I gift books. Like, 90% of the time, no matter what the occasion is, I’ll gift a book.
Because books have changed me. Reading has made me a different person – a better person.
BUT books can only take you so far.
This corona lockdown isolation proved to be a blessing for me. I experienced the power of 1-on-1 coaching.
My empowering belief of “I CAN DO ANYTHING” had started limiting me as well, when I thought I could learn everything from books.
But boy o’ boy. I was so wrong!
By investing in my own coach, I accelerated the whole growth process. And I realized, if I had done this earlier, I’d have learnt everything years ago, what I have learnt so far.
Don’t get me wrong. Books and 1-on-1 coaching have their own significant places. One is incomplete without the other.
And to confess it here – I invested in my coaching when my colleagues were losing their jobs.
Sounds scary? It was damn scary.
But I had the gut feeling that this is going to give me a tremendous ROI. (Spoiler alert: it did)
This post will help you realize how coaching can help you live your dream life today.
Here are the 7 ways of how life coaching helped me live my dream life today.
I Moved Closer to My Values
Everyone has different values. One of my core values is creative freedom.
I CAN’T work when someone else is bossing around me.
Creative freedom matters to me. BIG TIME.
I need my own space and time to work things around. And when someone crosses the boundaries of my creatively-free zone… I get annoyed. I become a rebel, and usually, the frustration comes out in the form of anger, procrastination, and sarcastic behaviour.
I also value time a lot. Like, a lot lot. And when someone doesn’t respect my time, comes late to a meeting, it goes against my values as well.
Before anything else, I needed to know what are my core values.
Step 1: Discovering and Defining your core values
Step 2: Design Your Compass
This is a tough step – to actually commit to what exactly you want from life.
What’s the purpose of your life? How do you want to serve others?
If you don’t know the purpose of your life, read this post:
When you’re clear with the purpose of your life, design an imaginary compass. Have the compass point towards your life purpose.
Now anytime you have to make a new decision, check it with your compass. See if it aligns with your purpose.
Why do I suggest this activity?
Reason 1 – This will help you see things objectively.
Reason 2 – Life is really short. And this activity will help you do the things that truly matter to you, in the finite years you have here on Earth.
Goal Setting Session
Having a goal in mind will keep pushing you to be consistent. You can have 3-month, 6-month, 12-month goals.
And with reverse engineering, you can have your daily and weekly targets.
For example, if my goal is to launch my 1st book in the next 1 year, that’s my 12-month plan.
My 6-month plan would be to finish my first draft, so the next 6 months could be spent on proofreading, marketing, book launch, etc
If I am writing a book of, say 90,000 words, my monthly word count target is 15,000 words.
That means I have to write 3750 words every week. If I decide to write only on the weekdays (Monday to Friday) I would have to write 750 words to get to my target.
750 words a day, 5 days a week. Sounds doable?
So, to summarize… if I write 750 words every day from Monday to Friday, for the next 6 months, I would finish a total of 90,000 words, and the first draft of my book will be done.
See how breaking down your goal into weekly/monthly target helps?
I worked on my 18-month plan, and now I have all the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to measure my progress and stay motivated.
What is your 12-month goal? What’s your weekly target?
I Had Limiting Beliefs (Guess What? You Do Too!)
The kind of beliefs that limit your growth – they are limiting beliefs. Maybe at some point, those beliefs would have served you, but every new level of growth demands a different ‘You’.
Coming from a humbling background, seeing my parents work hard for my education… I always believed it takes a lot of time and effort to earn money.
Over time, when I did a lot of things that come naturally to me, I started getting paid a lot more than what I anticipated.
I love money, but somehow due to the limiting belief “Money takes time and effort”, I wasn’t truly accepting the money that was coming to me.
My coach detected this limiting belief, and we worked on this.
What became my new belief?
“Money comes easily to you when you do what’s natural to you”
You know what’s the toughest part about limiting beliefs?
It’s almost impossible for us to detect our own limiting beliefs. We need help.
We need someone to help us detect our limiting beliefs.
Hard Work Is Not Equal to More Success
For the past 4 years now, I have been working 12-14 hours/day on average, including most weekends. I am that hustle guy, yeah.
