Finding my Inner Hero — How I Started Changing my Life By Working with a Life Coach
Have you ever reached a point in your life where you said “enough is enough, something has to change?” Well I reached one of those points a few months ago.
Let me explain.
I’ve been working for the same company for almost six years. I’m very good at my job, I make a decent salary, and I’ve been able to take care of a lot of personal goals because of it, such as rebuilding my credit and starting to save some money towards buying a house. But I am not happy at my job — like I said I’ve been doing some same thing for almost 6 years, with very few pay raises, and not because I’m not good at what I do — every time we (me or one of the other interviewers at my company) approaches management about a raise, they have a different excuse why they can’t or won’t give us one. Either they want to take care of something else first, like getting us switched over to a new platform for taking calls (which is what we spent the first two years or so that I worked there doing) or they wanted to get a new phone system first, or something — the last time they said they weren’t going to give us a raise, it was because our call volume had slowed down. Now it’s true, call volume had dropped off, but this same company is in the process of introducing an app that will allow the insurance agents we talk to to enter their personal information before they talk to us. They can afford to do that but they can’t afford to give us a raise? Give me a break.
Something had to give.
About two months ago, Nicola Bolt, the owner of a website I subscribe to, sent out an email saying she was offering her new coaching course for free to two people so they could try it and see how well it worked for them before she introduced it later in the year. Even if we weren’t picked, everyone who responded would receive 50% off the course when she launched it later in the year. All we had to do was reply to the email with the problem we were stuck on, why we thought coaching could help us, how committed we were to making the change, and state our full name and confirm that we were over 18 years of age. So I replied to the email thinking hey, I had nothing to lose and possibly everything to gain. About a week later I received an email back from her saying she’d selected me as one of the two people she wanted to work with! I have to say, I was shocked and surprised, and very flattered.
That was at the end of July — I had my introductory session with her on July 31, and six coaching sessions with her after that — 3 once a week for the first three weeks, and then we took about a month break because we both had some vacations coming up, and it also gave me some time to work on some of the goals she had set for me to try to accomplish before our next session. After that, I had my last three sessions with her, and those really have helped me come up with some ideas for how to improve on what I’d already done, and keep moving my goals forward.
This is what working with Nicola helped me do:
- Get more clarity on what I wanted to do — I have a lot passions and a lot of interests, and actually have gone to school for a few different things, but not been able to make a career out of anything.
- Start working on ways to make more money from writing, which is my true passion. I’ve put together a new website, to use as a marketing tool for the articles and blog posts I’ve written in different niches. While I was going through her course, I also watched a webinar that explained the process of how to get paid writing clients. I’m also in the process of going through some of the Execution Plans on Ryan Deiss’s Digital Marketer website.
- Start coming up with a plan to stay in better touch with the family I have left that I’m close to — I had lost my grandfather, who was my last living grandparent, about a year before that, and since then I’d really started to want to stay in better touch with the family that I do have left that I’m close to — my dad, stepmom and little brother, and my aunt and uncle that live in South Carolina. I have to admit I’ve made the least progress in this area, because I put more time and effort into the other two goals, but I’m going to continue working on this.
Am I happy with my results?
Yes. 100%. I feel like I’m finally on the right path. I’m still at my old job, but I’m actually happier at it now because I know I won’t be there forever. I’m actually going to be going part-time there starting in 2017, and I’m looking forward to having more time to put into my freelance writing and other personal goals I’m working on. If you’re in a similar position with your life, I highly recommend checking out Nicola’s program — you can find out more about it at her website, achieveyourbestlife.com. And if you want to keep up with the progress I’m making on my goals, feel free to sign up for my private website, http://private.ericalynnmartin.com.
It’s time to find your inner hero— good luck!
