As a life coach, I love the verb “to empower.” It embodies my coaching style where I give you the tools and insights needed to do the work successfully rather than doing the work for you. When you reach your goals, the credit is all yours. YOU accomplished the goals you created! But what is empowerment life coaching, and what happens when you work with me as your coach? Let’s talk about it!
Listen for the Inner Voice
Empowerment in life coaching starts with finding your inner voice. A lot of my clients forgot what their inner voice even sounds like, much less listen for it. We all have gifts and an internal pull towards particular interests. I encourage my clients to recall what made them the happiest as children, and we work from there.
Life has a way of folding up our dreams and interests like outgrown clothing, putting them away in a box in the attic. When we rediscover what makes us feel alive and align our life with those interests, the real magic happens! Your mood improves. You feel lighter, more aligned, and even find more meaning and purpose in your life.
Elizabeth Gilbert, in her book Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, talks about finding hidden jewels (interests, talents) as we go through this world and living “an amplified existence.” What is an amplified existence? She describes this as a life infused with passion, creativity, fulfillment, and curiosity towards your interests and the callings of your heart. There are no wrong answers here, do not dismiss anything “that is only for children” or “that you’re not in good enough shape for” or “too old to do.” As Gilbert explains in the book, it’s not your fault you fell out of love with these things:
“Ah, lovely adolescence – when the “talented” are officially shunted off from the herd, thus putting the total burden of society’s creative dreams on the thin shoulders of a few select souls, while condemning every else to live a more commonplace, inspiration-free experience! What a system…”
-Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
If you enjoyed playing with Play-Doh as a child, let’s get you into a pottery class or find a creative outlet that uses your hands. If you enjoyed roller skating, there’s a rink in every city and believe it or not, there are NO rules preventing you from renting some skates and getting in there for some skate time (except, of course, your own limiting beliefs! More on those later…).
Identify the Stories
Now that we’ve started talking to ourselves honestly again, we still have other noise to handle. For most of our lives, we’ve been on the receiving end of other people’s opinions, warnings, and suggestions for how we should be living our lives. For the most part, this information came to us from points of care and concern.
Specific feedback has kept you alive for this long, right? You might even have a successful career based on the nudges and recommendations from your family. But if you’re feeling a little underwhelmed with the experience, you might be living someone else’s version of a successful life.
Don’t worry; you don’t have to scrap a career or go back to school (unless you want to!) to empower yourself to live authentically. There are ways of folding in your interests or making space for new experiences without changing your life dramatically (though doing small things that set your heart on fire can have a dramatic impact on your enjoyment of life!).
Let me tell you from experience; there is nothing more empowering than recognizing what you want and going after it. Once upon a milestone birthday, I was at a crossroads of following professional advice to stay in an old career or to ignore everyone and listen to my knowing that told me to go for it and start a coaching business. You can read more about this and the stories I was being told here: https://movingforwardcoaching.com/the-best-money-ive-ever-spent/
Expose the Limiting Beliefs
Limiting beliefs are a close cousin to the stories we just talked about, though from personal observations you concluded throughout your life. For example, if you sang at a talent show in kindergarten and for whatever reason that went poorly, you grew up thinking you cannot sing, and therefore should not sing.
Have you considered the literal thousands of possibilities that could have led to you not receiving a standing ovation at a kindergarten recital? It is a bit silly to ignore something that could bring you joy over one random incident. And worst-case scenario, even if you can’t carry a tune by society’s standards, WHO CARES.
If it brings you joy, you must find ways to bring it into your life as frequently as possible. I think it’s even more empowering to enjoy something in which you are not the best. Such audacity to enjoy life! If you are ready to change your mindset, I can help get you establish a new set of beliefs that serve you better.
Get Curious
OK, we are starting to listen to ourselves, and we’ve identified the other “noises.” We are making some progress here! But what if you do not have “a calling” – a romanticized, final, one-sentence summary of who you are and what you are supposed to be doing.
Many clients come to me and say they never received the special delivery of “a calling.” If the delivery truck missed you as well, welcome to being human – you get to discover who you are through some insightful experience!
In our coaching sessions, we’ll deep dive into the things that bring you joy and light you up and then plan to bring more of that into your present-day life. The stories and limiting beliefs that have followed you this far will continue to cause trouble here, so keep an open mind as to things you might be interested in.
I’ve had clients return to sports they thought they could no longer do, start businesses when they thought they were sentenced to a life-in-cubicle, and others who wrote books for the first time.
Where will your curiosity lead you? I’m excited to see the “hidden jewels” you uncover on our journey!
Identify Your Patterns
As if stories and limiting beliefs were not enough to keep track of, we also need to figure out the patterns and tendencies you follow. These are the breadcrumbs that can lead to some interesting insights.
I love referring to Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies, among other tools, to tell us how we usually travel on our journey. I firmly believe you can change your Ttendencies and patterns, but knowing where you start is extremely helpful. If you are typically timid and want to take on more leadership roles, we need to figure out how you react in everyday workplace situations. We can then empower you with new habits to replace those that didn’t feel so great.
If you want to stop apologizing as frequently, we can work on saying things like “Thanks for waiting for me” instead of “Sorry I was late.” Knowing your patterns allows you to change them, which is some empowering stuff! As Gretchen Rubin says in her book, the Tendencies are not there to keep you in a box, but give you more information about yourself in order to improve yourself:
“The happiest, healthiest, most productive people aren’t those from a particular Tendency, but rather they’re the people who have figured out how to harness the strengths of their Tendency, counteract the weaknesses, and build the lives that work for them.”
― Gretchen Rubin, The Four Tendencies: The Indispensable Personality Profiles That Reveal How to Make Your Life Better
Set BIG Goals
Why is empowerment important in coaching? It defines your goals and your path. Vague goals get vague results, and there is no empowerment with small plans. In our coaching sessions, I prioritize identifying your goals and that we are making progress towards them every week.
One of the great features of having a life coach on your team is a neutral vantage point. I can see past the fear and emotion that can sometimes trip you up as you pursue your dreams. Having an accountability partner is extremely powerful in keeping your goals, especially if you respond well to external expectations.
The additional support of having someone checking in on your progress can keep you motivated and help you reach those big goals faster than you thought possible.
Insights About Women’s Empowerment
As a life coach, specifically a women’s empowerment coach, I often see clients living successful lives but who simultaneously feel restless and feel like something is missing. Women often put themselves behind their family’s needs, waiting to pursue goals.
When they finally get around to checking in with themselves, they feel like it is too late to change. Change is not easy, but a selfless life is not an empowered one, and it is way more difficult to keep living life at half speed.
With some structure, goal setting, and boundaries, you can still achieve a fulfilling life without taking anything away from the people around you. When you show up in your life with a soul on fire, everyone around you benefits from your light and confidence!
So, What Does an Empowerment Life Coach Do?
In summary, an empowerment life coach will help you discover your strengths and identify any weaker points and create a custom plan for success. You have your own unique set of skills and interests, so your empowerment model should be just as distinct!
Once we meet and get to the bottom of what sparks your soul AND identify what goals you want out of life, we can map out a customized path for getting you on a path of intentional living.
Are you wondering if working on empowerment life coaching is right for you? Schedule a consultation, and we can talk through your concerns and goals and the empowerment coaching model.
I give you the tools to identify your goals and help guide you along the way, but the work and achievement are all yours! You can transform your life into one you love to live. I can’t wait to show you what you can do!