Can You Afford NOT to Have a Coach? Are you trying to grow personally or professionally? Do you have a vision for your future where you fulfill your potential and live in alignment with your values? Are you thinking of changing careers, starting a business, stepping into a new role at work, or just leveling up a particular area of your life?
If so—can you afford not to have the support, accountability and guidance of a coach during this time of change and growth?
You can find your answer by answering this question:
If I veer off my desired trajectory by one or more degrees, would this affect my final destination? If yes, am I okay with arriving somewhere else?
Did you answered NO? Then you cannot afford to not have a coach in your corner. This quote from tandemfinancial.co.uk can help you better visualize the importance of staying on course when chasing a goal:
“Experts in air navigation have a rule of thumb known as the 1 in 60 rule. It states that for every 1 degree a plane veers off its course, it misses its target destination by 1 mile for every 60 miles you fly. This means that the further you travel, the further you are from your destination.”
Need more of a push to hire a coach? Here are 5 more reasons why you cannot afford not having a coach—and the few degrees that may change your trajectory.
#1 Imposter Syndrome
Roughly nine out of 10 of my clients experience imposter syndrome at some point along their journey. When you play big, you eventually reach a point where you can’t help but wonder if you’ve earned your seat at the table.
Working with a coach will help you remember who you are and where you’re headed. Many of my overachieving clients are so focused on their goals and what’s next that they forget how far they’ve come. They focus more on their challenges and shortcomings rather than their amazing strengths and expertise.
It takes that outside person to remind you of your strengths and accomplishments. A coach will support you to grow into your new role with confidence and authentic inner power.
#2 Fear
Fear often disguises itself as a well-meaning concern for your safety. To be fair, your fear has probably kept you out of a lot of trouble. But the same evolutionary fears that protect you from bears and sharp cliffs also keep you playing safe.
Your protective mechanisms don’t want you to get hurt.
When fear comes up, we either stay the same or modify our goals to something smaller and safer. For example, instead of applying for a new position, we decide that we’re not ready and need to pursue more education or experience.
I’ve myself have done this out of fear of disappointment or rejection. In 2012 after I completed my education and I had my daughter, I started to apply for full-time jobs. I knew I wanted to be a coach back then, but when I looked for opportunities, extraordinarily little seemed available. After a couple of disappointments, I decided to apply to be a personal trainer. I knew I had more than enough qualifications and experience to do that. My career journey continued in fitness and then in fitness management before I eventually came back to coaching.
I wonder what my trajectory could have been had I had a coach back then. Of course, I have no regrets and I got some great and relevant work experience on the way. But a coach early in my career could have supported me to play bigger and be more patient and courageous.
Working with a coach can support you in overcoming these fears and recognizing them before you veer off course.
#3 Emotions
Our nonstop environments hit us with events throughout the day—the news, email, our family’s moods, traffic, the weather, our bosses’ requests, etc. All these events trigger an emotional reaction in us.
Emotions are internal compasses we use to navigate life. We tend to go toward things that make us feel good and avoid things that make us feel bad. However, we also have automatic emotional responses to events. That means that your body and mind have gotten used to certain emotions and turn them on by habit. That’s why change is SO difficult.
For example, say you want to stop getting angry when your kids misbehave, but anger seems to automatically creep up every time. (Could I be using a personal example here?)
Sometimes certain emotions seem negative, but if examined with the help of your coach, they may turn out to be positive. For example, a client recently revealed that he felt nervous when he thought about realizing the vision of his business. But after we talked about it he realized that a lot of that anxiety was actually excitement and not fear. With that awareness, he is able to show up fully and pursue his dreams.
# 4 Old Beliefs
We have many beliefs about ourselves and how the world works. Some are true and some aren’t. A coach’s job is to stay curious and always ask where you’re coming from. As I coach, I want my clients to come from a place of clarity, confidence, and trust. And to do that, we need to peel off the layers of conditioning just like you’d peel an onion.
As innocent as old beliefs seem, all clients I’ve worked with had some kind of unexamined beliefs that were slowing down their progress or overwhelming them. Yes, even the really successful and high-achieving 7-figure business owners.
Working with a coach will help you spot a limiting belief and see how it hasn’t been serving you. After that ah-ha moment, it feels like you’ve been carrying around an 80lb backpack with one strap that you can finally put down.
For example, I had a client who believed that success meant a full-time job in corporate America where he worked up to a 6-figure income managing projects. Nothing about this vision seemed to reflect in his personality and values. After a few months of work together this client stepped into his zone of genius as an artist and fully went on to pursue his dream to create and sell art.
He then became an unstoppable force as he was now on the right trajectory and it was much easier to navigate his journey. We got clarity on his new vision, created his strategy, and set his goals. Then, he continued to execute the plan with confidence and alignment.
#5 Conditioning
We’re all products of our environment to a certain degree. Often, we pick up our family’s or community’s values as our own. A few months ago, I started working with a woman who hired me to help her to get a full-time job after retiring from the military. She had a long list of benefits and wants from that “ideal” job.
After our initial few sessions where we focused on discovering her values and her vision, she had a breakthrough. She realized that she never even questioned whether she was supposed to get a full-time job or not. It was her default reaction to where she was in life.
She was raised to believe that she had to have a full-time career and never really stopped to wonder if that’s what she truly wanted.
After a few more sessions we changed her goals. She is now diving into starting her own business while staying open to consulting opportunities for businesses and non-profits. This way she is staying true to her values of work-life balance.
I started my own business five years ago. If I veered off by a few degrees, I’d be somewhere totally different. My path would have been longer and probably a little more painful. I’m forever grateful for the coaches and mentors I’ve worked with who supported, challenged, and believed in me. I’ve shared my story and experience with coaching here.
I hope this post was able to help you understand on a deeper level how working with a coach can help you take fewer detours—as we all know, the road to success is always under construction.
If you’d like to learn more about coaching or working together, schedule your free consultation or leave me a note at info@coachkalina.com
