Recently, I’ve been thinking that I may benefit from having a life coach or a career coach. It sounds a bit odd for me to want to ask a random person to help me to gain clarity about my goals and desires, but it definitely seems like I have not been doing enough for myself in these aspects.
One aspect that is blocking me is that I don’t really understand how these services would help. I don’t have a clear picture of where I want to go or who I want to be, so I’m not sure what the coach would have to go off of. I think these services probably work best when the person has a specific goal in mind and the coach is experienced in that area of expertise and is able to enumerate steps to get to achieve the goal. Also, coaching is relatively expensive and takes an extended period of time to reap results, so it’s hard for me to jump in without doubts.
Another aspect that is blocking me is my mental state or personality. Often times I can’t distinguish between the two, especially in the scenario of relationships. I could see how a therapist or a life coach could help in that aspect – like helping me think more positively about myself, helping me improve my self confidence, learning how to have more empathy and desire to care about random strangers that I may or may not ever interact with ever again. One example of this is my current thinking that it is ok that I’m not in a relationship with a significant other. One reason that it’s ok is because I feel that there are better options out there. I would be doing the other person a disservice by consuming their time and energy when they could be have a more fulfilled life with someone else. For this example, I can envision the argument where someone says that “Oh, Jeffrey is depressed or has low self esteem”, but at as certain point, I feel like I might just have a pessimistic personality. And do I want to change my personality? Perhaps, but what if this is part of who I am, my identity, I wouldn’t want to change that on a whim, right?
Jeffrey's Thoughts 