Being your own Life Coach

So, it's one thing giving professional advice to a client. Not so tough, but being your own life coach. A whole other story. Why is it that we can dish it out, but we can't take it?

I have helped a couple of my clients turn their lives around completely during the last month. To such an extent that I am envious of them.

But if I can do it for them......why is it so much harder to do it for ourselves.
I have a couple of theories. One, we are obviously more motivated to do it for others as it is our business and we are being paid! Secondly, we always put ourselves last on the list.

Women are particularly good at this. Everyone else's needs...then our own.
This does not serve us well and I am now going to try and be my own best life coach.

I am going to committ. Will let you know how I go....any thoughts on this, any experiences fellow life coaching bloggers?

Catching Up!

I know....the whole point of a blog is to record daily or at least weekly musings on relevant topics or whatever. I am not really benefiting either myself or anyone else by not keeping this blog up to date. Especially when someone logs on to check it out and the latest posting is six months ago. Must try harder.

In my defense I have been having a particularly difficult time with all sorts of personal issues going on in my life which I am not going to recount here.

However I am back and today's topic is...

"What do you really think of life coaching?"

I am very interested to hear what people's views are on life coaching. When they hear that term, what does it conjure up? Hippies drinking green tea and putting the world to rights? Sharp suited individuals out to fleece vulnerable people, or on the other side have you had a good experience of life coaching? Do you see life coaches as deeply empathetic useful guru types who will help you move your life in the direction in which you wish it to go?

The reason that I ask, is that I do receive some rather odd looks when I say that I am a life coach. Say I am a business coach and everyone nods sagely, but a life coach.....I think it is in the word life. It is just too big a word to begin to imagine coaching someone on it. Perhaps it should be ....a certain aspects of life coach! OK, I am being silly now.

I am going to specialize in coaching. I think I am going to become an EFT coach. Use coaching combined with The Emotional Freedom Technique. That would be great fun. I do both now anyway, so combining them would be very powerful.

I'll keep you posted!

The Individual Nature of Writing.

I believe it was Kingsley Amis who said " The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of one's trousers to the seat of one's chair."

Being a typical Gemini, not only do I love writing as a means of expression, but I also have an unquenchable thirst for advice on writing. All Gemini's love to get lots of advice before making a decision on anything, or so I am told!

The more advice I read, however, the more choices I have. There is fantastic advice out there about writing and enough of it to keep you in reading for the rest of your life.
The key to advice though, is not only to be selective, but to do what works for you.

I have learnt this the hard way. One writer I admire greatly, recommended getting up at dawn every day to write. I was so keen on this author that I followed this advice. Only to find after a week that I was so tired I couldn't see straight and I felt like never writing again!

Learning about your own strengths and weaknesses about, not only how to write, but when to write, can save you a lot of wasted time. Writing in bed with a bottle of wine might work for some, but if like me, wine makes you a bit drowsy after a couple of glasses, it isn't going to work. I would most likely end up with wine all over me and my words. Not great.

I have also learnt that everyone has to find their own discipline. I have spent far too long beating myself up about not writing enough. I now find instead, that I am much more productive if I begin by praising myself for trying and follow Mr Amis's advice above. That usually starts me off and before I know it, a few hours have gone past in writing heaven.

I am currently working my way through Louise Doughty's book " A Novel in a Year." She writes a very interesting column for the Daily Telegraph and with an exercise once a fortnight, I don't feel that I am putting myself under too much stress and what is more, dang and blast if it isn't enjoyable! Her opinions can be read at www.telegraph.co.uk/novelinayear

Whilst she doesn't suggest for one minute that you will have written a novel in a year, the chapters are broken down into 52, one for each week. Her aim is that by the end of the year you should definitely have the bones of your book done. That structure works for me. If I get through two weeks in one, I can give myself extra pats on the back! Works for me.
I hope you have all found or are all in the process of finding what works for you!

Practising What you Preach

What a hectic time I have had setting up my Coaching Business Equilibria. I am now a fully qualified, fully functioning Executive and Life Coach and for the first time I know for sure that I have found my bliss. 6 clients and growing and I love every minute of it. I have been doing this work for years now, but always as a hobby. To do it as a career is just an incredible feeling. Getting paid for something you love....doesn't get much better than that. Which leads me on to writing.

I wonder though why it is that I continue to postpone my writing. I love writing and any kind of writing is definitely food for my soul. So why is it so easy to give others advice on how to live life to the fullest, set goals, let go of procrastination etc, but so hard to do it ourselves?

I know that procrastination is usually due to fear and yes, there is a huge amount of fear about writing. But that's no excuse.....you can write for the love of it anyway.

