The best part about being a Life Coach is just how humbling it is. I spend one minute coaching, consulting and guiding others and the very second I think I just might have it figured out, I am amazed by my complete inability to apply to those same principles myself. Indeed, it is easy to dish it and oh-so-much more difficult to take my own advice and benefit from my own wisdom. The same wisdom we’re all equipped with.
Now, I can’t resist, I must share my humbling morning. A morning that I pulled out all the stops trying like everything to “make it a great day”. Something that proved more difficult than I’d anticipated.
I got up at my usual time, 6am, made breakfast, enjoyed my shower, and stood staring blankly into my closet. Today I would spend most of the workday doing one of my top five LEAST favorite things in the world: accounting and taxes for the boutique web design firm that I contract with.
After last year I swore I’d never be the tax preparer again, so you can understand my sentiment. Back to the closet. I had a rather larger decision to make. Everything in my wanted to throw on my yoga pants, tennis shoes, and a hoodie and call it good. If taxes were the occasion I was going to unenthusiastically dress the part. But wait… I stopped myself.
I coached myself into dressing the way I wanted to feel.
Instead of my yoga getup, I put my makeup on, straightened my hair, put my favorite Rock & Republic jeans, a nice black turtleneck, my new pearly fun necklace with matching earrings, and my verrrrry favorite savvy leather loafers. I even decided to bring my cute purse instead of my more convenient messenger bag or backpack. I completed my look with my red pea coat, a smile and my mantra for the day, “I will do all things joyfully.” Yes, friends, I was ready to seize the day, armed with cute clothes and a positive attitude.
This is the part where I realize that we’re all human and we all get rained on… literally. I spent the hour before buckling down to work doing the following:
Driving downtown
Navigating construction and finding parking
Walking to Starbucks
Reading over iced coffee
… and then it happened… It started POURING down rain and I had a 5 minute walk to my car to get my umbrella. Are you kidding me?! The one day that I dressed up and fought like hell to be happy? Really? Yes. Really. I swung open the door and off into the rain I went. My hair was a flat mess, I could feel how it must have looked. My favorite shoes were expensive and leather, my computer was gathering rain and I was certain my face was wet enough to wash away all my makeup.
Yes, I was particularly proud of my makeup application skills today – that doesn’t always happen. And then I remember my mantra, “I will do all things joyfully,” adding, “even walking in the rain.” and then I thought to myself, “Some people walk in the rain and others just get wet.” Whoever said that was brilliant and I certainly didn’t want to be an “other.” So, I decided to practice what I preach on my training and consulting gigs. I smiled. I picked up my stride and put the peppy “purpose” back in my walk and imagined the joy I would have had playing in this rain as a child.
I even remembered another principle I’d applied when dressing for the day: “Dress to impress yourself.” And I had dressed as just that. I felt good about my efforts regardless of my expectation that this look would only last for an hour. I made it to my car to find an umbrella that I’d forgotten about. Feeling proud of my efforts to defy the odds, I got distracted and smashed my finger in between the umbrella spokes and after checking for bleeding, never before have I been so glad my fingers were half frozen. The finger smashing didn’t hurt nearly as bad as it could have. As for the bleeding? That came about 3 minutes later when my fingers thawed.
I told my fingers to buck up and felt pleased that I’d arrived – frazzled – but still in mostly good spirits. I spent the rest of the day with my headphones on, forehead flexing with brain activity, repeating my joyful mantra, keeping quite unless I had something nice to say, and appreciating that I have work I am capable of things that require problem solving. I would survive. And occasionally stretching to rid myself of the humpback I was attempting to mimic, taking a few deep sighs and being thankful that this would indeed be my very last year preparing taxes. As for my own taxes, don’t even get me started. I am getting a massage this weekend.
Sometimes it takes a lot to “Make it a great day,” doesn’t it? But the effort is worth it.
What do you do to self-coach your way to a brighter day moment to moment? Let us all benefit from each other by sharing your experiences below!
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