My transformational journey in life coaching

Last Saturday was my last session with my life coach, Celestine Chua. We did a wrap up and looked back at all the sessions. Here’s a brief sum up of my wins. I plan to develop each part in dedicated posts 🙂
I had my first session on the 12th of October 2014 and my last one the 7th of February 2015.

Before life coaching

My request was to change my career, find my life purpose and my passions. When I arrived at the first session, I was lost and very frustrated with my job. I was so clueless about how to find my passions and my perfect job. I was so scared to move on and change my job because I was afraid to lose the safe place that took so much effort to build.
Back then, when I finally had the courage to subscribe for life coaching, I chose her 8 session coaching program called “Holistic Transformational Coaching”. I was afraid that it would not be enough and I would need more sessions. It was hard to believe that my life could be transformed in only 8 sessions. Against my belief and all expectations, my life indeed changed and it was deeply transformational.

Transformation

What happened in 4 months?

• October
  • Launched my blog
  • Found my strengths
• November
  • Found my passions: Inspirational writing, speaking, blogging
  • Faced my fear of writing: participated on Nanowrimo challenge
• December
  • Found my life purpose
  • Found my dream career: Life coach, Inspirational speaker, blogger
• January
  • Faced my fears of being judged: opened my facebook page and told all my friends that I want to become a life coach
  • Enrolled in iPec, a top life coaching training program!
  • Preparing my career shift to becoming a life coach

Life Wheel before and after life coaching

I did the life wheel exercise when I began life coaching (in blue). I was very unsatisfied with my life. After the life coaching, the life wheel has expanded a lot (in red). This life wheel is subjective and reveals my own satisfaction on those different areas. Even though I didn’t actively work on the area of health and recreation with my coach, those areas are positively impacted. Life coaching improved my life in a holistic way. My whole life feels much better. I see my life in a totally different way. Frustration and stress are not ruling my world anymore. Now, I feel happy and blissful. Sometimes I still get frustrated but I have now learned to step back, relax and understand that emotion.

Facing my fear

My fear held me back from looking at my own dreams. It was so strong that I didn’t allow myself to dream. I was so scared of other people’s criticism and negative opinions. It blocked me from dreaming big. I felt too small for my own dreams. I worked through this fear by understanding the root cause, gaining self-confidence and working on my self-development. Since then, I’ve never been so productive and so confident with showing my true potential.

Finding my life purpose and facing my dreams

We began coaching by looking for my life purpose. It took me several weeks before I could finally find it. I did a lot of introspection; I had to gain self-awareness, uncovering and understanding my fears to enable my life purpose to emerge. If I had to highlight only one win in my life coaching, it would be finding my life purpose. Looking for my life purpose was the most difficult exercise for me but the biggest “aha!” moment and the most emotional at the same time. Now that I have found it, it feels like I have taken the first giant step in my life.

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

After finding my life purpose, I realized I wanted to help people to help them grow and improve their lives by finding meaning and reaching their dreams. I choose Life coaching, inspirational blogging and speaking as mediums to share my message :).

Turn dream into a reality

After being clear about wanting to become a life coach, it was exciting to know what I wanted but I still felt a bit lost in this new state. I wanted to live according to my life purpose. I have a natural interest in creativity and can see possibilities, but I did not take any action to turn my thoughts into reality. My coach helped me to do that. First, she asked me to design the action plan for the next year and then detail the actions for the next quarter month by month. I’ve set my goals for the next 5 years. I’m usually not really into setting action plans for myself, so this helped me a lot. Before this I couldn’t picture myself the year after; I was only reacting to my life. I’ve come up with all the actions myself because she challenged me.
Now, after dreaming of becoming a life coach, I am on the path to becoming one. I’ve taken life coach training class in iPec, one of the worlds top life coach training schools.

Empowerment

I choose Celestine because she made her own big dreams come true and she has this fantastic success; I wanted her to do the same for me. That’s exactly what happened. She believed in my ability more than I ever believed in myself. I wanted to dream big but I was simply too scared to face them. She empowered me to look at my dreams and adopt them as mine. I’m so grateful for that. Now, I have the power to reach my dream and to build a meaningful and fulfilling life.

My engagement

The tremendous changes didn’t happen by itself. I really put a lot of effort in my self-development during the coaching. To get the most of coaching, you have to invest in your self-development. I was really the one taking actions and continuing beyond the coaching sessions. I was constantly focusing on my self-discovery and self-development. I know that my coach was there to support and to guide me, but I am responsible for my life. Change would only happen with my conscious actions. This is true in coaching and also in life. We are solely responsible for our life.

After life coaching

Now I’m not scared anymore to take actions. I can look my dreams right in the eye and know I will reach them. Everything is possible and everything comes from me. If I want it, I can get. I am walking towards my dreams steadily and I can see clearly where I’m going. Now I know where I’m going. I really feel happy when I wake up in the morning. The closer I get to my dream, the happier I am. I enjoy the process and the road towards my dream.
The journey through life coaching was delightful and paved with “aha!” moments! Sometimes I felt lost and depressed but I’ve never wanted to give up because I was doing it for me; for my dreams. I would never want to go back to my old procrastinating and whiny self 5 months ago. I have now reached a state where I don’t have enough time in a day to do all the things I love. It feels amazing. Every day is a gift where I can shine. I want to continue to become a better self and improve; to reach a higher level of consciousness. I’ve learnt a new way of life. I’m happy doing what I love.
Before I was scared of change, now change means growth; it means excitement, it means challenges, it means new ways of being happy. Before, if I didn’t go out on the weekend I would feel empty. Before, I needed to entertain myself with external factors to get through the day. But now it comes from within and it shines on the outside.
It took 4 months of my life. The results were exceptional. My experience of life coaching and self-development has been extraordinary. I was completely engaged in my self-development and that’s the key component in the process – my strong will to change and to improve my life.

Are you ready for a transformation in your life? What would you like to change?