What Is Your Calling?
How does one move from their career to their calling?
I have always been attracted to understanding what makes us tick, what world lies beyond this world, how we integrate these into our daily personal and professional lives, in addition to how we live and work from a more integrated and congruent place to who we are verses silos. I didn’t begin my professional career as an Executive Coach. It only came after some very influential life events.
- When my infant daughter Taylor became ill with bacterial meningitis and lost her hearing, I quit my job as a personal shopper and devoted time to teaching her how to speak and to listen. In the process, I learned what it truly means to communicate with ourselves and others.
- When I divorced and became the sole provider and caretaker for my two children, it took every ounce of positive thinking, commitment to spiritual practice, and community support for me to persevere. Through this process, I learned that in the face of adversity, I’m able to turn situations that feel overwhelming and negative into obstacles that are not only obtainable, but positive.
- When I used my knowledge of yoga and meditation to create a marketable and much-needed stress-management course for attorneys, I learned how to reinvent my career.
- From there I landed in an executive search position for the next 15 years and was retained by prominent companies to find top talent. Though I was very successful, I longed for more fulfillment in my work.
- It was then that my own coach inspired me to act on my goal of finding more significance in my work, and I made the choice to become certified and trained as a coach. Through my personal circumstances and evolving career path, I continually learned the act of reinvention.
I now have a life I love as an Executive Coach, and I feel like I have finally moved from my career to my calling. I learned how to live from my internal perspective to create my external results, and now my internal world is integrated with my external work.
All these jobs had something in common — helping clients feel better about themselves and their work. I realized that this is what I wanted to give back. This is what I am here to contribute.
I support leaders in living from a more whole place of who they are by accessing and integrating body, mind and heart practices in how they lead themselves and their companies.
It is said that we move through our lives in three stages: survival, success and significance.
Which stage are you in?
Are you getting the support you need to move forward?
In my business I have found that my clients are often stuck in their success. They feel overwhelmed, unfulfilled, and many have achieved success, but sometimes feel trapped. They all want more, but have no idea how to get there. I help them figure out how to get it.
Through my extensive work with professionals, I was able to develop a method that allows my clients to begin to look at their lives from an internal perspective. This is what is needed to shift the internal infrastructure so they can create the external results they desire. And the truth is this is really the only way to create sustainable change. The time with my clients is to help them align with their goals and what fulfills them, so that they can be effective in their work and their life; ultimately creating awareness so that we understand that the fastest path to success is the path to ourselves.
We begin by looking at our internal dialogue i.e. what we say to ourselves. You might be interested to know that studies show that 75% of the average person’s thinking is negative — that is why this is such a powerful place to start. When we explore our internal dialogue, we begin to raise our awareness around how we actually are the biggest road block to what we want to create in our business.
As a coach, my job is to facilitate a dialogue, look for your wisdom and what you are committed to, establish what your goals are and where you are stuck or sabotaging yourself, all while facilitating you in removing those barriers so you can live in your possibility. As a coach, it is my job to hold you in your possibility until you can hold yourself there.
I believe retraining ourselves to be authentic is vital to growth in ourselves, our companies, and the teams we manage. In order to accomplish this way of being and leading, you have to begin to be aware of the body, mind and heart practices that support you in living from a more whole and integrated place internally.
When we begin to operate from this place, we experience more freedom, higher income, and greater peace of mind and “right” relationships.
What’s stopping you from living fully in your possibility and creating what you desire in your work and in your life?
Don’t doubt where you are in your life; there is a plan, and your job is to listen, build your trust in yourself, and BE who you are!
Little did I know I would be educating and supporting leaders to become congruent with who they are on the inside, so they can create significance on the outside.
From the wisdom of Howard Thurman —
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs are people who have come alive.”
The truth is you can’t escape your destiny, so stop escaping yourself.
If you are a coach and interested in securing more tools and best practices for supporting clients in this area, check out my career coaching course.