Becoming a Life Coach

For the past ten years, I have worked with low income, first generation and underrepresented college students and helped them to get into graduate school.  While I believe that I have been able to intuitively grow my skills in this work, I only recently realized that what I do is I *coach* students for graduate school.  So how does this work?  I’ve always said that our program is in the business of growing confident and strong individuals who can succeed at whatever they put their mind to.  We expose our students to new ideas about choices they can make for their education.  We expose our students to this idea of asking questions and creating the research necessary to find answers to those questions.  We expose our students to a variety of tools and activities that they can use to enhance their health, well-being, mindset and abilities – personal, professional, academic and otherwise.  We challenge them.  We support them.  We ask them to be accountable to themselves and our program.  We invite them to explore their passions and dream big.  We require them to work hard to fully explore the options for graduate study and prepare themselves to pursue those opportunities.  We observe excitement, confusion, overwhelm, relief, fun, commitment, pride, hope, joy and more.  I am so lucky to be able to work with these students on this level and become a part of their lives.  I am so lucky to do this work.

I lived in Boston for two years, after attending graduate school.  At that time, Baron Baptiste opened a yoga studio right down the street from my apartment.  At the time I could not have realized the tremendous impact this would have on my life.  I remember walking home after a Power Yoga class with Baron and thinking how, “I’ve never felt this way before.”  You work really hard in his classes, sweat a lot, and you come out on this amazing plane of being.  Just being.  I think that’s it.  A calm and peaceful yet energized way of being.  It wouldn’t be until later on that I got further into exploring the meditational – or mind – aspect of yoga.  Since moving back to the Midwest, I continued a yoga practice, mainly through Baron’s videos and recordings.  I now talk about yoga with pretty much everyone.  “Do you do yoga?”  “Oh, you should try it out - it’s amazing on so many levels.”

We live in a small town in the middle of Michigan - Mt. Pleasant to be exact.  We now have this amazing yoga studio in town filled with an amazing community of individuals teaching, exploring and practicing yoga together.  I am so happy to be blessed with this gift.  I deeply believe that yoga is the key to life.  So, three years ago, I started inviting our students to explore yoga and reap the multitude of benefits that can result.  Our students come from some very hard backgrounds and they have already overcome significant obstacles in most cases.  Being successful in college and going on to graduate study requires a level of health and strength that sometimes is not possible given the constraints and situations within which our students have found themselves.  That’s why, once I personally witnessed some of our students becoming excited about how yoga made them feel, how it helped them feel better physically (and sometimes led to more exercise), how it helped them to relax and reduce their stress, how it helped them to focus better on their studies and classes – honestly, I became ecstatic!  The best part is the confidence that I have seen instilled in the students as a result of doing yoga.  Just how do you grow confidence?  That has always been a question on my mind and one that we frequently talk about.  Yoga allowed me to take what we had already been providing to the students and ramp it up in a way that I didn’t think was possible.  The personal growth and development (not to mention the camaraderie among our group) that occurs on the mat is transformational.  I relish in the fact that having exposed our students to this kind of resource or tool, however you wish to view it, that they will perhaps continue to use it throughout their lives.  We planted a seed.  We plant lots of seeds.  I happen to believe this one to be the most important.  It’s the foundation that allows for creation of a meaningful life and the ability to live that life to the fullest.

So how does this lead to my becoming a life coach?  It’s funny how I ended up in this line of work given that I’ve *felt stuck* for a good portion of my forty years.  I’ve struggled to figure out my life path.  I’ve struggled being okay with what is.  I’ve struggled with developing a meaningful career that would utilize my education, skills and experiences.  I started out by explaining how I only recently figured out that what I do with my students is coach them.  During a meeting with one of our faculty mentors, we were talking and he suggested that one of our students needed a coach.  He was referring to a very specific kind of coach, one that deals with enhancing social behaviors.  I said to myself, “a coach?”  “What’s that and where do I find one of those?”  I got to “googling” and asking around…come to find out, there’s an entire field (a growing field, mind you) that’s been around for some time.  When I started reading a text on coaching written by Ph.D.’s, I found myself saying over and over – this is what I do with my students!   

I am blessed with professional development opportunities as part of my work, and I attended a coaching training that has changed my life.  I learned all sorts of things that I can start directly applying to our current students.  I also realized my true passion of creating something for myself.  I love my work, but I can’t count on always having this job.  As a matter of fact, we are currently seeking to be refunded for our program at the same time the federal government is saying that they are only going to refund two-thirds of our existing programs.  While I hope – hope – hope that I can continue to provide the kinds of services that our program provides to our students, I am also taking this opportunity to develop my own consulting business on the side.   It is my goal to gather a group of individuals seeking support and strength in developing their own vision for their lives.  I intend to extend my expertise and experiences to those who are ready to move forward with their visions, but might need a little help along the way.  I believe that my coaching work to date, coupled with my love of yoga, can bring new energy and ideas on how to make those dreams come to fruition.

I am ready if you are ready. I am ready to listen and support you. I am ready to offer accountability in your game plan. I am ready to insert “nuggets of wisdom” along the way. I am excited to become a part of your journey and for you to become part of mine.  ˜