I love stories. I think there is nothing more powerful then a good story. And so I think there is no better way for me to share the impact coaching has had on me and explain the power that I think coaching could have on you. This story begins in college…
Thriving
I went to college at Miami University in Ohio and had an absolute blast. I studied computer science, made a lot of amazing friends, and was heavily involved in a campus ministry called Cru. It was an amazing time of personal growth for me and a period of my life in which it felt like anything was possible. It was so easy to be involved in different activities and for each week to feel like I was living life to the fullest. And all that came naturally without having to really think about it because that’s simply the culture of College. You’re living with your best friends, there’s always something to do, and there’s hundreds of different clubs asking you to get involved and presenting you with all these amazing opportunities. It’s a highly intensive social setting.
After four years though, it came time to graduate and I decided to work for Cru and go live in Montenegro for a year. Then after that year I continued working for Cru but this time back at Miami University. I met my wife that year, we got married, moved into a house, and I got a job in software engineering. I was looking for a way to try to make some extra money and decided I wanted to try starting a YouTube channel. I was getting into woodworking so I started a woodworking YouTube channel documenting the building of my workshop and growing of my woodworking skills. It was and still is a fun side project for me that at that time gave me something to throw a lot of my free time into.
A long commute
A couple years went by, I was finding marginal success in my channel, loving being married, but beginning to really get worn down by my job. Specifically, the one hour commute to work. Spending two hours in a car, five days a week, really begins to take a toll on you. It was depressing thinking about all the time I was spending driving to work, being worn out once I got home, and feeling frustrated thinking about how much more I could work on my YouTube channel if I had those extra two hours in a day.
So I decided it was time I really committed to finding a new job. It took awhile, but after about 6 to 8 months of job hunting I landed a job with a small company that I was thrilled about. And the best part? It was a fully remote position! Words cannot express how excited I was that I was going from driving two hours each day to driving zero hours each day. I had gained 10 hours in the work week that I would get to spend growing my channel, working out, or doing just about anything else but spend time sitting in a car.
Getting comfortable
I started my new job and it felt like I was given a whole new life. I was enjoying my work more because I was getting to do more of the type of programming I like to do. I was making more money, which provided me the opportunity to buy more tools for my workshop, which enabled me to make more types of woodworking projects. I got my channel monetized which was super exciting and a goal I’d been working towards for awhile. I was getting to spend all day at home with my wife, which was such an amazing blessing, and I was overall just having more fun with life.
A couple years went by and I was still loving my job, still growing my channel, but I could feel the excitement or passion for my job and channel beginning to slowly wear off. My channel was approaching 10,000 subscribers, which still amazes me when I think about that, and it was now beginning to make me $100 dollars a month, which was another goal I had wanted to reach. But, I’d been making videos for about four years now, made around 30 videos, and the excitement of it all was wearing off. I was also making even more in my day job and therefore the drive to want to grow the channel as a source of income didn’t feel as strong, which meant the motivation to work on the channel wasn’t as high. I still love woodworking and enjoy having a YouTube channel, but I was starting to realize that being a “YouTuber” or making woodworking videos isn’t a passion of mine and something I want to be spending all my free time doing.
And then in my day job, I was growing in my responsibilities, which is something I wanted to do, but also meant I was beginning to experience more stress at work. I started having more anxiety about work because of worrying about all the things that might go wrong with the things I was responsible for. The excitement too of the new job and working from home had worn off, and even though I enjoy being a software developer, it’s never been a passion of mine and I found myself beginning to feel less motivated at work.
To sum it up, I found that I had become pretty comfortable in my life. I still had stressors at work, but I no longer felt consumed by thoughts of needing to find a new job. I was making good money, which meant I wasn’t consumed by this drive to grow my channel to make more money. And I overall just felt like I had kind of reached a point of cruise control. It more and more began to feel like I was waking up and just going through the motions of the day.
