The story of how I decided to become a life coach
Oct 21, 2022Starting over:
I am a total horse junkie. And I absolutely love spending most of my free time with our equine friends.
As a young girl, I used to ride and have horses, but as time went by, I forgot about my passion for these noble animals and lived quite a busy, independent life, traveling around the globe and working as a model. I was constantly busy, working long hours building my model business, and, later on, co-founding the yoga label OGNX in 2012.
I rediscovered my love for horses later in life, after having started a family and moving to Spain. For 20 years, I had never given horses a second thought, but my daughter's evident passion for them led me back into the saddle.
Not long after I decided to get back again in the saddle, I also chose to get certified as a life coach at a renowned online school in America.
For many years, I repeated negative mantras to myself that stopped me from taking action on my dreams. I constantly asked myself, "who am I to help other people if my life isn't perfect yet?" and worried about what others would think of me.
Making the decision to take a big leap, and start something completely new, like building a coaching business, is a brave thing; actually, it is something most people never do.
There are lots of parallels between my choice to start riding again and becoming a life coach that I want to share with you as I look back over the past 5 years.
Horses:
But I know it is part of becoming good at something, and if you commit to it, you will finally get better at it. 100%.
My horse Camerad, in the beginning, didn't make it really easy for the level of riding skills I had at that point. If I had a bad day with him, I was frustrated and felt like I was never gonna make any progress. There were countless days when I drove my trainer crazy, doing the complete opposite of what he asked me to do, riding left instead of right, doing most of the things wrong literally, because looking at the more experienced riders, everything looked so easy while trying it myself was a completely different story….
I was simply impatient with myself. I had a different plan for how things were supposed to turn out. Something that I see happening a lot with the clients I am coaching today;
We think, now that we have made the decision to change our lives, it has to work the way we think “it should.”
(By the way, “should” is one of the first words I help my clients eliminate from their lives.)
“Should”ing yourself is like fighting with reality.
Getting back in the saddle, I have learned, if things don't work out, to take it as ONE day, as ONE time and I know, tomorrow will be another day, another try to grow and get better and most important - to learn from it.
Knowing that there WILL BE days that - let’s be honest - suck- and being ok with that, has given me so much peace of mind.
I don’t pressure myself to be perfect all of the time, because I know:
1. It is not always up to me; sometimes my horse can have a bad day, too and
2. I will try again tomorrow.
When I stopped resisting having bad days, the bad days became less and didn't have as much negative impact on my self-confidence as in the beginning stages of my riding career.
I believe this is the mindset you need while starting a business and also while growing your business.
You have to be in it for the long run. This isn´t a sprint, its a marathon.
You just consciously decide to show up over and over again, not making failures mean anything about yourself, but looking at them as an opportunity to grow.
I call it self-image resilience.
Another thing most coaches tend to do that keeps them stuck in inaction is compare themselves.
I learned to concentrate on my horse and myself instead of comparing myself to others, how much better they seem to do it, or how much further they seem along. Losing focus, I would likely end up finding myself on the ground, because my horse sensed me being absent ( been there, done it…).
I like to compare riding with playing an instrument; it is not only you but your skill to being one with the instrument you are playing. Same thing with horses. And trust me, the same thing to growing your coaching business; No one can do you. YOu are unique.
Your only job is to find your voice, and use it. Becoming magnetic, as I like to call it, has a lot to do with becoming yourself. Creating yourself. Your self-image.
Making a decision:
I love jumping with my horse. And starting over, I had to start small. I had to ride against being afraid. I wanted to jump, but still, there were these feelings of being afraid. To fall, to hurt me.
But I made a decision. I wanted to get better.
Doing things over and over again, even if you are afraid to do it. You learn to not let fear stop you from doing new things.
If you are attempting to do something that you have never done before, it is essential that you learn to do things while being afraid and acknowledging your fear, but not allowing it to stop you.
Building a strong connection with your horse. Learning to “feel” how you have to do this, staying 100% present with yourself and your horse, instead of looking for outside advice, grounds you in trusting yourself more & more.
No matter how you feel, if you have committed to taking care of another living being, such as a horse, then you must show up for them. The same is true for your business. When first starting out, it is helpful to learn that even on days when you don't feel at your best or very creative, showing up is essential.
Going the extra mile if needed, like nights at the stables when your horses are sick, learning more about them every day, or over-delivering while coaching your clients are very much the same thing.
Whenever you make a conscious decision about what you want to do or how you want to spend your time, is when magic is about to happen. Things will move FOR you, instead of AGAINST you.
Advancing:
And last but not least, managing your own mind around worst-case scenario thinking and fears.
Show-jumping isn't exactly playing ping-pong (nothing bad to say about ping-pong, though), and there is always your mindset playing a huge role in how things turn out.
Your adrenalin will be pumping going into the arena jumping with your horse as your partner and there are many aspects you cannot control (like maybe noises or a photograph showing up in one corner of the arena and your horse being surprised by the movement). Being super focused, yet relaxed enough to still see the distances coming to the jumps, is truly an art you have to practice for many, many years.
And one thing every show-jumping trainer will tell you over and over is the importance of having the right cadence.
Cadence is the one thing that makes things so much easier.
If I wanted to integrate the importance of cadence into my life, I´d say, being the master of your own time is one of the most important things to direct your life into the right “cadence”; the rhythm where things move forward in your favor.
Coaching will help you tremendously with all the above things. Whether you want to start your coaching business or work on your self-image.
