One of the most important overall goals for coaching is to ensure that our client feels empowered to make his/her own decisions towards improving his/her life, often through becoming more self-confident. It often means getting a new job, move elsewhere or start a new business perhaps in a different field of profession than before. It can also be to ensure a better life-balance, time management, money management, home organization, healthcare and fitness or finding a renewed sense of motivation and passion to pursue a long lived dream.
Something I have struggled with the last couple of years while working as a coach, is putting this into context of being Christian, since this is newer to me (I became a Lifecoach in 2002 and became baptized in 2007.). How can we follow His path while also pursuing our own goals? Is fulfilling my dream, God's purpose for me? What then is my purpose? And what about other people's discouragement often coming off to me as their own fears or envy. Is my free will always more important than faith or is it the other way around? How can I coach others to their fulfilment while society blocks and hinders the fulfilment of my own in one place but not in another depending on culture and environment as opposed to directives and regulations?
My conclusion is that the foremost purpose of life is always love. Give, receive, do, understand, be and share. But how do we make money on it without loosing our sense of love and keep it separated from our private life and keep ourselves loving in both places without being selfish?
To me the shift has come gradually to rely more on myself first, then later on my faith which leads to relying on God as my source, which immediately takes away feelings of judgement and expectations on others that often fail me anyway. Nonetheless we always have to depend on others which takes us into focusing on how to treat ourselves, others and earth with more care where our purpose becomes to be of service.
Another important aspect is to always consider the specific need and situation our client is facing, or we do ourselves. Here is an example of how this can play out:
We might have been thinking of buying a new pair of shoes. Into this buy to be carried out with thought and responsibility, we consider our own taste and style, what is available online and in stores, the purpose (when, where and how much we intend to wear them) and what we can afford, perhaps planning for it. The most logic would be to buy something cheap to show responsibility with our money, right? Or perhaps something really expensive with supposed great quality? Both may turn out wrong. The cheap might last and the expensive might become stolen.
The Divine way of looking at this purchase would be to follow our intuition.
Let's say we stand in a store, try a pair on, the price is right and it is what we assume we would buy, even being exactly what we wished for with our law of attraction. If we would buy them, we would also remain in our position on the market. If we dare buy a pair a little more expensive, which might even go against logic, we might instead be offered a new job because our impression would be different that we don't even know at the time of the purchase but only two weeks later when our own energy level was raised thanks to the purchase. However if we assume and expect this to happen, we would most likely rather form inner resistance or a sense of false entitlement that would prevent us from getting that job opportunity. And sometimes, due to changing circumstances or others' actions in the moment, we might have to counter them with yet another strategic move. So, how do we know?
We know by how we feel, neither overly excited or wishfully longing for something better, but rather with a small sense of hoping we made the right choice in humility and obedience. What do you need to best learn?
Try it on!
One my first summer jobs was to work in a shoe store to sell out their warehouse on sale. I did.