The life coaching business paradox is: in order to do what you love; you have to do what you don’t love. The biggest coaching career myth is that if you do what you love, then the money will come. Or, if you follow your passion you’ll become the best in the world at what you do. Unfortunately, this type of thinking is the kiss of death for your life coaching business.
In the life coaching business you’ll do lots of things you don’t love or that you aren’t good at, and, consequently, will take time away from doing what you do love. If you do not, your coaching career will never get off the ground. If you look at the people with the most successful coaching career, they are not always the best coaches but they are good business and sales people. It doesn’t seem fair but that’s the way it is.
Your Coaching Career: The Short Term Long Term Paradox
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Things that get good results in short term, don’t get good results long term, and vies versa. In your life coaching business you need to think long term. The problem is that we’re not programmed to think long term. And in order to make it long term in a coaching career, you’ll have to give up some things in short term. The biggest challenge is determining how to negotiate short and long term results. If you only focus on long term results you won’t survive. If you only think about short term results you’ll just keep going in a in a circle. The real challenge is finding the balance, and being flexible enough to adapt to changes in your life coaching business.
The Doritos Culture and Your Life Coaching Business
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We live in a culture that’s all about short term thinking, especially in terms of getting needs met. We live off snacks, twitter, emails, and business activity that provides immediate results. We want short term pleasure and we do that with our life coaching business as well as our diets. And our coaching career suffers just like if you eat a bag of Doritos. It may be enjoyable, but it’s not good for you in the long term.
How to Overcome Your Doritos Mentality in Your Coaching Career
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The trick to having a successful life coaching business is not to never eat Doritos. It’s to give yourself mental Doritos instead. The way to do that is to visualize what you’ll get in the future, and then create an identity about who you are and connect with that part. Make sure you watch for things that will keep you from your ultimate coaching career goal. Don’t accumulate those things; work on eliminating them over a course of a month. Learn to find the joy and pleasure even in things that take a long time to do.
The key to avoiding the life coaching business paradox is to realize that it exists. Don’t allow yourself to be sucked into the career coaching myth that doing what you love will give you success. Make sure you are able to switch back and forth between your short term and long term strategies, and be you’ll be ready to pull up your sleeves and do what it takes for your life coaching business to be successful.
Colette Seymann
JTS Advisors Designated Accountability Coach