A passenger to my own life
I started to have this reoccurring feeling that I was just reacting to my own life instead of actively pursuing my own life. I wasn’t in the driver seat, but a passenger. And I hated that feeling. It made me feel uninspired, unmotivated, and defeated.
And the worst part was, the more I felt that way, the more the feeling would feed into itself. Feeling like a passenger to my own life would make me wake up feeling unmotivated, which meant I’d struggle to feel motivated at work which meant I wasn’t getting done as much as I wanted to, which would make me then feel like I was being a bad employee, which then made me feel ashamed and crummy, which made me want to numb out and watch YouTube videos all day, which then meant I still wasn’t getting my work done, which would make me feel even more crummy, which meant after work I wasn’t motivated to want to go work in my workshop and work on making videos, which then made me feel like I wasn’t pursuing my personal goals, which made me sad that it felt like I had lost my passion or drive for something I’d enjoyed building, which meant I’d numb out some more, which meant I’d then feel like I wasn’t “going after anything” which made me feel like I was back to being a passenger in my own life, which brought me back to the beginning of the circle where I’d wake up unmotivated, not work, feel bad, not do what I want, numb out, feel like a passenger, wake up, feel unmotivated, not work…
And in this cycle of dread, I’d try to push through the lack of motivation, I’d try to do something to feel like I was in the driver seat, and I’d find success here and there. It wasn’t all doom and gloom. There’d be fun weeks. Weeks I felt excited about something happening in my life which made working easier. And times when I’d white knuckle the motivation to work towards my personal goals. But it always felt like I’d come back to that cycle of dread eventually. It never seemed like I could keep a consistent motivation and I’d fall into this routine of feeling apathetic for a couple of weeks then feel excited for a week then back to apathetic but never any consistency.
The creation cycle
Now during all of this, my wife had been involved in a life coaching program called Life Mentoring School. Naturally, that meant I was practically going through the program as well because I’d hear some of the teachings and listen to my wife share about what she was learning. And I really enjoyed what she was learning and had even used some of the teachings on setting goals in the past to help start my YouTube channel. However, I never really applied what she was learning into my own life. For some reason I just didn’t think to take these tools I had learned and apply it to this dread cycle I’d find myself in.
Then one day, or really a slow build over a couple of weeks and after a really rough couple of weeks of feeling apathetic, I decided that something needed to change. I needed to try something. I decided that I would actually try applying what I had learned in Life Mentoring School, instead of just learning about it.
That began with taking the time to journal each morning about what I was feeling and thinking. The goal was to become aware of the creation cycle I was living in. The creation cycle is the concept that Life Mentoring School teaches that is the simple idea that your thoughts create your feelings, which create your actions, which create your thoughts and so on and so on. By becoming aware of my thoughts/feeling I can then begin to understand why I may be doing what I am doing and more importantly begin to change how I want to be thinking in order to create the feelings and actions I truly want to be taking.
So by taking the time to journal in the mornings, I started to gain better clarity about what I was thinking and feeling and that is when it felt like I unlocked a super power. I no longer began to feel like I was a victim or passenger in my own life, but instead felt like I was the captain of the ship, able to direct my life wherever I wanted to go.
When I stopped and wrote out what I was thinking and feeling it enabled me to do two massively important things. First, it allowed me to pause and recognize what I was feeling which helped me to actually experience or feel what I was feeling instead of just ignoring and numbing away what I was feeling. And second, it helped me to process what my thoughts were that were leading me to feel how I was feeling. And here’s where the super power comes in. Once I was able to recognize what thoughts I was having that was leading me to feel a certain way, I was then able to analyze the truth of these thoughts, and then choose how I wanted to think and feel about the situation. Meaning, I wasn’t a powerless victim to whatever life was throwing at me, but instead, I had the superpower to get to choose how I wanted to think and feel about my own life.
