How To Not Forfeit Your Identity When Getting Support From a Mentor or Coach
Trusting something or someone new can be so hard.
What you might not yet be cognizant of is that trusting yourself can be even harder to accomplish.
That’s because your body hold both parts simultaneously. Your fear controls how much you get to trust what you know to be true.
I’ve hired and worked long term with 4 coaches in the last 6 years of being in business, 2 who helped me do those things that were THE BEST actions for me to take,
The 3rd, let’s just say the jury is still out on that one.
And there was one who truly only wanted me to do things her way…..exactly.
Yeh, no thanks.
Needless to say, that coaching relationship I just referred to, it left a few scars for me to overcome in my experience of being supported by another and, I’m glad to say, that relationship didn’t last long.
I had to lear how to lean in hard to trust the other coaches I hired and thankfully, it stood me well.
Now don’t get me wrong. It’s not outright a bad thing when someone shows you what worked for them.
But if they insist that the ONLY way for you to have any type of success will be to follow their actions exactly, without allowing the person you are to flavour the mix, you’re truly stymied.
The “fool-proof” method that worked for that last coach I talked about was not my experience with her methodology. And that was on me for believing her hype.
What I know now is that leading by example is good but not by forfeit of my own identity.
I do hope you have the opportunity to work with a coach, (if it’s me, HELLO, thank you, look forward to supporting you on your journey).
But even so, the work you do, how you do it and the results you get will be different even though you’ve used the same framework or method.
And it’s obvious, right?
Because you are both 2 different people, who bring different life experiences and mindset obstacles to the game.
Even thought the mindset issue we encounter are of the same flavour, how we experience them is what makes the difference.
One of my jobs as a biz soul nudger and mindset mentor is to find out how YOU tick.
We then use that knowledge we’ve gathered that is TOTALLY about you and no one else, to inform the support you receive and to design custom-to-you resources that help move you through whatever was keeping you stuck.
Not to mention it’ll will also help you sustain that foundational base we established.
THIS is what will most certainly help you up-level in your business because you will be growing more fully into you that is beautifully blooming.
I know how how much doing this deep work helped me.
What I do, or any other coach for that matter, is provide, through teaching and mentoring, the path for you to take plus the tools to help you get there.
You just have to be as intentional and committed on your end.
What does this mean? What does it look like?
As a mindset coach it means ask questions to find out….
▸ What lights you up?
▸ What makes you cry?
▸ What gets your goat?
▸ What scares you?
▸ What brings in utter & complete JOY…among all the other questions I ask.
I make sure you are always working toward your highest and best self, doing the work that takes you to your edges (I know, I know).
My job is not to put myself, or weirdly, my needs into that equation. Not is it to tell you how to act or react.
Your healing is not about me atall.
It’s about doing what’s best for you where you are but I will be completely committed to you to facilitate those end results.
This is work that reveals the underneath layers of yourself, the spaces you don’t dare go or allow to surface for fear of judgement or rejection of lack of self-confidence.
How I operate, as a coach, comes from my own inner journey that arose from a deeper longing to know who I was and am.
Each coach’s journey to where they are now informs them, so they can help those who choose to work with them.
It’s not to have you be a clone of us.
(that might be cool for some and more than okay to those who think way too highly of themselves but it sounds a bit squirrelly to me. Bleh!).
What worked for me to help me come out of my own shell was to go on my own self-discovery journey to find out about the things that I was holding back on, and to be able to answer many more questions than just those I listed earlier.
To be sure, self-discovery is THE only thing you and I will have in common.
And goodness is it ever a beautiful and mind-blowing process that unfolds.
Because it is most definitely about trusting your SELF, your being.
It’s about trusting the path that is unfolding in front of you and getting clear on your purpose for your life and how you serve.
Your coach, your teacher, your mentor is only a guide to help you get there.
This trusting thing is so much more about learning to follow your breadcrumbs.
The ones you left throughout your vast and varied life experiences, your new thought patterns that will continue to evolve as you learn more and more about the beautiful you that exists
It is the trail of becoming you that will be walking. These are your breadcrumbs.
Your job will be to follow them, to find out what they mean for you, and to you as they are revealed, one step, one layer at a time, building that sense of inner trust that maybe had yet to be discovered.
It’ll be a time to time to be your own detective. We’ll don our Sherlock hats and use our magnifying glasses to decipher the internal messages you keep getting but….
— maybe you’ve ignored them. — maybe have been afraid to face. — or felt like they were not of you.
This is where learning to deeply trust yourself comes into play.
It’s about building that trust muscle that is a necessary component in your self-discovery process.
It allows you to explore the realm of possibilities instead of limiting and restricting yourself to only what you think you can do.
…a path set in place by what you learned yourself or from what you’ve learned from others along the way.
Self-trust also allows you to release that which does not serve you anymore.
It was good for the person you were once, the one that existed before now to help you remain safe and secure.
BUT…that’s not what you need for your now, for who you are becoming.
It means letting the Universe take the reins when the thing you’re about to do doesn’t make sense to your logical brain or feels like you’re standing on the tiniest of sticks with one foot about to fall over.
Nope. It’s time to trust. Not a time for being a clone of someone else. You deserve more than being asked to do something that is not of you.
This week in my Lighthouse Letters I wrote about truth-telling, a form of trust. If you haven’t yet subscribed, get yourself on the bandwagon.
Head to kgracehowes.com/letters to sign up.
The time is now to trust that your heart and your inner wisdom to know your next right steps.
Trust that you know what you need and you know how to do it with guidance from others.
Start from there.
Don‘t forget to sign up for my Chats with Grace, an informal virtual coffee date. I wanna meet new people and just have some good convos. Plus I’ve got some questions that I would love to get your feedback on.
Link to book a time to chat in the Show Notes.
Alrighty then, till next time,
Be Brave.
Be Bold.
Stay Badass.