Recently I’ve started to see different types of coaches from holistic practitioners focused on nutrition and wellbeing to professional coaches used to working with Fortune 500 execs. My partner often questions my motivation for seeking out such a support network and I am also asking myself if I’m expecting these people to hand me answers on a silver platter.
I am very aware that only by true self-reflection, personal motivation and a long hard look at yourself do you see the results. In all honesty that can be easier said than done. Many times, my coaches have set me homework exercises which I rush at the last minute before our next season or fail to do completely. My resistance to them is simply because they are hard and I don’t have the answers! My latest was to write down and define what success is for me. On one hand, I’m on the same page as society, good job, house, family but when I ask myself do they make me feel fulfilled I struggle to say yes, especially career wise. Should success be defined more by the positive attributes that it makes you feel-fulfillment, passion, contentment?
What if the great job that affords you the nice house and the fancy lifestyle just gives you a feeling of emptiness and frustration? Do you keep the salary and stay ‘successful’ or do you take the leap and leave? Sadly, we become so accustomed to the paycheck at the end of the month that its often unthinkable to give up that security for the unknown.
I’m working through these dilemmas now and wonder if I’ll look back on my decisions as brave or stupid. However, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the feelings that something must change and my internal intuition whose voice is become louder and louder the more times I am quiet and reflective enough to listen. I know I will make the best of the choices that I make even if they feel difficult at the moment, and that I have good friends and family around to support me whatever I decide, maybe this is the only thing I’ll will ever know for certain and that in itself is its own definition of success.