Life Coaching Online – What Life Was Like Before Hiring A Coach
If you’re looking for life coaching online, here’s what my experience of life was like BEFORE hiring my first life coach.
Let’s chat about life coaching online.
If you’re looking for life coaching online, I wanted to first paint a picture of what life often looks like without a life coach.
Now obviously this experience might not be 100% true for you but it’s certainly been the case for me.
I know it’s something that my clients have found to be true for them too when they have had the opportunity to contrast life before and after taking on a life coach.
So life coaching…
As many of you may know I graduated from university with a degree in psychology many, many years ago and then went to live overseas for a few years.
When I returned rather than diving into traditional therapy, I worked in two different recording studios where our audio engineers would record voice-overs for TV and radio commercials.
It was so much fun as the bulk of my day involved liaising with talent who were usually famous or up and coming Australian actors.
But then the world got the first taste of life coaching. As soon as I heard about this new industry back in 2000 I was like: I have to get into it.
Whereas therapy focuses much on what has happened in your past, life coaching is all about what happened in your past has happened…
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What we really care about most is where are you now, where do you want to go and how can we get you there.
So very future focused.
So back in 2001 I trained to become one of Australia’s first life coaches and I left my cushy, lovely role as a studio manager to start my own full-time life coaching business.
But in order to be truly successful as a life coach I knew that I needed to not just talk the talk but walk the walk.
This meant that I too had to take on my own life coach and that’s what this episode is all about.
The transformation that I went through myself when I took on my first of many life coaches.
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I want to paint a picture of what life looked like for me as a dreamer before I took on my first life coach.
So back in the day – and this was when I was in my mid-20s – my big, crazy, impossible dream back then was to become a published author.
Even though I have published over 20 books to date, all I had back then was a seed of an idea that I couldn’t get to sprout.
It actually took me ten years to write my first book. Because that’s what happens when you don’t have a life coach.
You often have lots of ideas and goals but none of them are backed up with action.
Before partnering with a life coach, every week I would think about what I needed to do to bring to life but I wouldn’t do anything to make it happen.
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Life would always get in the way…and let’s be honest…we all know what that hamster wheel feels like.
We wake up, wear the same sort of clothes, eat the same sorts of foods, talk to the same sorts of people. We think the same sorts of thoughts and do the same sorts of things.
So is it really any surprise that we don’t see massive changes happen in our life?
Even though people often speak about the magic that happens outside of your comfort zone….
You have to admit, the comfort zone itself is pretty comfortable.
You get to waste your time there and watch lots of TV shows. You procrastinate and talk about all the things you want to make happen but aren’t actually doing anything to make them happen.
You can avoid feeling uncomfortable, facing your fears, taking risks and committing to take actions that you then have to follow up and actually do.
That is honestly a space I lived in until I was 26 even though I had read all the personal development books…
Even though I was obsessed with personal growth, even though the dreams I had were busting to get out.
I had the best of intentions. But without a coach to prod me to take action, to encourage me, to guide me, to hold me accountable, to get me to explore what exactly was holding me back and coming up with a game plan together to get past that obstacle…
I stayed stuck for many years, just endlessly dreaming big dreams but doing nothing to make them happen.
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There is honestly something that energetically changes inside of you when you say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH….
This languishing in dreaming land without taking action has to stop.
When you put your money where your mouth is and invest money in a life coach….You are forced to finally wake up and take your life and time seriously rather than always putting off what needs to be done.
I can 100% say that there is a distinct difference in the way I have shown up in life over the past few decades when I’ve had a life coach versus when I didn’t.
Yes there were many years where I didn’t have my own life coach…
This is mainly when my kids were still young and I paused my full-time coaching business to become a stay at home mom.
I did this until my youngest started school and even though looking back at those years I loved being at home with the kids, playing with them and taking them out on adventures. I just enjoyed that special quality time but a part of me still had so many writing dreams sitting inside of me….
Dreams I definitely could have actioned while being a mom with young kids. But because I didn’t have a life coach to support or offer me insight during those years I was never challenged to push myself in any way.
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Now that’s not to say I totally ignored my dreams when I was a stay-at-home-mom….
In that time I did become a special features writer for a newspaper, I wrote a book or two and coached the occasional private client but if truth be told my dreams always came last.
Looking back at my journals from those years I think it took me 3 years to fill up just one book.
Whereas now I need to get a new journal every few months because I’m constantly writing in it, brainstorming, ideating, planning and reporting back all the things I had done.
And my journal entries are hilarious….
Always full of excuses as to why I couldn’t get something done…
Similar entries just saying the same “poor me, I’m too busy” story over and over again which a life coach would have definitely called me out on.
Because if something is truly important to you, YOU NEED TO MAKE TIME FOR IT AND PRIORITISE IT INTO YOUR CALENDAR AND DIARY.
I know that had I take on a life coach during those years, I would have been forced to face the truth…
That you can be a stay at home mom and carve out time for yourself, or you can work from home and still be an amazing mom to your kids…
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It isn’t one or the other…like you need to choose between your dreams and the happiness of your family.
You can have both.
In fact there’s a good chance that when mom is working on personal goals that make her happy the way it positively changes who you are as a person often leads to you being an even better mom.
Now of course we can’t go back in time…what’s done is done…
But in hindsight, I would have definitely benefited from taking on a life coach during those years.
I was so good at investing in myself and my business before motherhood. Then when the kids came all of that fell to the wayside.
I sometimes wonder….oooh imagine if I had started my blog or online business back when they were super young, I would have absolutely loved it and thrived doing work like that.
Because look what happened when I did start it…it was crazy successful that first year…
In 2018 I had over one million pageviews in my first 12 months of blogging and my kids benefited greatly from watching me set and achieve my goals.
Because guess what happened every time I set a goal. And they thought NO ONE WILL YOU BE ABLE TO DO THAT – HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE – I proved them wrong anyway.
They got to witness firsthand the power of setting actions, the power of determination, the power of getting up every time you fail, the power of not just dreaming but doing.
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There are things that you can tell your kids but they only really learn the lesson properly when they either witness it firsthand or experience it for themselves.
I’ve personally invested in coaching for the last four years. And the goals I’ve managed to achieve in that time, both in my business and my personal life are truly phenomenal.
I 100% wouldn’t have been able to do it on my own.
Because you are probably fully aware of what happens when you have no one to call you out on your lack of action…nothing happens.
Nothing new.
Nothing magical.
Nothing extraordinary.
In those in-between years whenever the idea of getting a life coach crossed my mind I would talk myself out of it and tell myself… Oh no, I can do it on my own.
I don’t need anyone to kick my butt, I’ll do it one day, some day. Yet that day never came until the pain and discomfort of staying stuck felt so freaking uncomfortable that I thought I have no other choice…
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It’s time to invest in a life coach and actually do whatever needs to be done to change my life.
Of course if you are inspired to work with a life coach after reading this, I would absolutely love to partner with you and become your coach inside THE DREAMING TO DOING COACHING EXPERIENCE.
As always you know I love and appreciate you all.
Take care and until next time, dream big my friend.
Much love, Frances Vidakovic xxx
Before You Go…
– See my EVERYTHING PAGE and grab a free gift > HERE
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I’m Frances Vidakovic – a mindset & action coach for quietly ambitious women who want to stop overthinking and finally take aligned action. I help women achieve their goals and follow through on what matters, without sacrificing their sanity or soul.