It’s been one year since I took the leap into making life coaching my full-time career. No more consulting. No other part-time jobs. One-hundred percent commitment to being a life coach.
Here are eight things I’ve learned:
1. This is another opportunity to practice faith and trust.
Not every month is a good one, not everything flies upon launch. Sometimes no one clicks on your Facebook ads. Sometimes you wonder if anyone is even reading your blog posts. Sometimes you refresh your inbox every hour and still no new mail comes in.
Over and over, I had to believe in myself, in my product, in God’s plan that I’m on the right path.
There were a lot of temptations to go back to the security of the corporate world but I continually had to have faith and trust that all is unfolding as it should.
2. I had to know why I was doing this.
Early this year, I sat down and did a fear-unblocking exercise. I unpacked all the statements that fear always brought up and checked if they were true. Most of them were not.
I then identified what it was that kept me going through this year: that at the end of my life, I would regret not trying and giving up too soon on my dream.
3. Refine, refine, refine.
I have to keep refining my message so that clients will understand what it is I’m offering, especially in this brand-new industry. Until now, it’s still a work in progress. That’s the way it is and how it should be.
4. Running a business can also be about playing, experimenting and taking risks.
This year, I launched Write Away, the writing and life coaching retreat. I had the nugget of a dream of doing my own retreat three years ago during a yoga one in Bali. This Thursday, I’ll be hosting my own and meeting 12 amazing women who have trusted me with their writing dreams.
I’ll also be self-publishing something special this October. Late this year, I’m also revealing an exciting collaboration.
I realized that I could open my business to other revenue streams that support my life coaching message.
I’m now on the front page of Google when you search for “life coach Philippines.” This time last year, I wouldn’t even have envisioned this happening. I wanted it but didn’t know how to make it happen.
I played, experimented, took steady steps and found ways to make my ideas a reality.
5. Be open to opportunities—and allow them to find you by placing yourself in their path.
Clients have referred me to others. I’ve been asked to speak in companies. I have contributed to websites and been featured in magazines.
One month, as part of my 30-day challenge, I reached out to people everyday—journalists, bloggers, women I wanted to meet, potential clients. It yielded powerful results, where I met other women entrepreneurs, discovered new clients and found opportunities for collaboration.
6. Never stop learning.
From a Mailchimp course to lessons on tarot, it’s been fun to deepen my knowledge about my business and to discover more about what I’m curious about.
7. Gratitude always…
…for the gifts of running my own business, for the opportunities I have made and that have found me, for the trust of my clients, for finding partners I love working with, for support found in unexpected places.
8. It’s the hardest career choice I’ve ever had to make.
It’s unfamiliar. It’s uncomfortable. It asks for a lot emotionally. It asks me to be humble enough to ask for help, to do things I never had. It asks me to give up ideas about how much money I should be making, what success looks like, what I should have. It discourages me and makes me question my abilities. It makes me doubt if I even know anything, if I can even do this.
And yet, it’s been one of the most fulfilling things I’ve ever done—to make my life an affirmation over and over for this path, to allow my life to reveal new wisdom, to see where this journey of faith and commitment takes me.
If you’ve been reading this blog for a while now, thank you for being here with me, for finding some comfort, inspiration and wisdom from my words and what I’ve gone through. I’m so grateful for you.
