Admit it…you’re a commitmentphobe.

For years I contemplated becoming a coach. And I’m not exaggerating. It was literally years. The conversation started somewhere around 2005. I wasn’t super happy in my job as an entertainment executive. I’d had at least five or six people randomly tell me that they thought I’d make a great life coach.  I thought about it but then… Life Coach?!?!! I mean, isn’t that kind of a joke just in title alone??? Yup. That was me to myself. Say hi to one of my many inner critics, Judge Judy. She loves to worry about what other people will think of me and tell me that my ideas range from stupid to mediocre to downright horrible. At that time, she was often running my life so I stuck that idea on a shelf in my mind to collect some dust. In the meantime, I got certified as a yoga teacher, took a class in interior design and interviewed for some other jobs in the entertainment industry.  Then I got laid off when I was eight months pregnant and decided that it was the universe telling me to stay home with my baby for a while. The entire time, coaching was on my mind. But it was never the right time. I had babies at home - how could I start a new profession? Plus, I wasn’t absolutely one hundred percent positive that I didn’t want to go back to work in the entertainment industry. And I was convinced that I had to be certain. 

Ten years later, the stars aligned. I’d dipped my toe back in the waters of the entertainment biz and I now I felt SURE that it wasn’t what I wanted. My kids were both in school for large portions of the day. After months of deliberation, I got tired of the questioning in my head and decided it was time to explore this thing I’d been considering for TEN years. So without any more deliberation, I signed up for the whole damn training - a year of schooling - and within 24 hours of my first class, I was clear that I was on my way to becoming a coach.

But you guys. The stars didn't ACTUALLY align at all. Just like the universe wasn’t telling me to stay home with my baby. I WANTED TO STAY HOME WITH MY BABY!!! So when the door opened for that to be a reality, I pushed it wide open and walked straight through. Why? Because when it became a real possibility, I became committed to staying home with her.

The same thing happened when I decided to become a coach. Sure, I got a chance to work in entertainment and see if it was really what I wanted to pursue. But the answer wasn’t a hard no. The answer was not right now. I don’t want to work in entertainment right now. Right now, I want to try something different. Sure, I had more time on my hands because my kids were in school. But the course was one weekend a month for six months and then most of my work was done in 2-3 hours per day during the week. If I’d wanted to, I could have managed that while they were younger. Sure, I committed myself to the entire course up front. But not without knowing that, if I felt that I was making a horrible mistake, I could get my money back at any point in time. There wasn’t any sort of universal pull. There weren’t any stars involved. There was no voice that came to me from above. The only thing involved was ME. I changed my perspective and stopped waiting for the circumstances to be “right.” Because by now we all know that the circumstances are NEVER going to be right unless you MAKE them right. I was ready, so I started. And once I started, and I realized that this was the thing I wanted, something else needed to happen. I needed to commit. 

Does that word scare you? Because it sure as hell scared me. It scared me to declare that THIS was what I'd chosen to do with my life. I was terrified of what I might have to do if I was actually committing - the things I'd have to do, the things I wouldn't be able to do. I made up crazy stories in my head about what commitment looked like. I mean, seriously insane. If you got a glimpse in there, you might consider having me committed.  

But then I realized that I didn’t have to say “I’m doing this for the rest of my life.” I didn’t have to say, “I’m giving everything else up to make this happen.” I  didn't have to say “I’ll do whatever I need to make this work.” Not that there’s anything wrong with doing or saying any of those things. But somewhere along the way, I think those became the hallmarks of commitment and we all started feeling as though if you aren’t willing to go that far, then you’re not REALLY committed. The beauty of what I learned is that committing is just staying on the path. It’s getting up when you fall down. It’s three steps forward, one step back, two more steps forward. And you guys, it's a CHOICE. And if you ever want to stop being committed, you get to make that choice too. As long as it's YOU making the choice and not all those little inner critics inside you're head. 

So when I committed, I said, “I want to figure out how to make this work.” And then I looked at my life to see what it would take to make that happen in that immediate moment. I didn’t look at what was going to happen in a year or two years or five years. Because every time I looked at what was “supposed” to happen in the future if I became a coach, another of my inner critics, Debbie Downer, reared her lovely head and made me wonder how I was possibly going to get there. “But how will you find clients?” “What if you’re not very good at this?” “What if you screw up someone’s life?” WAAAAAHWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH. So I learned how to turn that beat around with Judge Judy and Debbie Downer and tell them to take a hike because they were blocking my path. Otherwise, I can promise you, I would have stopped this train a long time ago. I stopped myself from worrying about two years from now and decided that I would just worry about tomorrow. I looked at the next day and the next step. I put one foot in front of the other. I stayed on the path. 

I know you know what I’m talking about. You’ve decided you’re going back to school. You’ve started to look through websites, you’ve even targeted the places you’d like to go. And then the application arrives. And you sit down and you stare at it. And you stare at it. And you stare at it some more. And those voices start to creep in. “I’m not gonna get in so why bother.” “This is so much work…I’ll do it tomorrow.” “I don’t even have time to fill out this application - how will I POSSIBLY have time for school?” And then that application never gets done and the next year, you're staring at that same application all over again, with the same conversations happening all over again, except this time you're yelling at yourself for the fact that you can't get your shit together enough to go back to school even though you thought you were "committed." 

Because here's the deal - It’s not enough to just say, “I’m committed to this.”  There's more to this whole tango. You have to know WHY. WHY do you want what you want? You have to know so that every time Judge Judy or Debbie Downer or whoever your bitchy little friend is - every time they pop into your head, you can whip yourself around and say, “NOPE. I’m doing this and this is WHY.” And when you remember why, all that other crap clears away, and you sit down or lace your sneakers up or pick up the phone. You do the hard thing. You will not let there be an excuse. You will NOT LET THE EXCUSES WIN. And you will do this one step at a time, one day at a time, until you realize that you’ve achieved the thing that you weren’t certain you could. My why was that I had been searching and yearning for a career that felt like it filled me, a career that felt like the right fit. I also wanted a career that allowed me flexibility to be with my kids, to write when I wanted to and even to go back into entertainment if I wanted to down the line. Coaching checked all those boxes and when I started training, it became so crystal clear that it was what I had been looking for. It was strong enough for me to tell those excuses to go find someone else's mind to live in. 

Figure out why. Make your why a mantra. Say it before you go to sleep at night. Say it when you look in the mirror. Make it non-negotiable.  And then KEEP GOING! One step at a time, one day at a time, one foot in front of the other.

What’s the thing that you’ve been afraid to commit to? What (or who) is the voice that's holding you back? And what can you imagine for your life and yourself if you were willing to tell that voice to take a hike and start to make it happen?