To the Women I Coach

Why?

I want you to know that you don’t need to spend more than half of your waking time feeling rushed, behind, or stuck dealing with logistics; Dealing with what to cook making plans, booking appointments, and buying toilet paper. You don’t need to feel guilty every time you do something that isn’t productive.

You don’t have to waste time beating yourself up because there are people out there who are more organized or more intentional and they have the stuff you once planned to have for yourself by now. You’re not behind, you’re just fine.

There are the things you can’t avoid or control that take too much room in your head and your heart. There’s big stuff like global pandemics, wars, the economy, climate change, and politics that steal attention and hijack your feelings. And then there’s the little things that you’ve had to get through that mean nothing to the world but mean everything to you.

And you know that numbing, mentally checking out to escape the weight of the stuff that piles up, by things like eating too much, drinking, scrolling on your phone when you could be sleeping, or even becoming a workaholic, just to get some space that feels like yours, isn’t really what you want. It’s just a fleeting escape to another type of jail.

What you want is more freedom.

To have more time to spend with the people you enjoy the most, doing the things that make you feel the most alive. And the time to take care of yourself and rest, be alone, and just be. Time when you can read, walk, think, and come up with ideas.

You want the resources to be okay, and especially to be generous. You want to be able to ease the burden of those who are struggling, and you want to spoil and delight the artists, the entrepreneurs, and the people putting their heart and soul into what they do because you recognize how much they are giving.

You want more peace.

You want your relationships with your family, friends and partners to fulfill what they can be. You want to have the energy to connect and keep growing, the confidence to have difficult conversations when warranted, and the courage to step away when it no longer aligns with what you want to give and receive in your relationships.

There are things you want to experience and places you want to see. Some of them have been on the list for a long time, you were waiting, assuming that eventually you would have way more time and money, but now you realize that you’re going to have to decide to make them happen.

You’ve come this far. And you want the rest to count.

You want the rest to count because you know what it feels like when you make it count. It counts when you care enough. When it counts you’ve done hard things. Scary things that could have failed, and taken risks that made you feel vulnerable. When it counts you’ve picked yourself up and started from scratch. You’ve figured it out and gotten to know yourself as someone new. You’ve felt alive, energized, and grounded.

So here’s to making it all count:

1. Keep fresh eyes on your life and the opportunities available to you. Stop acting as though you‘re just going to bob along on the path everyone expects you to take. It’s way more fun to surprise everyone including yourself with what you’re capable of.

2. Stop prioritizing other people’s needs and desires. And no, that doesn’t mean you’re going to be neglectful or turn into a selfish diva. But it means that you have to recognize that you matter as much as other people do. No more, but no less, and you aren’t responsible for their feelings just as they aren’t responsible for yours.

3. Take care of yourself physically. Yeah they weren’t lying about how things don’t bounce back quite the same way as you age. And it turns out that eating well, sleeping well, drinking water, and physical fitness make a huge difference with how you feel and how much energy you have. You can’t put this off until “when you have more time”.

4. Take care of yourself mentally. If you have gotten used to operating in stress mode, chasing done, and catastrophizing you’re going to have to learn how to cultivate that inner calm so that you can recognize the good stuff and enjoy it. You will have more to give, including to yourself.

5. While benefitting from the wisdom of experience, also being willing to sacrifice the safety, comfort, and convenience of doing things the way you’ve always done them and let go of assuming that the way you think about things is the right way.

6. New stuff and new people. 

Let’s aim high and make it count.

It’s easier when you’re not alone.

That’s why I want to coach you.

You’ve got this, we’ve got your back,

-SJM