My Conversation with a Life Coach

Back in my first post “why start a blog”, I mentioned how blogging came up in my meeting with a life coach. This post is dedicated to our conversation, unexpected emotions and benefits of our 1:1 meeting.

My sister has had a life coach for years so while the term was familiar, I have to be honest in that I don’t exactly know what coaches do. Before I get started, the term Life Coach made me a little uneasy. Was I failing if I needed a coach to help me with my life?? On the other hand I pondered, why don’t we work on the development of our personal lives? We just stop going to school after our degrees. Then attend multiple professional conferences & workshops to continue that path…. but not have meetings or collaborative sessions towards achieving our personal goals??

I was navigating the unknown during a pandemic no less…. so why the hell not. It certainly couldn’t hurt!

Let me start by saying I prepared for my zoom appt as if I was preparing for a big client meeting. I had my husband block off his calendar to take the kids, I wrote out the list of my strongest professional qualities & skills, proven accomplishments & ROI stats. It was only a few minutes into the call that I realized I approached my conversation with Ali Ray Coaching as if she was a Career Coach – and NOT a Life Coach. 

Quickly Ali helped me evaluate the core values I needed in order to be fulfilled in both personal & professional endeavors. All while she let me mourn the abrupt end to the latest chapter in my marketing career. I was way more emotional than I expected! I cried…multiple times, while unexpected, it actually felt really good to let it all out. To give you some context, I was let go then immediately asked our nanny to wrap up. Literally, the next day I dove in, head first to stay at home mom/cook/cleaner life in a quarantine. I never gave myself the proper time and emotional release to process my layoff. 

Ali was not only a great listener but she also prompted me with pointed questions, insights & action items to further explore my passions. She inspired me on so many levels, but her encouragement that my life & interests don’t have to wait until 5pm/weekends to begin was by far the greatest. Starting a blog was just one step on having one of my passions come to life. I am currently working on my second big milestone down this new path. More on that soon  (wink wink).

I highly recommend anyone contemplating working with a life coach to take the next step. For me, our conversation helped me:

• Evaluate my core values & life passions
• Gave me a starting point for “what’s next”
• Release of the past chapter & emotions
• Motivation to move forward

Thank you, Ali. You were truly a savior during a dark time in 2020.