I feel recently as if I have been a broken record, repeating the same thing but to different people. Actually it is the same thing to the same people.
Women, and mothers out there, listen up- this is for you...
Life Coaching is all about time and space. It may seem that those 2 things are just the exact 2 things that women and mothers don’t have enough of, so why spend any little to spare with a coach?
Because:
- Coaching gives you the time and space to come out of your everyday and get some perspective on what is being all jumbled in your head
- Time and space with a coach will come back at you 10x over in terms of a less stressful life, increased organisation, better relationships, increased confidence, better time management...
- If you don’t think you’ve got time for a coach, then you NEED time with a coach.
Mothers easily forget that we are the most important person in our lives. As much as we are the centre of our little ones lives and that of our partners, book clubs, playgroups, Parent committees etc, we are that concerned with giving to others we forget that we need to give to ourselves.
Don’t have time?
Can’t manage even a bath of an evening to yourself?
Taking me time seems too selfish when there’s so much to do and so many others who need you first?
Take this analogy I love to use:
Air stewards explain in their safety demonstration that in times of emergency, you must attach your own oxygen mask first, before attending to others.
If you are not ok, then you are of no use to anyone else. It cannot be explained better any other way!
If you are running at less than 100% you can only give less than 100%. Despite all your best efforts to the contrary, believing that if you work all hours and say ‘yes’ to everyone, then you are giving 100% to those you love.
No. You are running yourself ragged. You are stressed. You are grumpy. You are tired. You are less than your best.
To put it in flying terms: your loved ones oxygen masks are on but yours isn’t and at any moment now, your oxygen is going to run out.
So why coaching for women and for mothers? Why not just advocate a hot bath every now and then and some quiet time in a cafe once a month?
Because in the world of mums, if it’s not on the calendar, in the diary or on the school newsletter, it just doesn’t get priority. Can you imagine thinking of having a bath and then remembering that the ironing needs to be done, or that project needs to be completed before Science class tomorrow or 3 dozen cupcakes need to be baked for the fair at the weekend... that bath just won’t happen!
Just as you book in a haircut once in a while or take your car in for a regular MOT, or go to regular parent/teacher evenings so too is coaching about regular maintenance: of your goals, of your health and well-being, of your connection to your needs (your oxygen).
Coaching allows you time to think and to make change. It gives you the space to explore different options and possibilities. It helps you to create the frame of mind, the organisation and the will that eventually allows you to have that bath regularly, to have that coffee break regularly, and to go to the cinema on occasion.
It allows you to become 100% therefore enabling you to give to those you love the 100% they deserve and you rightfully wish to give them. It’s a win/win situation.
Taking up sessions with a coach, might be a big leap from where you are right now, scrabbling around for your oxygen mask. What I ask of mums out there are these first few baby steps to being at 100%:
- think about what you might need from those around you every now and then instead of the opposite: try to fix your mask on first at least a few times in a week...
Start small: with baby steps, eventually you learn to run!
Wishing you 100% for the future.
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