And that has served me tremendously. People are amazed by how quickly I go from idea to execution, from learning to earning from a skill.
BUT what I earn now is significantly more than what I used to earn when I started.
If I want to be more successful and if I want to earn more money… MAYBE working more hours isn’t the answer to that.
I doubt if Mark Zuckerberg gets a few extra hours a day more?
But he for sure earns a lot more than me.
That means, there are contributing factors other than hard work.
One of the most significant factors is “value” – how much value do I provide in this world.
If I am a sweeper at a local restaurant v/s if I am a sweeper at White House – with the same tasks, I have a lot more value and responsibility. And this will definitely reflect in my bank account.
More hard work = More money/success
[FALSE FALSE FALSE]
This one is definitely another limiting belief I conquered in the past few months.
I No Longer Feel Like an Imposter
I never realized I had been struggling with the imposter syndrome, up until recently.
Imposter syndrome is a psychological pattern in which one doubts one’s accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a “fraud”.
WIKIPEDIA
Detected. Resolved. Boom Boom.
Haha, it wasn’t that easy. But it wasn’t impossible either.
Once I realized that this is something I am struggling with, internally, I worked intensely and consistently to get over it.
I’m not sure if it’s gone, but it’s significantly better now.
AND I AM MORE CONFIDENT THAN EVER.
About confidence, before I move on to the next point, I want to write this.
Confidence isn’t the first step to do anything. You don’t “need” confidence to start anything.
You take the first step, then you take the second step, and confidence is the result of your action.
The more you practice writing, the more you’ll feel confident about writing more.
I Discovered My Blindspots
It’s maybe too early to write about this point. But anyway, who cares. I always felt it’s more impactful to be vulnerable in public.
Food is my blindspot. I LOVE food. I get pleasure from satisfying my taste buds. And I am crazy about this over-desire.
It hasn’t caused me any problems, or that’s what I thought.
While working with my coach, I detected how food has the power to affect my mood and behaviour on so many levels.
It’s bit biological, and a lot psychological. That means, if I work on it, I can change how much power my food has over me.
Because I am currently living in isolation due to this corona outbreak, I am unable to do a lot of activities that otherwise contribute heavily to my elevated mood: eg- gym, meeting friends, etc.
Eating amazing food (and keeping myself sane) is definitely still a viable option.
So I decided I don’t have to work on my food habits right away.
When someone gets their first period at the age of 12, they are getting biologically ready to be pregnant later in their life, if they wish to.
This, however, does not mean –
- They are emotionally/biologically ready to get pregnant
- They need to get pregnant right away
- They need to get pregnant at all.
If you are destined to become the greatest writer in the world, it does not mean you are supposed to be that ‘today’.
Maybe today you just need to focus on your day job during the working hours, and then study and practice more writing.
Every incident has its own time 🙂
Here’s what I started repeating to myself:
Hold on. Be patient. Keep doing what you’re supposed to be doing ‘at this moment’.
Allow Me to Share Another Secret
It’s damn hard to find your blindspots. (Well, that’s why they are called your blindspots! lol)
So what do you do, if you want to discover your blindspots?
Hire a coach. Ask for help.
And what do you do if you want to work on your limiting beliefs?
Hire a coach. Ask for help.
What’s After All This? Where Am I Now?
I discovered and clarified my purpose in life. I am here to serve.
And for that, I spent 100+ hours in coaching people for free, to gain practice and experience. I hustled, invested in my coaching, and multiple online courses.
Final result?
I launched my own coaching program.
I am earning 3X more than what I was earning before I hired my coach. (And I am on the road to multiply it exponentially!)
I am more relaxed, I have more mental peace, and I am way more self-aware about all the areas I would be working on it the next year.
And not to forget, I am constantly putting all the actions and decisions on my compass, to accomplish my 18-month plan!
Conclusion
In the words above I have shared the benefits I got after hiring my coach.
And to make sure I stay on the right track, I am going to keep investing my time, money, and energy in coaching sessions and programs.
For these reasons, I have created my own coaching program as well.
Have you ever tried coaching, or would you like to try it? Share your views in the comments below!
You may also like to read:
Leave a Reply