I have been coaching for fifteen years. I have clients across the country and around the world. I’ve coached on the phone, via Facetime and Skype and Zoom ( my favorite). And now, 100% of my coaching work is as an online life coach.
Unlike other coaches who are advising clients to put their foot on the gas, my current recommendation is to do less. To sleep. To disengage with news and to reengage with yourself and your values.
We are in a crisis moment. And you can learn a lot about yourself in crisis.
Here is some of the online life coaching work my clients are engaged in now:
- Consider moving my family to a different country.
- Make the professional move I’ve been procrastinating for 15 (or 20, or 30 years), aka — do that thing I’ve always wanted to do.
- Reconnect with my husband; take this opportunity to strengthen my marriage.
- Reconsider the way my child learns; connect with their education and consider a different approach.
- Find a partner. Create a family.
I’ve also been asked to speak to organizations who want to serve their customers but first need to stop and take care of themselves. These organizations will help their teams prepare for the marathon that this pandemic is (it’s not a sprint, even when we’re allowed out of our homes again).
I’ve been asked to speak to organizations about the human realities of work right now — helping team members stop and ask, “How am I doing?” Not the pat response of “Oh, I’m fine, ready to get back to business as usual,” but really give yourself a moment and the grace to reflect on how you are really doing right now.
That’s life coaching. Working with a partner to check in on how you really are. Stopping, taking stock, taking the moment to see what you value now and how those values and shifted, and how you can move your actions/behaviors to be more consistent with what you value now.
Take the moment to see if you have cognitive dissonance — a disconnect between how you are living and what your values are, and then shift that to a place of greater connection and fulfillment.
That is life coaching. And now, that’s online life coaching.
Instead of focusing on productivity and running around doing, doing, doing…my practice is now focused on helping people be. Human being not human doing. By helping my clients connecting to themselves, in this very head-above-the-clouds (if you let yourself) moment, you can meet yourself anew, connect with your evolving character and values, and build yourself into the person you want to be.
