While these first 10 years of my coaching career have been one heck of a learning experience, the last 18 months were extra.
Like, all the extra.
To demonstrate: Between August 2013 and December 2021, I coached just over 4,000 hours.
In 2022 alone, I coached just over 1,300 hours.
Much like cheese, I love math more than it loves me but, even to me, these numbers are stark.
What happened in 2022 (as I shared in my last email to The Bigger Badder Crew in 2021) was that, for the first time since 2003, I took a full-time job. Proper. With benefits and the whole shebang.
I was curious. What would it be like to coach at that pace?
What would it feel like to have benefits and paid time off and other fancy perk things?
I didn’t leave that job but, as of July 1, I did scale it back to a part-time position. No more benefits or perks… except the major perk of getting to coach people who may not have had financial access to coaching were it not for the employee assistance program provided by their employer. (Side note: Great big love to all the companies that provide their employees with mental health benefits! Talk about some taboo-busting, employee-caring goodness!)
I went into this experiment of full-time coaching with some hypotheses to test.
Hypothesis 1: I would feel ease with the consistency of my income (which, again, is not something I’ve ever really had as a long-time self-employed person).
The data collected said: Nope. Instead, I noticed a shift in how I experienced financial discomfort.
Hypothesis 2: I would ultimately find that pace exhausting.
The data collected said: Yes, and…. Theresa will tell you that it’s only when you sit down after a long shift on your feet that you notice how tired you are; this was much like that. It was only after the end of a long coaching day, after the high of being in the thick of others’ processes had ended, that I noticed that exhaustion.
Hypothesis 3: I would grow as a coach and as a human. (This isn’t actually a very good hypothesis because this is always happening; question is if we’re noticing in what ways…)
The data collected said: This is where the ease actually showed up. The greatest irony of coaching is that the harder the coach tries to provide value, the more we get in the way of the clients’ processes. I had come a long way on this front in my first eight and a half years of coaching – I had pulled myself way back from the story of needing to provide value – and this 18 months of intensive coaching shoved me back even farther which made even more room for my clients, their wisdom, their insights, their growth.
I’m so very grateful for this experience, this 18 month intensive coaching classroom…
…this continued access to diverse clients and thoughtful coaches at Lyra Health…
…the ability to scale back there and redirect a pile of energy to my private practice (teaser: I’ve got some really fun group stuff in the works!)…
…and the ongoing opportunity to spend my days with courageous folks investing in themselves with time, courage, thoughtfulness, and curiosity.