through can be overcome, and better yet, turned into exponential growth
- Applying my training into my own life
I will never stop talking about how my training as a coach completely transformed the way I think. Through learning how the mind works, I became the master of my own mind and therefore my own life. I turned into someone who no longer felt like the victim of her circumstances and I acquired the knowledge, skills and tools to change the direction of my life no matter what challenges or plot twists were being thrown on my path.
I became a master at asking myself better questions to find meaning, growth and healing in every moment. I switched from the very common question “why does this always happen to me?” to more helpful questions such as “What is this situation teaching me?” ; “What must I believe about myself / my life for this to be a repeated situation in my life?” or “When did this pattern start?”
As coaches, we learn how to ask better questions; powerful questions that will give us clues on how to transform a situation, thought pattern or behavior, and applying this skill in my own life has drastically transformed how I face challenges and accomplish my goals.
They say knowledge is power and this couldn’t be more true when it comes to personal development! As you gain more knowledge about yourself, you gain more power to change the things that aren’t working and become more efficient when working on your goals. And with this type of mindset – called a growth mindset – nothing can stop you.
The biggest result of my training as a coach is that I do not give up anymore. Instead I learn from my “failures” and carry on with a different strategy based on the insights I got from questioning what didn’t go right. In fact, I believe that there is no “failure”, only feedback.
- It changed my environment and relationships
As I have learned in my Holistic Life Coaching training with Wellness Professionals At Work, your environment plays a huge part on your overall wellbeing and people are a big part of our environment! Who you choose to surround yourself with impacts your mindset and the way you perceive and face up to life’s challenges. If you consider the famous quote “you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with” by motivational speaker Jim Rohn, it shows just how important the people you surround yourself with are.
So surrounding myself with other coaches and even coaching clients who are looking to improve their lives has been a huge reason for my exponential personal growth since I started my practice.
As I began to approach life differently, it also started impacting my relationships and the people around me for the better. When people see you grow calmer, happier, more centered and watch your life drastically improve as a result of applying coaching principles into your own life, they get inspired. You will become living proof that improving your mindset, your mental health and your overall life is possible! And what is possible for one is possible for all.
So even the people in my life who weren’t my clients started asking me questions about what I was doing and implementing some of those principles into their lives too.
Not to mention, as you develop your listening and rapport building skills through your coaching training, you will become a much better communicator which will in turn improve your personal and work relationships.
A final note:
I first decided to become a coach because I wanted to be of service to others and have an impact on the world by helping people overcome their challenges and improve their life and what I got on my journey was much more than that.
Yes I get to help others and be of service, but the ripple effect of becoming a coach is much greater than I could have imagined! People’s growth and healing creates more growth and healing around them.
If you too want to embark on this life changing journey, book a call today to explore which type of coaching is right for you!
Mel studied for the Diploma in Holistic Life Coaching and now can be found at Healographic.com
