When I first trained as a coach I was focused on learning the skills of the craft to be a great coach. I did my training with Martha Beck in America and we had about ten months of learning the coaching tools and practising them on ourselves and on others.
Then after that there was the certification process where we had a paper to write on various things we had learnt and an assessment where we had to coach one of the Master Coaches. I had the time of my life in all of this as I love to learn.
But at some level I realised that there was the business part of this that also needed to be attended to and really I am learning that this is a huge part of what it is to be a coach.
I knew that the possibility I wanted to make happen was to become a successful coach who made a big difference in the lives of my clients, but there was more to that than being confident about coaching people.
To be honest if I had known how much I would need to invest in learning to become a coach and in learning the business side of things I am not sure that I would have had the courage to embark on this journey. Just as well I didn’t know really, as I would have missed out on doing what I am now.
[bctt tweet=”Part of this journey was really about giving myself to want what I wanted and to invest in it so that I could create the future I wanted.”]
Here are some of the things I invested in to get me to where I am now, with the level of knowledge and coaching experience that I have now:
Martha Beck Life Coach Training.
Marie Forleo’s B- School. (online business school)
Making it Work Online with Jenny Shih
Working with an established coach 1-1 for two years.
Content Strategy for Thought Leaders with Sarah Kathleen Peck.
Two courses with Caroline Frenette on building intuitive business sense and applying the three principles.
Bright Eyed and Blog Hearted with Rachel MacDonald.
Life is Messy with Mayi Carles. (organisation, systems and business management)
Clear and Confident Coach Mentorship with Linda Bucher, Master Certified Coach.
School of the Modern Mystic with Belinda Davidson. (learning about chakras, meditation and mindfulness)
Sas Petherick’s Fire Monkeys Coaching Mentorship. (in progress)
Imagining into Real – Martha Beck further training course. (nature based coaching)
Replenish 365 on mama self-care with Lisa Grace Byrne.
The Quest – with Deepak Chopra and Martha Beck.
Carrie Contey’s Evolve Programme – for three years on positive parenting, personhood and prosperity.
So as you can see it’s not been a case of decide to be a coach one day and then kaboom, I’m a coach on the following day.
This is ongoing work for me as I continue to develop my business. It has meant a lot of investment for my family and a lot of sacrifice on what we have been able to afford in other areas.
It’s also been more about coaching because all of this work that I have done has been fundamentally life altering and I am in a very different place for where I was when I left teaching.
Sometimes I meet people and they say to me things like ‘it’s so cool that you have your own business, I wish I could do that,’ as though it’s something that just happened.
Well the truth is it didn’t just happen and it is still something that needs continual work and development and trust that I am on the right path, this is the work I am meant to do and I am here to make a great big difference in this world through this work I do.
Oh and I did need to be coached by Martha Beck herself on my belief that all of this work that I did was in someway selfish. The belief I had was that ‘self-help is selfish.’
Turns out that is not the case as without doing all this work on myself I would not be able to be there for my clients as much as I am able to now. I would not be able to help them believe in themselves and invest in themselves without having believed in myself and invested in myself in the first place.
[bctt tweet=”To have your big possibilities some day come true there are points in your life where you need to give yourself permission to do what you want to do. “]