Category Archives: Life Coaching

To Change Or Not To Change

The biggest difficulty with discussing change is the vastness of the areas change can encompass.  To make this complex topic more manageable, let’s categorize change into one of three levels.

Level 1 change would be the no thought and no choice changes in our lives.  One example would be aging.  While we might fight to keep our bodies from breaking down, we have no control over the fact that with every passing moment we are aging.  Another example of level 1 would be the seasons.  Aside from living at the equator, everyone lives in areas where each season is marked with some kind of change.  Yes, it is your choice of where you live but you have no say in how the seasons play out, just how you deal with them.

Level 2 changes would be ones where little thought and energy is needed to enact.  Some examples would include buying food and putting gasoline in your car.  When the cupboards and refrigerator are running low on food you have to change your routine to go to the store and purchase more.  Even if part of your regular routine is shopping for food, you still make choices about what food you buy.  If you are part of the small percentage of people who always shop at the same time and always buy the same items then this could get elevated to level 3 should some change happen.  The same holds true for putting fuel in our cars.  Most of us don’t stop by the gas station at the same time on the same day each week; most of us go when our car tells us it is low on fuel.

Level 3 changes are the ones that give us the most grief.  These are the ones that require a fair amount of thought to perform and usually more energy.  Examples would include learning a new skill, like driving a car for the first time, or trying a shift in our lives, like leaving our job or changing a relationship.  These are the ones we dread the most.

When asking the question, “to change or not to change,” it’s the level 3 changes most people want to avoid.  We’re okay with level 1 because, well, we have no choice.  Level 2 doesn’t bother us much because they’re part of our normal living experience.  They can be inconvenient at times, like getting home to find the refrigerator bare and having to go back out for food, but we don’t give them a lot of thought.  Level 3’s on the other hand cause us pain, agony, anxiety, and just about every other negative adjective you can bring to mind.  They’re also the ones that, once accomplished, can bring us the most happiness, joy, and good fortune imaginable.

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Fate or Personal Choice

Many years ago, during one of my life coaching classes, I took part in a discussion of fate versus personal choice.  It wasn’t surprising, because of the subject matter, to see everyone in the class pick the argument that our lives are totally ours to choose what to do.  I found myself standing alone among two dozen people.  My argument is that life is both.

I’ve always had a hard time making the argument for one versus the other.  To say everything is fated takes away any freedom in our choices and to say that everything is personal choice takes away the possibility of a bigger picture (a view larger than all of us combined.)

I maintain that the universe, God, the collective consciousness – life – has at least an overview of a designed path for each of us.  Within that design we have the free will to choose whatever direction we want, including the ability to go completely opposite of the big picture.  The issue that arises is that life isn’t always clear about which direction it wants us to take.  This leads to a lot of bumbling around, testing different options, and making some less than perfect moves.

What I’ve found is if the desired direction is a very important one, life will keep throwing it in front of you, no matter how many times you wonder away from it.  Writing this blog is a good example.  I’ve been told by a multitude of people over the past four or five years that I should be sharing my thoughts with everyone.  I kept choosing to not do it, and yes I had plenty of excuses of why I couldn’t do it – it wasn’t always a conscious choice to turn away.  Yet, time and again someone else would bring it back to my attention until now when I decided to follow it.

I don’t know why it so important for me to write this regularly, but it is.  Maybe it’s to help you with your life path choices.  Maybe it’s to help me with my life choices.  Maybe it’s some of both.  While the final goal may not be clear, it is clear this is what I should be doing and I’ve made a choice to do it.  I can say that a part of me is relieved and excited about this path while another part is scared and stressed, but that’s a story for another day.

The point I’m trying to make is life has a design, a fate if you will, for each of us.  At the same time, we have the free will to choose whatever direction we want to follow, regardless of how that fits with the big design.  The best part of being able to make our own choices is that we never have to stay with any one choice.  If one way isn’t right, we can go another way or another way.

If you find yourself really stressing over the path you are on, it’s probably because there are new choices for you to make.  Is it time to make a different choice to get a different, and maybe better, result?  Who knows it might relieve the stress and increase your life’s excitement.

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Life Path Inspirations

It was a crystal clear, winter night like many others that was to turn into one of the most wonderful days of my entire life.  It was a night I wasn’t ready for and didn’t expect for another two weeks.

At 1 o’clock in the morning I was driving my wife to the hospital, our first child preparing to enter this world.  It was early February; the air was cold and the sky clear.  Traveling the country road to the main highway we passed a herd of 12 deer, the most we had seen at one time.  They looked up and watched as we passed, almost acknowledging our passing, before returning to their grazing.

Because of the late hour we entered the hospital through the emergency entrance.  The staff was very busy and the admitting nurse visibly relieved to have someone pass her way that was not injured.  We were escorted to the maternity ward where we were greeted by a friend who had taught our Lamaze classes.  By 2 o’clock the doctor had arrived and did the initial examination of mother and baby.  Both were well, the baby’s vitals very strong.  The one problem, the baby was breach (butt down instead of head down.)  This meant a trip to the operating room instead of the birthing room.

In the operating room I encountered a team of doctors, nurses, and technicians. To this day they remain the best working team I’ve ever seen.  Everyone knew their job and performed it when needed – it was amazing to watch.  I held my wife’s hand as she drifted off to sleep.  The work began and I was in awe of it all.  Experiencing the miracle of birth was inspiring and humbling.  There is a lot we can do with technology and medicine but neither can create life.

Then the moment came… it was the hardest moment of my life.  On my right was my wife, my love, in an induced sleep.  On my left was this new life, my daughter.  My wife was going to be brought to recovery while my daughter to the nursery.  There I stood, looking at one then the other and I couldn’t decide which one needed me more or which direction to head.   I expect this wasn’t the first time the staff had witnessed a father in this state.  One of them gently told me to go with my daughter while they took care of my wife.  In that meek and relieved voice I said, “okay.”

I was expecting to be a bystander in the nursery but life had other plans.  Over the next 24 hours more than a dozen new children would crowd into the nursery but that early morning there was only one other and my new daughter.  I was invited by the nurses to help with her cleaning, measuring, and taking of the foot print.  We wrapped her in a blanket and put a little pink cap on her head.  Then the nurse handed me my new baby daughter and motioned to a rocking chair nearby.  I sat down and was able to feed her a bottle of sugar water, her first meal.

It was new beginning for her as well as a new beginning for me.  These are the experiences that define us, who we are and what path we follow.  Many of the decisions I’ve made over the past 20 years can be traced back to this event.  We all have defining moments, or events, that change us.  Sometimes they are lost to the fading memory of time.

I challenge you to look back at your life and remember a time or an event that helped you choose your path.  Remember, our life path isn’t a straight line; it bends, turns sharply, and sometimes meanders in different directions.  What has inspired you to change your path?

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