What is keeping you on track to achieving your goals? Are you on a clear path or have you wandered into unknown territory without a map?
I love my GPS system. It saves me time, money and loads of frustration. There are very few destinations I head to anymore without first entering the address and hitting “go”. Even if I know the way, I’ll turn it on and let it do its job. Sometimes it takes me a new route that is faster. Sometimes it detours me around construction or traffic that would slow me down. It frees me up so I can focus more on driving and less on remembering where to turn. GPS is not the same as autopilot. I still have to be present in the moment, keep my eyes on the road and other drivers and I decide when to accelerate and when to slow down. If I get off track or lost, my GPS reroutes me and puts me back on target.
Leaving the film business after twenty years was a major life change. I loved launching my coaching business and am now making a significant difference in other people’s lives. Watching my clients set goals and achieve them, dream bigger than ever before, move through what has stopped them in the past and put those dreams into action is gratifying and inspiring. But I’m human and there are moments where I can get stuck, stopped or lose my focus.
If I get off track, I’ll find myself putting all my energy into long term goals that do not need to happen right now. When that happens, I call on my awareness tools and recognize what I am doing. Then I use my resources to get support – and for me, that means calling my coach. When we work through the swirling thoughts, I’m quickly able to clear any haze and confusion in my head. Within minutes, I have a strategy that becomes my internal GPS system to keep me in action and moving in the right direction.
Recently, it struck me that having a coach is like having a GPS system for my life. Yes, I very clearly know my vision and goals. Sure, I am a highly self-motivated person with an incredible work ethic and loving what I do every day. But once in awhile, I can get distracted momentarily.
Having a coach to help me reroute back toward my destination allows me to refocus and recommit. In the past, without a coach, I would have eventually worked my way through the confusion and haze but not without losing significant time and productivity. I would have let my inner critic have a field day over the time and energy expended in all the wrong ways and places. I may have gotten stuck in confusion.
Someone once asked me, on a day where I was stuck, how it was that I could coach others out of similar states of confusion and lack of clarity but couldn’t do it for myself. Because, I answered…when you are sitting in the middle of your own stuff, sometimes that is all you can see because it’s your stuff.
What would your life be like if you had a coach as a GPS system, even just for a few months? How much time, money and energy would you save if you stayed on track and went after your goals with a laser-like focus knowing there was someone to guide you over the bumps and detour you around the blocks?
We can’t do everything on our own. We aren’t meant to live life in a vacuum. So, as I did in my athletic life, I work with a coach to be sure I’m living at my highest potential. It allows me to be more present for my clients and to continue to build the successful career I envisioned when I first began my training and created my dream career vision. Being coached has propelled me toward my goals at a highly accelerated rate, keeping me on track and allowing me to hold myself to the same standards I ask of my clients. Walking the talk, as they say.
