This past year has been full of successes. I like to start my yearly reflection with the year’s successes. It helps me get in the right frame of mind. I learn much more when my mind is open.
I set up a coaching business that I thought I wanted. I had worked with a few people before quitting film production at the end of 2018.
I started last year doing networking events to get to know more people and establish myself in the market. As I got up and gave my elevator speech the room became silent. People seemed be uncomfortable with my direction. I started as a Divorce Coach. I think that scared people. I wasn’t advocating divorce but their feeling about it and the fears they had, immediately came to the surface. This stopped me.
I had picked divorce because of my background. I went through a very nasty divorce in a small town. It changed my life in many ways. I took the time to really heal my past experiences as a child of divorce and the survival techniques I had learned. This took counseling and lots of work. I learned and grew so much. Afterwards I was the go-to person for years as my friends went through their divorces. I helped many people take responsibility for their actions and I advocated for the children. Seemed like a perfect place for me to start in coaching.
The silence within the networking groups made me rethink my elevator speech and rethink my direction.
I didn’t want “the divorce” to define my life. I realized that the thing I really was prepared to coach about was the reinvention after the divorce. That is where I have excelled in my life.
One of the byproducts of divorce is the end of the goals you and your spouse had together.
When my marriage was over, It took time to came up with new life goals. I wanted a better life and to be happy. I had done the work to heal. I didn’t want to be like my parents who never let go of their divorce. In the last few weeks of my father’s life I could still hear the pain in his stories. It made me sad and determined not to live that way. My divorce was part of my path to wholeness. That is what I wanted for other people too.
But, divorce wasn’t what I needed to be coaching people on, it was reinvention.
This past year, I found my voice, I found my direction and I found the message I needed to share. Reinvention is my focus.
Since I have been reflecting this January, I realize how excited I am about helping people with their reinvention.
I work with people that are ready for something new but just don’t know what that is. Everything from moving to a new town, finding a new direction after a life change, figuring out new goals that align with your values and your beliefs and finding a new career. I realized it is who I am and who I have always been before and after my divorce.
My yearly reflection has always been helpful in really defining my life and my direction. It gives me time to really see how the year went.