In life and career coaching, we have an important tool that I will simply call Consciousness. The more aware and clear we are about the perceptions, patterns, personal choices, values and belief systems that are impacting a client's life, the more we can create lasting change. I graduated from one of the top coaching schools, IPEC, over [...]
This week I received an email from a discouraged career coaching client who didn't get the job. From her words, I could feel all the self-criticism and hopelessness that she was feeling. I am sharing with you my email pep talk because it applies to you (and me) too when things don't go the way we had planned. "YOU [...]
Have you ever had an aha moment that feels just like the sun bursting through the clouds, a wide blue sky suddenly opened up for you? I have. And I've seen my life coaching clients faces brighten with the same experience. One of my joys as a life and career coach is to teach my clients how to create the conditions [...]
A recent article about the wise and beloved (to me) Brené Brown referred to her most helpful "life hack" for relationships: "If I could give men and women in relationship and leaders and parents one hack, I would give them, ‘the story I’m making up,'" Brown told Tech Insider. "Basically, you're telling the other person your reading [...]
A have a life/career coaching client who is going through a big transition: planning to leave her corporate job and pursue more mission based work in alignment with who she is and how she wants to be spending her time. She has done it all right. Clarified her values, mapped out her priorities, gathered support from family [...]
Have you heard the story of the two monks and the heavy load? It is Zen tale passed down for centuries in Buddhist teachings. One day two traveling monks reached a town and saw a young woman waiting to step out of her sedan chair. There were deep, muddy puddles and she couldn’t step across without getting [...]
Do you ever find yourself fooled into believing that answers should come to you right away? In this convenience and consumer oriented culture with the world right at our fingertips, we are easily tricked into believing life works like this: You want something. You find it. You get it. But, through my life and career coaching practice [...]
This week in a life coaching client consultation, I was asked if I believe in affirmations and positivity. I heard myself say, "I believe in truth." It seems that affirmations and positivity should be the backbone of coaching work and was certainly part of my initial training. But it never felt deep enough. It never felt right. [...]
Since I could hold a pencil, I have always known that I was a writer. I filled up my Mead notebooks with stories about adventure, magic and self-discovery (including sketches but I am no visual artist). My little girl self knew about creativity and the power of story and she naturally expressed herself. When I got into [...]
When you are in a change or decision-making process, it's easy to get caught up in a state of urgency and feel driven to "figure it out NOW." Your nervous system goes on high alert and you might even lay awake at night worrying and planning. Your body tightens, your thinking narrows and your Research shows that [...]
Many clients come to life coaching hoping to break a painful, restrictive cycle in their lives. The context is varied, from relationships to career to personal habits, but the problem is often the same. They are stuck on a repeat cycle that says something like: "I always attract people into my life who are unavailable...I can't ever [...]
If you could dial up your eight-year-old self, what would she tell you is missing in your life right now? Who was that little kid and just where did she go? Carl Jung once said: "What did you do as a child that made the hours pass like minutes? Therein lies the key to your earthly pursuits." [...]
Do you know what it feels like to be awake to your life? Present, curious, open, empowered, enlivened... Do you know that most of us spend part of our precious lives in a trance instead of being awake? We are thinking about the past or worrying too much about the future, feeling stuck or immobile, caught up [...]
I have a favorite exercise from the wise Martha Beck that I like to use with clients to help them gain more clarity around decision making. Martha calls it the "Shackles On, Shackles Off" exercise. Here is my personal adaption: 1. Bring a memory to mind of a person, experience or place that makes you feel relaxed [...]
By Zohar Manor-Abel, shared via Flickr To begin 2014, I have a simple question for you: Who do you want to be this year? You, like me and everyone else I have met so far, have many different selves inside. It is almost like we have an inner choir of voices, often singing in different keys. You [...]
