“Most people live life on the path we set for them. Too afraid to explore any other. But once in a while people like you come along and knock down all the obstacles we put in your way.” The Adjustment Bureau
I’ve been thinking about this post all weekend.
This weekend I got to relax. I didn’t have to do homework or reading immediately because I have break this week, but I will get back to it soon so I can stay on top of it.
Instead, we had friends over on Saturday night for food and drinks. We laughed a lot. We stayed up late. We made brunch on Sunday, and disconnected a bit.
But in the back of my head, I thought about a check-in I had with a client on Friday afternoon. It was our last check-in for this block of eight weeks and she has grown so much.
Periodically throughout the weeks of a coaching block, I’ll ask a client how they feel about progress so far based on their hopes and expectations from the start of coaching. I will also ask them to think back a few months or a year and compare progress. Sometimes I’ll ask “thinking back, did you ever think you would get here? Did you ever think this could be reality?” I also take notes during check-ins so I can look back and make comparisons and ask better questions.
In the screening process and during the first call as we’re getting started, I will tell every single client that it’s possible that goals will either shift a bit or completely change. That it’s possible that as we’re working on something, another thing may pop up that was unexpected that may have more importance in the moment. It’s not that we’ll stop working on the initial goal completely, but it will be worked on in a different way.
So Friday’s client is a mom. I’ve said it before that mom’s are my favorite population to work with. They don’t see their magic the way I do. It could be because my mom wasn’t the greatest, while she tried in her own way to be. I guess I think of mom’s as unicorns. Something I never really had, but something I know exists out there, somewhere.
So this client, this mom. She’s like other mom’s I’ve worked with. She’s got ideas and she’s got heart – a huge one. She wants the best for her kids and her family. However, she struggled to see how her environment impacted her.
By day, she’s a corporate employee who’s worked her way up. By night, she’s a small business owner, a leader, a chef, a chauffeur, a study-partner, a companion and so much more. I’m sure this sounds familiar to a lot of you. We don’t wear the same roles or hats, but we all wear many.
In the beginning of coaching, her short-term goals included wanting to get back in the gym and having a plan, she wanted to better understand how to balance her nutrition, she wanted to build her business; her long-term goals included becoming a certified dyslexia specialist and tutor, having a successful business so she could leave her job and maintain a level of health and wellness that made her feel good and confident to teach her kids how to be healthy too.
So in the beginning, we were focused on figuring out an eating style that worked for her. This was the first step. She understood macronutrients, but had never been a part of the diet discussion. We tried macro-counting and then realized that with her schedule – in and out of the house, it wasn’t realistic and attainable. She suggested intermittent fasting because she had been doing some research and thought based on what she had read it may be beneficial. We talked about its benefits, we talked about its clinical purposes, we talked about how it would fit and work with her life. She said it would help alleviate stress from the evening rush with her children and tutoring.
I recommended trying it for a week so she had time to adjust to a more structured time shift and eating window. We also made a macronutrient shift because she recognized that she was eating more fruits and vegetables, less grains, but more fats like olive oil, avocado and nuts and we wanted to make sure that she was capable of eating in a shorter window and enjoying what she was eating.
Physical activity was discussed. We spoke about her workouts and what her goals were. Initially, she needed to get to the gym and see where her strength was because it had been a while she since had been consistent in the gym. We talked about tracking workouts so that she could see where she was starting over at and then could build from there. We talked about what she liked about the gym. She likes to do the classes at her gym sometimes, but she also likes to work out with her husband. Realistically, for her schedule, classes aren’t always able to be fit in. And with kids – her and her husband have to alternate who’s going to the gym and who’s driving them around. So we talked about workouts a week at a time – how many days do you want to be there and how many days are realistic. She just needed some consistency to start with. So three days, that’s baseline.
During our eight weeks, she had multiple regional business trips that put her seated in a car and in meetings for hours. She had a trip or two where she flew out of her time zone for a few days. There were days she was completely in control of the agenda and days she wasn’t.
Life popped up and added surprises.
At the very beginning of coaching, and possibly just before, she and her husband had learned that both of her children were dyslexic. It provided explanation for a lot of things, but that also meant changes to their family dynamic. One child also has ADHD, which is often associated with dyslexia and it meant adjusting their diet. While science is still looking for answers, there are associations with Red Dye 40 and hyperactivity. There could be better research, but this is a start, so it’s where they started.
This was something that they didn’t expect to happen, however, if you ask her how the elimination of a foods with Red Dye 40 is going, she’ll tell you that her kids point out it on the labels, they ask questions about foods they’re eating and they’re not really missing foods that have been eliminated.
With the diagnosis, it also meant needing more opportunity to go over school work in an environment that helped them thrive rather than made them feel as though they would never understand. Evenings now consisted of tutoring, which meant dinner wasn’t together – someone had to drive; the gym wasn’t priority and days felt a little bit longer. However, she saw the magic of having someone who could help her children. It ultimately showed her how she could help them too.
Check-ins frequently consisted of talking about tutoring and how household changes were going. We would go over measurements and discuss workouts, but we also talked about work and her own business. We talked about her business plans and how she was balancing everything.
There were emails that would reflect her own disappointment because she couldn’t see that progress still occurred even though it was slow. It may not have been as fast as desired, but still moving in the right direction despite everything else that was happening around her. However, there were also text messages saying clothes were fitting better and that through her business she believes that she’s finding purpose in other areas of her life.
During our last check-in, she told me the day she’s resigning from her corporate job, which is happening faster than she thought it would. She said, it’ll give her the opportunity to finish her certification so she can teach her children at home next school year because they aren’t able to get what they need where they are now even though the school has been informed – the resources just aren’t there.
She said leaving her job will give her time to work on her business a little bit more and that will allow flexibility as a family. Easier to plan vacations. Easier to say yes to activities like sports for her children who spend more time studying than playing.
She may be able to shift her eating structure because there will be more time and the family can sit down for dinner together again. She said, she’s actually excited about cooking.
She’ll be able to have more routine with her workouts. She’ll be able to fill her cup up more often so that she can fill the cups of others too.
Figuring out the next steps for her children, pushed her to think about what she really wanted out of her own future and career. On Friday, she seemed to talk with a happier voice that was relieved and ready to take on the future.
Looking back, in eight weeks, she accomplished a lot. There were some obvious things and some things that weren’t so easily visible. Some things that weren’t intended, but life wasn’t perfect the past eight weeks either.
- lost 6 pounds
- lost 11.875 inches
- found a balance with her activity and nutrition that worked for her in the moment while examining external factors
- tried new things
- trusted someone else
- was capable of creating an environment of open and collaborative communication
- trusted herself enough to take a leap of faith without perfect timing
- decided to home school her children regardless of the thoughts of others
- redesigned her business model
So when I asked her that question about what she’s accomplished with coaching, how this experience has been for her, where she started and where she was a long time ago, she said she had always wanted to leave her career, but never thought she would be able to.
Two things she said to me that will always stick with me:
“I always thought really small.”
“I couldn’t see possibility passed what I already had.”
When she said these words, she looked up at the ceiling, I knew that it didn’t matter if she crossed off everything she had listed in the beginning perfectly, because it was clear that progress was made and that she knew it.
There is something bigger inside us that takes a while to uncover.
When we trust ourselves, when we trust our hearts – we’re more capable than we could’ve ever imagined.
We all can be unicorns.
<3 Cristina