Getting into the driver seat
For example, when I began to process what I was thinking and feeling about my cycle of dread from before, I began to notice more of why I was feeling the way I was. I’d spend more time then I’d like watching YouTube videos at work. Well, why was I doing that? I realized I was procrastinating because I felt anxious and afraid about what I had to work on next. Well, what was making me anxious and afraid? Well, I had a new assignment that I didn’t know how to exactly do and felt like I needed to get help, but felt afraid to ask for help. Well, why did I feel afraid to ask for help? Well, I’ve been working here for three years and it feels like this is something I should know and what will my co-workers think that I’m asking this question. Will they think I’m stupid? Ahhh, so really I’m procrastinating because I’m afraid of what people might think about me, that make sense. Well, what do I actually know is true of this situation? If the situation was reversed and I was in my co-workers shoes, what would I think of me? I’d not think twice about the question I’m asking and would be eager to want to help. Furthermore, what do I actually want to believe about asking questions at work? Well, I truly believe that a good employee is someone who does seek help. Seeking help isn’t a weakness, I actually believe seeking help is a sign of a wise employee. Once more, how will it feel to seek the help I need and be able to get done what I’m responsible to do? It’ll feel wonderful! It feels great to get done my work, makes the day go by faster, and leaves me feeling accomplished at the end of the day instead of feeling numbed out and ashamed I didn’t get my work done and watched YouTube videos all day.
And so with those new thoughts and feelings I felt way more empowered to ask for the help. And why did I feel more empowered? It wasn’t because I thought to myself “just buck it up and go ask the question!” That would be white-knuckling the problem and would only last for awhile. No, instead I took time to acknowledge my anxiety, which is important to feel, but then was curious about the situation and asked questions to help me understand what my thinking or belief was that was leading to all the anxiety. Once I figured out my thoughts about the situation, I was able to question them and realize I was believing a bunch of lies. And when I noticed that, I was then able to choose what I wanted to believe and think about the situation. And when I started dwelling on the true thoughts of the situation, the feelings of motivation and empowerment followed. I started to actually feel excited to ask the questions at work instead of feeling dread because I was thinking about how it’ll help me get the work done I need to get done and how I actually love when I accomplish stuff at work and makes me feel proud to be doing a good job.
An abundant lifestyle
Now, did I still have a little fear going to ask my questions? Of course! There was still a little of that old worry, but because I had done all that thought work, and had generated true beliefs and feelings about the situation, I had this well of strength inside me to step through the worry and fear to ask my questions. And you know what happened? I got the help I needed and was able to complete the work I had to do! It was amazing! And it led to a more enjoyable day, which bled into having more energy to be excited to go work in the shop, which continued to snowball into feeling more like I was controlling my life and not being a passenger to my life.
It truly feels like a super power when I made that mental shift to realize that I’m not powerless to my own life. That I have all the power in the world to pause, take inventory of what I’m feeling, take time to allow myself to acknowledge and feel what I’m feeling, but then begin processing what lies I’m believing and begin believing and dwelling on the truth.
And the other important mental shift, was to realize that even with this “thought work” that that doesn’t mean I won’t ever feel anxious or afraid or uninspired. On the contrary, life coaching isn’t about learning how to come to a point of never feeling “negative” emotions again, but the exact opposite. It’s about learning how to embrace those “negative” emotions. Learning how to not be afraid of them and try to run away from them or numb out from them, but to acknowledge them, experience them, and when appropriate, be able to have the tools to learn why you’re feeling them and then decide what you want to do about it.
I'd love to hear from you!
If any of my story resonated with you and you’re feeling stuck, or lost, or feel powerless, or have goals you can’t seem to reach, then I would love to hear from you! I’d love to be able to listen to your situation, ask questions, and help you process through what you are thinking and feeling.
I offer a free 30 minute introductory appointment with no strings attached and I would love to be a listening ear for you. If there’s any small part of you that thinks “this could help” then I would challenge you to listen to that small little voice, and take the courageous step to reach out. I promise you that nothing bad will come of it. I’d love nothing more then to be able to simply listen to what is going on in your life and get the opportunity to reflect back what I hear.