We’d been talking for a while.
He asked plenty of those open-ended questions to get me to tell my story. You know, ones like, “What lessons can you take from that previous experience to apply to your current job?” and “If you were to hover over this room and look down, what emotions would you observe right now?”
His style of questioning was relaxed, and I forgot he was there to coach me. He still wore the “expert” hat, but we were simply having a conversation. We dived below the level of superficial chit chat where I preferred to live.
Shifting the power
Then the power differential in the room shifted. He leaned back in his chair, sizing me up. And he pounced.
The question surprised me. My face heated up and I looked down at my feet. I didn’t want to respond.
The answer arose from deep inside me. Immediately. Like it had been waiting for someone to ask me and give me permission to speak the truth. But to voice those words would mean revealing too much of myself.
Instead, I laughed and tried to change the subject. He wasn’t easily distracted.
He asked me again: What would happen if you just got out of your own way?
Reflecting on the session
18 months later, a lot had changed. I had changed.
I earned my own coaching certification. I worked outside my traditional Sales role to conduct leadership training programs. I pulled together notes for a book on Marketing. I was even featured in Glamour Magazine. And finally, I walked away from full-time employment, with its promise of healthcare and retirement benefits, to start my own business.
The way I now approach my career is completely different. I’ve become more fully me, tapping into latent talents that bring me joy. I’ve created more space for my children. I’ve found time to transplant the irises hidden under the azalea bushes in the backyard.
His coaching question made me face the truth: that I was spinning my wheels at work, waiting for someone to recognize that I could lead something big. I had become complacent. That word, to me, signifies a lack of movement, of being stuck in place. I’m ALWAYS DOING. But the things I was doing at that time were more busy work than life work.
So getting out of my own way meant acknowledging the complacency and grasping that DOING spirit to reinvent my career. To take a leap of faith and invest in my own projects that I knew could add value to others.
Owning my power
It meant owning my POWER.
That’s a terrifying word many women aren’t encouraged to utter. It’s the word that arose within me during that coaching session. The one I didn’t want to say out loud. It has lots of implications: acting bigger than your britches, being bold and brassy, going against the grain, no longer being a polite Southern lady.
Yet here’s the truth about power. It’s what you have inside you that glows. It’s the fuel to get you through the day. It’s the spark of energy and joy you can transmit to other people.
Power catalyzes hope. Power gives you strength. Power is affirming. Power unleashes.
Power is what I ask my own coaching clients about these days. And it’s the question I have for you now:
What POWER SOURCES do you hold within yourself that you can catalyze to get out of your own way and create the life you really want to lead?