I’m pretty honest with you all about how I got to be a life coach.
You see, I didn’t just pop into this world knowing what limiting beliefs are, setting intentions (& manifesting them!) and understanding how to manage my own mind and emotions.
NOPE.
In fact, for a very long time my life was the complete opposite of that.
I was quite firmly not in touch with my own Inner Bad-Ass. I was not claiming what I wanted in life on most levels and I was definitely “asleep at the wheel” in many cases (or what I now call Unconscious Living).
Want proof? Here are just a few examples:
After graduating from university, I felt completely and totally lost when it came to my career for a long time. But honestly, the real problem was I didn’t have a sense of direction! (If you don’t know which shore to swim towards, don’t be surprised that you never find yourself on solid land!) I’d always been given the idea that a great job would just pop up somehow. (Spoiler alert: it didn’t.)
After struggling to figure out what I wanted to do, I went back to design school and eventually got a job as a designer. Only problem? My workplace was fully toxic. And I don’t say that lightly! It was a full-on boys club that not only devalued my contributions but was also to toxically-masculine that they actively encouraged drunk-driving during work-sanctioned social events. (!!) Yet I stayed on…
Settled for a romantic relationship that started off okay but actually was not remotely healthy (the classic Narcissist/Empath). Although that would have been news to me at the time! I was still convinced that we “should” have made sense so I spent way too much time and energy trying to make it work. (Not recommended!)
After ALL of those misadventures and after my marriage imploded, I set about getting a “real” job again. And I did! But again, this ended up being another case of me settling–definitely NOT claiming my worth! Now I learned a lot from that job but I was honestly completely underpaid. PLUS I also experienced sexual harassment over a period of months that I am ashamed to say I didn’t even report to HR. At the time, my bandwidth taken up simply by learning how to be a normal functioning person again (and in retrospect I’m so upset that he got away with it).
I’m sharing all those stories now because now I can see that they all came from the exact same place: my shockingly low levels of self-worth.
But at the time, I thought it was everything else. If only the boss or the partner or the WORLD would treat me better then my life would be better (and I’d be happy).
Which of course I know now to be a completely ass-backwards approach to the whole thing.
Your worth needs to come first. That’s the only time you’ll start expecting more, demanding more and (aha!) receiving more also.
Not that it all happened over night, but truly the only thing that got me to where I am now is deciding that enough’s enough!
And I don’t want YOU to either!
That’s the true reason why I’m so passionate about personal development and life coaching.
But I also understand just how hard it is to see out of the mess when you’re in it!
Life isn’t always peachy. And sometimes some very confusing and painful things happen to us.
But at the end of it all, you are still here! And despite everything, you’ve walked out the other side feeling stronger, smarter and more appreciative of yourself.
And that’s the most important lesson of all!
So with all of that being said, I’m sharing 7 of the biggest lessons I’ve learned along the way from there until here. I hope that you become inspired by these today–no matter where you might happen to be in your journey!
7 Lessons That Transformed My Entire Life
Lessons That Transformed My Entire Life #1:
You Set Your Own Rules
As a kid, it seemed like rules ran my life. If it wasn’t my parents’ rules, it was school rules, church rules, and the ever-so-tricky rules of the playground. As a kid, people just love to tell you what to do–which is totally necessary to a certain degree! But what happens when you get to adulthood and the rules no longer apply?
No one tells you when this day comes but make no mistake, it does. As an autonomous adult, you actually get to figure out what rules YOU want to follow, parents, church, school be damned.
But no one throws you a party on this day. No one even tells you that it’s even happened! So it’s up to you to figure it out at a certain point. For example:
Hey, this college major that my parents are so keen on actually doesn’t interest me at all.
Hey, this whole college-career-marriage-kids track that everyone else seems so determined to follow might not even be what I actually want!
Picking your own rules is by far the best part of being an adult! Yet some of us aren’t really exercising this right. Instead, we’re still aiming for approval and trying to live the life that we’ve been told is good for us…and wondering why underneath it all we’re deeply unhappy.
We all live by a set of rules–our rules. So if following the rules isn’t working for you, it might be time to switch yours out for some new ones!
Lessons That Transformed My Entire Life #2:
You Can Control Your Emotions
Emotional education was definitely not something I was taught as a child. In fact, my emotional education consisted more of: “You shouldn’t feel that way!”. Which meant that I mostly learned how to bottle things up and not talk about them ever, instead of understanding them and being able to shift them for something better.
But while emotions might seem like a freight train that knocks us over at times, they really are a lot more in our control than we’ve been taught to believe.
In fact, our emotions are entirely written by us–and learning to slow down and understand the process is exactly how you can learn how to manage them.
Thoughts create feelings. Feelings drive actions. Actions create results.
Simply understanding that one formula will bring you so much more stability and peace over your life than you ever dreamed possible.
Lessons That Transformed My Entire Life #3:
Raising Your Standards Is Good For Everyone
Guess what? The people in your life want you to shine! They want you to do well and to be truly happy in whatever it is that you do. They want you to have incredible supportive relationships, they want you to be able to speak your mind and they want you to be able to be your true self.
But sometimes we get stuck at a certain level in life, simply because that’s all we’ve known (or all we’ve seen our family accomplish). Which is kind of funny really.
Not many people would want to inherit their parents’ musical tastes exclusively. So why would we also want to adopt their standards for living?
The world has changed and there’s a world of opportunity waiting out there. But you need to push yourself out of your comfort zone (and out of the comfort zone of your family) in order to see what you can do.
Don’t let the voice of fear continue to let you play small!
