Hi Brooke!

I just wanted to share some thoughts about reasons for coaching. I am getting ready to coach my first two clients starting in April. When I start imagining how the session might go, my brain wants to imagine my client finishing the session and saying, “Wow! That was amazing! Life changing! This is so great!” And I get a little hit of dopamine/validation when I imagine that scenario.

But really, I want to be able to hold the space for them. I want MY results from coaching – how I measure my own success or failure – to be independent of my clients thoughts/actions/feelings/results. Because I can’t actually control my client, right? They get to make their own choices and have their own thoughts.

And I realized that I’m a huge validation junkie – I’m addicted people saying they appreciate me and the thoughts/feelings that creates in me. I want to be a coach so that I can help people. But do I just want to help people to feed my craving for validation?

Here is an image that I just thought of tonight that has been really helpful. When I picture coaching from a place of needing validation – I picture myself not quite “filled up” and needing my client to appreciate me / get the results I want in order to fill me up and make me complete.

But – here’s the alternative that I just thought of which I LOVE…

If I take great care of myself and focus on being who I am, I will end up with “extra.” I will have a surplus of love, contribution, energy, etc. And I will serve my clients out of this abundance. Instead of needing them to fill me up, I will take my surplus and offer it freely to the world. And I won’t need anything in return – validation, clients’ results, etc. – because I will already start from a place of feeling really good.

Love this! This gives me a new way to think about how I measure my success as a coach.

Would love to hear your thoughts – how do you measure your own success as a coach?