Don't Hire a Life Coach, Part 2

A few months back I made a decision to walk away from a long-time coaching modality.  I just ended everything with the coach and group.  I also unfriended or muted a bunch of people.  Looking back now I feel that was one of the best moves I’ve ever made and only wish I had done it sooner. 

All that negative energy and annoyance is gone.  I don’t have to own anything they’re doing, I don’t have to know what’s going on, and they don’t need to know what I’m up to, either.  It feels really good, and every day it feels better.

Now I’m far enough away that I can reengage on

 my terms.  The other day I had an interview with one of the members and was able to offer up some insight on my past experiences and take on the role of an outside consultant, instead of an insider.  It feels much better interacting from a place where I’m standing in my own place and living my own life.  I don’t need nor want attention or recognition.  I can simply offer my experience as “someone whose gone through some interesting life experiences.”  Nobody has to know it’s me or wonder if I’m speaking as an offering or out of loyalty, I can just share my experience and people can take what they want.

I’m very very happy here.  At the time I wrote about how students should seek to outgrow their teachers and eventually leave them behind.  I feel that more strongly now than ever.

Let’s face it, I never wanted to be like my coach.  I wanted to learn some things from him that he was very good at – and very good at teaching others about as well.  But after a point there was little more he was willing to share that I wanted to master.  He liked to keep a lot of things for himself and not share, which he said was because he didn’t trust the men to handle the information, but I think it was more based on insecurity.

So at this point the feeling is that I waited too long to make that decision.  And that was my insecurity.  But doing so really has opened up my life for other things, as well has helping me to better understand who I really am and what I want to do in this world – which has very little in common with what he’s coaching these days.

So the lesson in all this is “Hire a coach with the goal of firing your coach down the road.”  Don’t get too attached to your coach – he or she is there to help you learn the things you need to learn, and that’s it. 

I’m very wary of coaches that try to be “holistic” and want to coach you on how to live your life.  That’s YOUR job, not theirs.  Coaches are for learning specific skills you need as you go through life.  But going through life – you need to learn that skill yourself and not rely on someone else to point the way.  Life coaches inevitably will point you to the life path THEY want for you, not what YOU really should be doing.  It doesn’t take long for an astute person to pick up on the flavor of a coach.  You can look at his or her students and you’ll see similarities in “life path” which reveals where the coach’s subtle (or not to subtle) agenda.  Eventually you’ll wise up and need to un-learn all this programming from your “life coach,” and it ends up being a waste of time and money.

The best results are when you identify things you really need to get further down your path, certain skills and insights that only someone much more experienced can provide.  That’s where a mentor or coach comes in.  You do the drills, you learn the skills, you thank your coach and you move on.

It took me a long time to finally arrive at this place.  In some respects its coming full-circle from where I was when I began this journey.  In other respects, it’s another coil in the growth spiral.  I had a lot of problems I’ve worked through along the way, most of which had zero to do with the “life coaching” nonsense. But there are tools I’ve picked up, in terms of presence and self-reflection, in energy work and spirituality, that have served me very well through my growth path.  Each of those skills I sought out as I walked my path and my natural curiosity, or need to overcome an obstacle in my way, brought me to those skills. 

This is the organic process of discovery and learning, and of growing as a person.  Like I said, it feels really good to be here.