All of us are stepping out over the precipice of our comfort zone we take on that next new client, hobby, partner, or that next new skill set or tool. New budding business owners are in anguish at having to somehow invite clients into their brand new practice. There is so much uncertainty in their professional career. They feel so vulnerable to rejection, and more devastatingly, they are vulnerable to their own self-talk.
Self-criticism and self-loathing are two of many strategies many of us implement to avoid being with uncertainty when we don’t know what the heck we are doing.
Thank God we didn’t have to think about how we were supposed to get out of the womb. Very few of us would have made it into this world if left to our own creation.
Coming into this world was probably the most difficult journey we’ve ever taken in this lifetime “ and we did it with total uncertainty that we’d survive. Interestingly enough, many of my clients and trainees who are developing their practices face the very same issues they faced in their birth process. This transformational coaching stuff is very profound!
I asked a student in my practicum course the other day, “When have you made a choice where there was complete certainty and knowing.” The answer came swiftly. She said, "When I decided to attend ITP(The Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, now Sophia University). It was then I knew it was the right thing."
I then asked her how she knew. She said, without being conscious of what she was saying, "I didn’t let my mind interfere with my decision." Wow! How fascinating! She was able to distinguish the process of not allowing her mind to interfere with the certainty of her knowing. How often do we let our minds turn our knowing into confusion or uncertain mush. What the heck is that about?
An essential foundation of the Transformational Coaching Training Program is to practice what we preach, walk our talk, be the change we wish to see (as best we can). By exploring our own relationship with uncertainty and vulnerability, by distinguishing our own survival mechanisms and strategies in relation to creating desires beyond the edges of what is certain, we increase our level of competence to be-with other’s situations and dilemmas where uncertainty is the pivotal context. In consciously stepping into cultivating your practice, using the coaching skills and tools on yourself, you will become far more effective, more confident and more inviting. You’ll be a magnet to clients. I have no doubt about that!
Here are some questions in service to growing your practice:
- What are you certain about in relation to your work? What do you know?
- What have you done, what actions have you taken in making this happen, e.g. gotten a masters or Ph.D. in supporting personal development, got certified as a coach, etc?
- How much have you invested in your work as you know it, financially, physically, time, space?
- When does the uncertainty show up? What thoughts precipitate the uncertainty?
- How have you been being with uncertainty in the past? What have you done to avoid crossing the threshold or actually meeting that choice-point? How have you distracted yourself from this choice point? Perhaps with another certificate, another training, another graduate degree, another. . . . ?
- What ways can you be with uncertainty now? What new ways can you be-with your thinking (your context) about potential failure, the potential mistakes, etc?
- Ask yourself "What am I really committed to?"
- Then ask "What am I willing to do? What’s the smallest incremental step I can take to get me closer to my work as I know it to be?"
It’s not about getting clients. It’s about practicing being in right-relationship with yourself in relation to uncertainty. Like I said, get this, and you will be a client magnet!!! Of this I have complete certainty!
