I’m going to tell you about a great lesson I had in life balance coaching that I wasn’t expecting this week that shocked me and woke me up to the reality that my depressed client was so focused on helping others she has no goals she could think of to work on and no real passion for anything when it comes to her own advancement or happiness. This lady retired from a hi-tech writing position 10 years ago at age 50, and she’s now a very unhappy 60 year old woman in Silicon Valley who spends 100% of her time supporting her retired husband, her son who’s writing his thesis in a small southern California college and daughter who calls every night from Philadelphia with her own problems at work, and her ailing parents who her other siblings just leave it up to little Miss Caretaker to do all the caring for their aging parents.

I was shocked by her nasty attitude towards me because I was coaching her to think of her own goals, dreams, and future and what she wanted to accomplish in the next six months, but she kept refusing my help. I had her reeling and rocking, dealing with and feeling her loss from not pursuing her own interests for it seems most of her life. She was close to tears because I asked the right set of questions to cause her to start grappling with the reason for her unhappiness, and that is she gives and never receives in the way she expects to be paid back.

Life balance coaching ensures you follow your heart

It’s sad to see a person in so much intense pain because they’ve forgotten how to feel and think about their own needs. You can see that they have full heartedly submitted themselves to everyone else around them because they want love and connection. If nothing is done about it, they can become forever trapped in the mindset of helping others and never realize where their own happiness actually comes from.

As a life balance coach, I’m very aware that contribution to others is a wonderful thing, but you can loose site of your own passions for living which can throw you off balance in life. This 60-year-old woman should care for her family and attend to their needs, but how can she do this while she also achieves a level of balance and success in her own life?

Coaching advice: I don’t care what you think

To gain a level of personal balance in life, you need to schedule time weekly to take care of yourself. While coaching Little Miss Caretaker it became clear to me that her family would prefer she focus on her own needs at times to give them a break. They don’t always want to be taken care of.

My life balance coaching advice for my clients is to not care about what others think, but live your life as if you’re a complete person. Don’t always put yourself on the back burner and allow everyone to dump their responsibilities and problems on you like this woman’s family has done so they can pursue their own goals while you continue to defer your own interests.

Don’t be just a people pleaser. Make sure everyone is doing their own part, and that they’re not dumping on you because they’re self absorbed. Life balance coaching looks at relationships as a team of players. If one person in the relationship is out of balance, it is often true that others in the team may be off balance as well.

Give this strategy a try and see for yourself that it works. If you liked this coaching tip, leave a comment or use the handy bookmark buttons below to share it with others on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, etc. Thanks!

Donald Hunter
Certified JTS Accountability And Strategy Coach