Think about it this way: you never know who you’re inspiring with your life, with your career, with your energy. If you have kids, you owe it to them to be a beacon of possibility. And even if you don’t, there are other people watching and paying attention to what you do.
The more you can accomplish in life the more people you’ll inspire. The more people you inspire, the higher the bar raises for everyone: especially us women and spiritually minded types.
Becoming the best you that you can be really is one of the best ways to change the world for the better! So stop doubting your own greatness and get ready to blow your own mind.
Lessons That Transformed My Entire Life #4:
Your Authentic Self Is What Everyone Wants
Admit it: how many times has this happened to you? You meet an amazing person and you start freaking out a little. You start spending more time together but you find yourself worrying about what you’re going to wear or say or do. You want them to like you so much that you start to conform into an idea of what you think they want. Which seems like a good idea right? I mean, how else are they going to like you?
It’s a pattern as old as dirt and one many of us (both men and women) continue to fall into. But who does this ever benefit?
When we show up as someone other than who we really are, we’re also denying the person of interest the chance to know the real us. Then, as time wears on and it gets more difficult to wear the mask, we end up showing our true colors. That might leave our partner feeling confused or possibly even lied to–even if both parties have participated in the exact same behavior.
No wonder so many of us feel so alone in this world! We’re too afraid to reveal our true selves–so we end up never being seen for who we really are. We deny ourselves the chance of true unconditional love which leaves us feeling lonely and rejected.
But at the end of the day, we’ve denied ourselves this gift. Underneath it all, we all crave real connection. We desire to be seen and loved for us, exactly the way we are. The trick is that we have to learn how to be ourselves fully and authentically if we ever truly want to have this experience.
Lessons That Transformed My Entire Life #5:
Other People’s Stuff Is Their Stuff
It’s a hard pill to swallow at times but this one has ultimately brought me so much more peace than I ever thought was possible.
Other peoples thoughts, words and actions definitely don’t have anything to do with you!
The brutal breakup, the harsh words, the misunderstandings….they might seem like they’re very much directed towards you. But those things are really just the result of someone else’s life experiences: their courage (or lack thereof), the relationship role models they saw as children, their own inability to deal with their own emotions.
This is especially true when people are pointing the finger of blame at you! If someone is straight up telling you that you’re the reason they’re unhappy, you know they don’t know the truth: which is that we’re all responsible for our own happiness. They can pout and cry and yell all they want and even succeed in making you go away. But the same feelings are going to continue to follow them around like a dark cloud until they get brave enough to deal with them themselves.
But that’s their journey. They can’t be rushed through it, just as you could not be rushed through yours. It might hurt and it might be tough to understand at times but you must leave them to live their life on their own and wish them well on their journey.
Lessons That Transformed My Entire Life #6:
Growth Is Continual
Fact: one of the fastest ways to end up sad and dissatisfied with your life is to completely give up on your own growth.
But again, we’ve been fed one very small-minded way of looking at life “success”. The American Dream is what we’re all supposed to be striving for. But the American Dream is actually quite rigid. What happens if you happen to outgrow your career? Or relationship? What happens when you wake up feeling dissatisfied even though you thought you did everything “right”?
The truth is that humans don’t stop growing at the age of 20. We continue to grow mentally, spiritually and emotionally until the day we die. In fact that growth is part of our very nature. The Universe itself is in a state of constant expansion and we should be too.
Sitting around and resting on our laurels can be tempting. (We all love to feel cozy and safe!) But staying too long in any one state will ultimately make us feel like we’re shrinking (and that’s because we are).
Safety and comfort is important but so is pushing ourselves once in a while. Yes, it’s scary to leave the comfort zone but if we don’t it will end up choking the happiness right out of us. There’s a reason why the quote “do one thing a day that scares you” is so popular! We really all need to learn how to scare ourselves, as often as we can bear it.
Lessons That Transformed My Entire Life #7:
Your Personality Is YOUR Creation
Again, as a kid, I grew up thinking I was just the way I was: painfully shy and quiet. It wasn’t until my later teen years that I realized that “personality sentence” wasn’t really true. Of course, I had my moments of shyness. But I also had moments of being funny and friendly and lo-and-behold! I even made friends.
Later on, when I worked in retail, I learned that I could make small talk with almost anyone. Fast forward to today and I regularly put out podcasts and YouTube videos. Even as an adult, it took me a little while to get comfortable doing either of those things. But if I had continued to cling to the idea that I was painfully shy I probably wouldn’t have even started.
Your ideas about yourself are one of the most harmful things in the way of becoming who you really want to be. The problem is we’ve all held onto those labels from our childhood for so long that we actually believe them to be true–and we have an army of “evidence” to back them all up.
But they’re not 100% true. And since they’re not 100% that means there are times when those ideas are not true at all. And if you start focusing on those small bubbles of time you might be surprised to notice just how many there are.
So think about the stories and ideas you hold about yourself and really be honest with yourself. Are these stories helping or hurting? Do they match who you really want to be–or are they just another obstacle in your path?
You might be an adult now but you’re far from dead. You can continue to learn and grow in whatever way you want to! That means you can learn how to be a great public speaker, tell a joke, entertain a crowd, do whatever else it is that you want to do–if you’re willing to put your mind to it.
So tell me: did you resonate with this? What lesson do you need to hear right now the most?
Your life is always changing and rearranging my loves! And that’s a beautiful thing. But what matters the most (only always) is what you take from the experience!
PS Looking for more? You might also want to check out this post about raise your worth or this one about living from your core values.
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