Looking back, the process to get here was not easy: I had a lot of conversations with my husband, and list making, and after I spoke with my employer I even agreed to stay for an extra 2 months to help with the transition. For me the whole process actually took abut 4 months.
I really tried to make this decision as thoroughly as possible too and so when a girl in my moms group recommended that I speak with a life coach, I figured I'd try it. But at first I was like, life coach? What is it? Where do I find one of those?
Lucky for me, my friend Joanna is starting a life coach biz and offered to let me try it out her services. We scheduled an hour long phone call for one Friday night. Joanna started out by asking me how I was doing and then began prompting me with a few questions about life, work, etc. I talked for about half an hour, and we kind of debriefed about what I spoke about and I walked away with a lot from the session.
1. A neutral sounding board
A lot of time just hearing myself talk enabled me to discover things that, while they should have been obvious, I didn't even realize. For example: a lot of my friends I meet through work, so when I started solo-work in our new town, I had a really hard time making friends - duh!? That makes so much sense - I'm not just totally lame.2. A list of action items
For the last 20 minutes of the session, we ironed out some action items to work on before our next phone call. It was helpful to have a professional to piece together all of the random thoughts I was having into an organized manner. A few of the things we decided upon: scheduling two social events, writing a letter to myself about my teaching career, reading the book: MWF Seeking BFF, scheduling an informational interview (scary! more on this to come) and a few other things.3. Clarity and direction
Sometimes it just takes fresh eyes to help find what you are looking for and by then end of the conversation, I felt like my life had just sailed out of a fog. When I became a SAHM the days become the exact opposite of my old workday: rote, goal-less, and a little mind-numbing. But after just one hour with Joanna, I felt like my life had a little more structure, something to look forward to: I had a goal to work on and it feels fantastic to have some direction!If your interested in Joanna's amazing services you can check her out at her blog or if you want to contact her directly, just shoot me an email (jordan@employablemom.com) and I'll put you guys in touch. (I was offered her services for free because she is my friend and she didn't know I was going to be writing a post about it someday. So just FYI, in case I am supposed to be disclosing anything: I've received no monetary compensation for this post - just friendship!)
I'm going to continue to post about my experiences with having a life coach because I've been really happy with the outcome.
Sincerely,
Jordan
P.S. - Have any of you ever used a life coach before? And liked it? Or not?
I have never thought of using a life coach, but am so glad that you are having a good experience! I can't wait to read more about it!
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