Now What?® Coaching

from Laura Berman Fortgang

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Who do you think you are? Your TRUE identity is the building block to your right path.

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By Jill Berquist, Now What? A-Team

To figure out WHO you are, examine what you are living for.

Thomas Merton said: “If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I think I am living for, in detail, and ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for. Between these two answers you can determine the identity of any person.”  (Thomas Merton was a monk, and one of the best Catholic authors of the 20th century. He also sounds like the consummate career coach:-)

It is easy to live in the more superficial level that Merton describes.  Just yesterday morning, as my daughter shook sleep off her 13-year old body around 9:00 a.m. to get ready for a Bar Mitzvah service for a friend, she was a billboard for outer layer concerns.  As are the masses of tween and teens in the world. Is my hair okay or does it look ugly?  Will people think I am wearing the same dress too many times?  But teens are not the only ones concerned with this.  Issues of status, appearances, compensation, lifestyle, and career titles (attorney, sales director, consultant, controller) –the outer layers of one’s existence, are huge for many and certainly many of my clients in transition. We get very attached to that element of ourselves…sometimes it really feels like our identity.  Figuring out what lies beneath this is not easy. Yet, if you are here reading this, consider yourself in the small percentage of soul identity adventurers who at least dare to attempt it.  article continues here

Keep Listening

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by Ginny Kravitz, Deputy Editor

When changing directions, often all that’s needed is to find the entry point of your new path vs. having to map out the entire route. What happens after you take that leap of faith and you’re a few steps down the new path?  In today’s article, we learn the answer from three clients who recently shared their thoughts on this question: How do you listen to your life?  full article here

“HOW” Is The Enemy of Progress

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by Now What?® Coaching Founder, Laura Berman Fortgang

In working with a recent client, I was once again reminded of how easily we can get stopped by the ‘how’ of making our deepest  desires a reality.  It makes sense.  How can we proceed if we don’t know how to do so?  However, over the years, I have come to see how people take what can be a legitimate concern and turn it into a reason to procrastinate.

“I’ll need more training”

“I should probably research this more.”

“I need more information to get started.”

Yes, we need to be educated and prepared when it comes to starting a new business or setting out on an adventure, but there comes a time where the preparation becomes counterproductive and begins to stall progress altogether.

How do you know when you’re spinning your wheels or when you are really in need of knowledge to proceed?

  • If you’re avoiding conversations that could make you money
  • If you’re spending hours and hours working on your business alone
  • If you’re really comfortable doing whatever you’re doing (studying, web surfing, etc)
  • If you’re obsessed with thoughts about ‘what if’s’ and ‘Buts’

If you are up to any of the above, you are in the “knowledge-collection-as-procrastination” zone.

Comfort should never be part of the equation.  If you’re comfortable, you’re hiding, you’re not growing and making progress.  If you’re obsessing about a future that is not even here yet, you are living in tomorrow and not taking care of today which implies getting started.  If you’re not out talking to people (prospects, mentors, vendors, providers), you are not letting nature takes its course.

What we see with Now What?® clients is that an acceleration of progress toward the desired outcome, only starts to occur when you are out talking to people and actively shaking hands, talking and asking for help.  The result is often resources pointed to, other people introduced to you, solutions appearing and growth occurring.  Starting a venture cannot happen alone in a vacuum.

The HOW is revealed piece by piece and often, can only become clear by taking the parking brake off and letting the car roll down the hill.  That is what I asked my client to do.  I asked her to get out there and just start.  It doesn’t have to be with a business plan in place, yet.  I asked her to get out there and collect “templates, contacts and strategies”.  THAT will begin the linear HOW’s she was looking for.

What if you really do need more knowledge like a degree program or a training of some kind?  You’ll know it because the obvious pre-requisites will make themselves known.  You can’t set up a therapy practice without a license, you won’t be flying a plane anytime soon without a pilot’s training and license and you won’t be selling financial products or real estate without passing the exams.  However, most of the time, the obstacles are self-imposed and born out of your own fears.

If you are committed to be the best at this next, new thing, you’ll do what it takes.  You won’t let a few extra requirements stop you.  But that does not mean wait until it’s all done.  It means get out there and start the car rolling down the hill.  You can always put the brakes on, but soon you’ll be on an exciting ride and wondering why you waited so long to get moving.