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Stylish & Slow Adventuring – A Travel, Fashion and Lifestyle Yorkshire Blogger

THE START OF MY LIFE COACHING JOURNEY | QUEENBEADY

August 22, 2019

THE START OF MY LIFE COACHING JOURNEY

WEARING Blazer Whistles | Top c/o FatFace | Jeans Debenhams | Shoes Birkenstock
Photos by Lucy Earnshaw

As I write this from my local haunt that serves not only the best cocktails but the best flat whites too, I’m in fact actually really being very studious and doing the very homework task that Sophie set me just little over a week ago after our first coaching call together. You see I chose this spot not only so I could keep refueled but to give myself a big pat on the back for forging forward with my plans to take my blog more seriously which is something I will come to very shortly. For anyone that’s ever considered life coaching to help challenge them in life or open up doors and avenues you never thought possible you might want to sit tight and read this post. So, here’s the start of my life coaching journey.

One fateful evening whilst I was flicking aimlessly through Instagram, on a day that I didn’t quite feel 100% nor happy with myself for the last few months, not quite really understanding what my main purpose in life was, fate would hit home in a rather crazy way.

I have a steady job that pays the bills and keeps us comfortable, I’m married, we’ve just bought our second house, we have a lovely 11 year old doggo, go on nice holidays and generally have a pretty good life, yet a lot of the time in the back of my anxiety-riddled mind I don’t allow myself to accept that my life on this earth is pretty damn sweet.

It was as if by magic, having being thinking about life coaching for a number of months and not really knowing if I had the nerve to part with the cash, it was almost a sign from above that I happened to fall upon one of Sophie Cliff’s instagram stories that very night of feeling pretty glum.

She was looking for guinea pigs (per-se) to help her with her studies in life coaching and it would be totally free for 6 sessions, so long as we were happy to allow her to use us in her anonymous case studies that she would submit. It took a mere 5 seconds to realise that this was the perfect opportunity for me to finally allow me to open up about how I see my life going and where I want to be instead of trudging along doing the same thing, day in, day out.

A few taps later I’d filled out the form and not long after Sophie had pinged in to my inbox asking me if I’d be up for it.

After a slight intake of breath, my mind immediately started worrying about what people might think about me having life coaching lessons. That small moment of hesitation nearly made me back out, I could have run for the hills and told myself over and over that “why on earth would someone like me need life coaching?!?!”

When I look back on those short & thank goodness, brief period of time, I realised how absolutely ridiculous I sounded in my own mind and that was proof enough that my own worries and insecurities were exactly why I needed this opportunity more than ever. Once I gave myself a pep talk and a royal kick up the bum, without any misgiving, my email was typed out back to Sophie and it was a resounding YES.

My appointment was swiftly booked in for the following Wednesday, and not knowing what to expect, I threw my PJ’s on, pulled my hair back in to a top knot, grabbed a big pint of water and set up my laptop waiting for 7pm to roll round so I could join my skype meeting with Sophie. I wasn’t exactly sure how these things panned out, I mean what did I *actually* want from life and was I a lost cause not really knowing the answer to that?

Seeing as I already know Sophie IRL it was a breeze and I needn’t have worried one bit because her calming nature is enough to make anyone feel at ease and open up in a way that I can’t with a lot of people.

We talked about where I was in my life, what my worries were, what scared me and where I see myself in years to come.

We touched quite a lot on that impending 30th birthday doom that is currently looming over my head, fears that I’ve not had children yet, sadness that I’m not enjoying big life moments like weddings or buying our first home the same way I was say, five or six years ago and how since then I’ve really been peddling an even keel after leaving two incredibly stressful jobs and finally finding normality with my current job.

We chatted about how for the last two years my alcohol consumption has gone through the roof and I’ve relied on those times to have a good time despite it making me feel like a nervous wreck the next day! In a nutshell, I basically worry that life had become a little stagnant.

I’m not ashamed to say that tears fell as I waded through this complicated and intricate way of thinking and saying things out loud, in the open made it even more accountable and in turn by doing that, made it actionable.

My anxiety doesn’t help either. I’m often nervously worrying about every single little scenario that could or most probably won’t happen at every given opportunity. My brain doesn’t always allow me to be happy despite having such a lovely life, and knowing it.

Sophie explained that I can re-train my brain, it will take a little while, but it is do-able. Each night since our call I’ve either written down on the note section of my phone what I’ve achieved that day and what I’ve been grateful for. It doesn’t even have to be anything huge, it could be simply washing my hair when I really couldn’t be bothered, or that I made an absolutely banging cup of tea and devoured it with each slurp and gulp. Slowly but surely I’m looking for the good in each day rather than focussing on the negative.

What came mainly from the call was that I want to drive my blog in a more professional manner, to be taken more seriously and to be seen as a major player in the Blogging world but I’ve let “the fear” creep in so much over time that I have never really granted myself absolute permission to reach for the stars, instead I’ve only got small section of the way.

I just didn’t know how or where to start.

Which brings me to the present day as I tap away on my laptop. I’ve escaped my usual blogging situ. I am not sat on the sofa in scruffy, stained pajamas, with my greasy hair poking out of a poorly tamed ponytail, nor am I gauging on a family size bar of chocolate (galaxy if you’re asking) half-watching my current Netflix obsession and half-typing away haphazardly.

Instead I’m sat in a cafe at approximately twenty past seven at night. Sounds crazy, right?

Despite the constant mumbles of half-sloshed conversations on a “Thirsty Thursday” night and what would be distractions of bartenders wandering around serving drinks and clinking wine and beer glasses together, I feel like I’ve articulated and opened up on one of my favourite pieces of writing on this blog in a long time.

I’ve totally and utterly, 100% shared my inner most feelings right here and it feels bloody good.

You see, I’ve shied away from long form content as I feel I’ve nothing of any value to offer the world, but tonight, somehow the words just flowed and flowed because I’ve allowed myself to open up and follow through my piece of homework from our coaching call. Simply by getting out of the house and mixing my environment up my brain is producing endless streams of words that I never thought comprehendible.

Who knew I’d be such a good student?

The enormous relief I feel from starting to slowly accept my own self-belief after one call is something I have always evaded and kept at arms length because if I accepted that I was good at something or that I had achieved something spectacular, it would become real and all the more quickly would it disappear in to nothingness. Sophie is allowing me to understand my own self worth in sweet, steady steps and I’m fully embracing it this time.

Bit by bit, my life coaching is piecing me together again, put the jigsaw puzzle together with the curved edges in tapping in to the holes, and sometimes I’ll get it wrong and they won’t fit straight away but soon, it will get easier and the end picture will become complete through hard work and determination. Coaching is stopping me from hating myself and it’s saving me little by little.

And, as we draw closer to our next call and over 1500 words later in a hazy cafe bar, I’m feeling far more confident about how I see myself, what I want to achieve and where I’m going in life. I’m excited to see where the next coaching session takes me….

If you are interested in a free 30 minute discovery coaching call with Sophie you can click here. 
(Whilst my coaching is being provided for free Sophie has not asked me to endorse her course on here.)

 

Have you ever thought about life coaching?

Bee

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