I Can’t ‘Coach’ This…

Periodically, someone will ask me to ‘coach’ them.  I don’t advertise coaching as a service and I don’t want to at the moment.  I do want to help people.  That’s why I write, speak, podcast, youtube, and instagram.  At the most basic level I’m sharing my thought process on how I approach and solve problems in life.  I share with the thought that maybe there’s something in my thought process that will help you in your own life.  In times past I have accepted coaching clients:

• There have been times where I had a specific process with steps I’m asking the client to follow.  I’ve found that what people are looking for is an ‘aha’ moment.  Where suddenly they know what their purpose is and they feel driven and motivated everyday…  I CANNOT COACH THIS… This takes time and experimentation and YOU have to decide to push yourself to find it.  I’ve done my own experimentation and I’ve set my life up to be able to run those experiments.  You have to do the same thing.  I’ve also dealt with disappointment, depression, loneliness, and frustration along the way.  You have to do the same thing.
• There have been times where I had no process and people still insisted that I coach them.  I feel like this usually just ends up being really expensive conversations with a friend you paid for.  There is usually not much in the way of action.
• I’ve had several people ask me to coach them about money.  The problem here is that the person is already strapped financially.  Now you’re going to pay all this money to be ‘coached’ when you can just read a book or a set of articles online?  The reality is that personal finance is about learning to hold yourself accountable to standards.  Hold YOURSELF ACCOUNTABLE.  I had to figure it out and so do you.
• The only personal coaching that truly makes sense to me is Personal Training.  The reason it makes sense is because we meet and we do.  Exercise is going to happen.  Now, I can’t control what a person eats or how they manage the rest of their lives but I can get you more flexible, stronger, and more athletic if you give me at least 2 sessions a week, consistently.

That final point is really the main issue.  There’s nothing that I’m going to say in a coaching session that I haven’t written or said on a blog or podcast in some shape or form.  The point of making content is to have my voice in your ear pushing you to pursue self improvement without having to be there and without you having to pay me some god-awful amount of money.  Even with all the psychological strategies and hacks in the world, habit change is still hard.  It’s going to take willpower and persistence from YOU!  I have no magic trick to taking action.  It’s hard.  MAKE YOURSELF DO IT!

Make yourself read the books and articles on personal finance.

Make yourself put the phone down and go to bed on time.

Make yourself exercise regularly.

Make yourself have more patience with your spouse and children.

Make yourself take a course at the local Community College so you can qualify for a raise at work.

Make yourself cold call local businesses and see if they’ll let you be an unpaid intern so you can learn more about that industry.

Make yourself sit down and journal your thoughts about your traumatic experiences and how they’ve influenced your behaviors.  Those behaviors you don’t like, make yourself change them.

Struggle and fail.  Struggle and Fail.  STRUGGLE AND FAIL!  Maybe in 3 months, maybe in 3 years, maybe in 3 decades, that thing will change.  Maybe it never changes but I would rather go down swinging.  There’s your coaching.

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