I think for me what it comes down to is the idea of "the novel." It is like when you ask yourself, have I found "the one." It is just too much pressure. It feels like this has to be the definitive work and if it is not utterly fabulous then that's it....I have blown it.

So for now I have decided to write meaningless little short stories, even though I prefer the idea of a novel to short stories. I am going to attempt one short story a week. That can't be too hard, surely? Then at the end of the month I will have four short stories and surely one of them should be up to something? Even if not....it is writing practice and that is all that matters.

Using time as an excuse has never been my problem. I know that's a feeble excuse. If you want to do something badly enough you will make time.

Do I want it enough? Now there lies the painful question. My heart screams YES and my head says, well why aren't you doing something about it then? From today onwards I intend to.

Let me know how you discipline yourself. I'd love to hear.

Welcome to my Blog!

I set this blog up awhile ago, however, I hadn't done anything about advertising myself, due to other work committments. Now that I am linking this blog to my life coaching website, Equilibria, I hope that people will take some time to find out more about me!

I am bursting with excitement at my new venture Equilibria. I have an opportunity to combine my life coaching skills with my interest in other therapies, such as The Emotional Freedom Technique and Integrated Energy Therapy.

Both techniques are incredibly powerful and well worth finding out more about, if you don't know anything about them. I wrote a bit about them in a previous blog, if you scroll down you will see it.

I am receiving some healing at the moment myself, and my friend, who is giving me what is called Reconnective Healing, recommended a book called The Reconnection, by Dr. Eric Pearl. For anyone interested in healing, this book is unmissable. It is a great story as well and don't blame me if you find you can't put it down! I am now reading it for the second time, as there was so much in it.

Dr. Pearl is doing a weekend of his healing course in Edinburgh. I would love to attend and am leaving it up to fate, to see if I can afford it, come March.

For anyone for whom this is a bit too "way out there!" let me assure you, that I am also a very practical, down to earth life coach. I believe in a no nonsense, lets get on with it attitude, if you want to make things happen.

I hope to hear from you soon!

Becoming a Life Coach

I am now half way through my Diploma to becoming an Executive and Life Coach. The learning curve has been so steep I feel like I am climbing the mountain with my backpack filling up with so much self awareness with each passing mile climbed. It is getting heavy, in one sense of taking in so much, but I am becoming lighter as I find out who I really am. What a journey.

The leader of the course asked me the following question. "Why would I pick you as my coach?" My answer was the following " It is my sincere and genuine desire for you to reach your desired destination on this coaching journey and to that end I will provide total committment, awareness and engage fully in the process at all times."

She said that was my desire and not hers, so no thanks but she wasn't interested. I was flabbergasted. Is this just semantics or does she really have a point? Even though it is my desire, it is my desire "FOR HER." That is the point.

Any comments gratefully received! Hope to hear from you soon.

The Emotional Freedom Technique.

OK, well have had lots of lovely support from Surviving Motherhood at Top Blog Mag and my faith in human nature has not only been restored, but reinforced. Sometimes it just takes a little help to point you in the right direction!

Anyway, as promised, here is a little introduction to The Emotional Freedom Technique.
I first came across this technique at a very interesting day I attended in Dublin, entitled "How to stop self sabotage." There were two guest speakers, one who spoke about EFT and another who spoke about NLP.


The lady who spoke about EFT is an Irish writer called Tracy Culleton. She explained that EFT works on the body's energy system. Basically everytime we experience a negative emotion, trauma or a frightening experience, it creates an zzzzzz in our body's energy system. This is why we can have phobias or fears long after the event is passed. What The Emotional Freedom Technique does is to clear the body of the zzzzzzz in our energy's meridians. The essence behind EFT is that "the cause of all negative emotions is a disruption in the body's energy system. That is the zzzz.

So how does it work? Well, we tap on certain accupuncture points on our body whilst saying certain phrases. The whole process takes about ten minutes to learn. May sound crazy but it works.

I had a lifelong phobia of blood and needles. I went to Tracy, who worked with me for about an hour and I swear I have never looked back. I went for a blood test two days later that I had been putting off for years. I was so amazed at how it worked on absolutely anything, that I have been using it for all sorts of issues ever since. I use it for getting read of fear or nerves before, say public speaking, I use it to stop my food cravings, I use it to help my sore back. It works. If you want to find out how to use the system, go to http://www.emofree.com There is a free manual you can download which gives you all the pressure points you need to tap and the phrases you say. I would love to hear from anyone who uses it, or who tries it and gets good results (as I know you will.) By the way, it also helps with writer's block!!