My dream job : Life coach

My ideal job

When I began to look for my ideal job, I was driven by the fact that I could not bare it any longer to be in a job that was frustrating me. I was lost and very unsatisfied, so I wanted to change and be more fulfilled.

I wanted a job that would put a smile on my face when I woke up and one where I would be excited to begin everyday. I would be excited to do everything I like and be frustrated only because I wouldn’t have enough time in a day to enjoy my passions.
I was looking for an ideal job; a job that would fit me and would allow me to make a difference.

I didn’t know how to choose because I didn’t know who I was. What was my perfect career/job? What job would fit who I am?

The big puzzle

Discovering myself was like assembling a big puzzle. The small pieces of the puzzle are all the aspects of myself that I didn’t know and what I’ve since discovered during my self development journey. Each piece was hidden in me. I was collecting them through my self discovery day after day, little by little.
Once that puzzle assembled, I finally see who I am. Here are the pieces of puzzle I gathered in a chronological order. You can follow my self-discovery how I experienced it 🙂

Help people

I’ve always known that I wanted to help people but I didn’t know how and who to help. I genuinely support and cheer people up every time I get the chance.
For my job in IT, I had to enforce some rules that slowed my colleagues down and prevented them from working as fast and easily as they would want. I felt extremely uncomfortable in my job as it was going against my natural desire to help people.

Strong social abilities

My whole life, I’ve always loved being around people. They energize me. I love talking, connecting, feeling useful, caring and socializing with others. I’ve developed strong people skills that allow me to read between the lines and intuitively understand others feelings. For me, the sweetest pleasure is to talk to an introvert and discover their story. I love looking beyond appearances and beyond what people are willing to show.

My strength and personnality

Thanks to some online personality test, I have discovered:

My strengths: Optimism, Faith, Curiosity, Salesmanship, Innovation

My personality: High emotional intelligence, ENFP (Curious, Energetic, Enthusiastic, Excellent communicator, Know how to relax, Very popular, friendly).

I took the tests several times. Now that I know myself much better, I can say that those results are quite accurate 🙂

My dream

During a session with my life coach, when we were working on my life purpose. I discovered (or I dared speak out) my dream.

I said « I want to improve the world ». Wow. I didn’t know that was my dream.

I felt so emotional. My throat and my chest was tightening. My eyes were blurry. All my body was warming up. I was almost about to cry. Even now, writing those words months later, I still feel emotional.

If your dreams don’t scare you, they are not big enough

My fears

I remember how strong my fears were when I found my dream. « Who do you think you are? You are not Mother Teresa. It’s impossible….»
I have discovered an overwhelming fear of not being worthy enough and a fear of being mocked. That’s why I couldn’t pursue my dream so far.
My life coach advised me to protect it and make my dream grow before exposing it to people’s criticism. As I built my confidence and got to know myself better, I was able to create a shield against naysayers.

I had the feeling that I wanted to be a life coach. But I was too scared to face it, not worthy of it and not competent. I doubted that I could become a life coach because I didn’t have the ability. I didn’t know how I could help and coach anybody. Especially knowing that I wasn’t helping myself at that time. It took me a lot of time to face my dreams and dare to become a life coach.

My passion

I was writing morning pages everyday to discover myself and my passion.
Day after day, week after week, I was writing only about one thing: self development. I was completely dedicated to self development. It became obvious that I was passionate about it. I’ve even opened a blog about it :).

Inspiring people around me

Actually, I was already behaving like a life coach with some friends. I was trying to open their perspectives and suggested them to see beyond their fears. I believed in my friends abilities to live their dreams and say « why not » ?
In the past some people came to me to seek advice to help them make the best choice for their lives. Some others have been inspired by my actions. I didn’t even realize that I had this impact on others.

I’ve talked to many people who made their passion their job. A ceramic artist told me that she has always made ceramics in her life. Same for a painter who told me she has always painted in her life. I can say I have always inspired and championed others to reach their dreams. It was hard to spot this passion because when a painter paints he materializes his passion, same for a ceramist. In my case, I couldn’t see my passion in the material world.

Interviewing the HR

Since I wanted to find a job where I could help people, my friends advised me to consider a career either in charity either in Human resource. I thought charity was one of the most noble ways of helping people. But there are many ways to help people.
My career counselor advised me to interview people in HR from my company to know more about their jobs. I met a recruiter, a training assistant and a HR project manager. Their mission consisted in finding the best candidates for the company, teaching people to understand concept carried by the company and helping people to accept changes imposed by the company.

I really loved talking and learning about their jobs but I understood that none of these jobs were fully fitting my needs. I didn’t want to help people to accept some purpose that are imposed by a company. I wanted to help people with their personal matters. I wanted to bring people what I was getting from my own life coaching: reach their dreams and live a passionate and fulfilling life.

My life purpose and my core values

I worked with my life coach to help me find my dream job. We first worked on finding my life purpose. It took me a lot of time and introspection before finding it.

My life purpose:
Enjoy my life with love, passion and meaning
Always stay independent, strong and true to myself
Inspire and touch people to help them grow and lift their lives up

My core values are: love, independence, sense of meaning, passion and courage.

The master piece of the puzzle was when I found my life purpose.
I wanted to live according to my life purpose. It was only confirming my choice to become a life coach.

Conscious choice

Becoming a life coach seemed obvious to me at that point.
With life coaching, I am making my passion my job. I’ve chosen to become a life coach consciously because this career is aligned with my life purpose, my core values, with simply who I am; my big puzzle :).
Now that I understand and know who I am. My whole life, I’ve naturally built my abilities and my strengths. All the small pieces of the puzzle, of myself are pointing towards becoming a life coach. I don’t have the fear and doubt of being unworthy. It’s simply who I am.
Everything was falling amazingly into place.
It was a long and difficult journey. It took me a lot of time and courage to face my fears. I kept looking and I never gave up.
My faith and will to find my dream job was the key in my journey.

A job that feed my soul

When I help someone to change their lives in a positive ways, I really feel that it feeds my soul like nothing else in the world and brings me pure joy. It’s a magic feeling to touch someone and see that you have inspired them. I feel alive, full and complete.

After my first free coaching session, I understood that coaching is the work I would do even if I wasn’t paid for it. In this 90 minutes, I felt that all my strengths and my natural abilities were gathered.
Like a fish is born to swim in the ocean, I felt like I was born to become a coach, to help others and inspire them.

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
– Albert Einstein

No doubt

For a long time, I was wondering if life coaching could fit me. I couldn’t help thinking « what if it was not the right job for me? » It was totally normal to have doubt because I was about to change my whole life completely to become a life coach. There was a lot at stake. I was giving up financial security to dive into a new career that I have to build from zero.

I was 99% sure. The 1% left was blown away when I participated in my first training class in iPec last week. I was exactly where I was supposed to be. I was among my tribe and people who are like me, who have the same interests. It felt so right, every second of it.
Now, I am more confident that ever that I am on the right path.

New challenge

During the training class, they asked us to write down a project we wanted to accomplish. Since last august, I’ve always written « Quit my job” or “Find my dream job ». For the first time, I wrote “Becoming a successful life coach”.

I’ve completed my challenge that I’ve set for myself last August. I haven’t quit my job yet but it is only a matter of time.

Before I was doubting that I could reach my goal. Now, I am targeting another goal. A new challenge for me 🙂 I am not afraid anymore to change my career. I know what I want to do, who I am and where I am heading.