As I carried a box of office accumulation from my office on one of my last days of work, I ran into a colleague who didn't realize that I was making my exit from the organization. I told her I was entering a transition period during which I would explore new career options. She, and a number of others before her, remarked how courageous it was of me to leave my current position before having a new one in hand. I didn't think it courageous at all. To continue to be bored with my work seemed among the worst option that I faced; I just didn't want to do that any more.
As she and I continued to talk, I related five or six areas of interest that had been sparked in me. I said I wanted to explore each of them in some way until I found a place where I wanted to land for a while. I would try it out, and, if I enjoyed it and felt like I was making a contribution, I would continue. If I didn't enjoy it, I hadn't lost anything, except maybe a few weeks or months. I would move to another option on my list. I was quite excited about the menu of options before me. And, I was excited by the adventure of trying new things.
When both health coaching and refugee involvement--both items on my list--bombarded me with opportunities in early January, I was excited. I truly enjoyed being in learning mode with both. I truly felt fully alive. Then I finished the class about 10 days ago. As a bonus for completion, the organization offered us a significant discount on a number of items, including additional classes, that would help establish our health coaching practices...when purchased within two weeks of the completion of the first course.
I've been to the site a few times. I've stewed a lot. Is this really what I want to do? What about all those other things on my list that I haven't had the opportunity to explore yet? Do I want to abandon the executive, life, and spiritual coaching, which have been the foci of my work over 25 years, or do I want health coaching to be one more offering? This hadn't been unhealthy or obsessive overthinking, and often not even conscious questioning, but more like a soundtrack to my daily life.
Since I have decided to do more focused self-exploration during the 40-day Lenten season, I decided to start the process by drawing a "transformation" card* to focus my meditation. "Allow Yourself to Fail," it read. Among other admonitions, it continued, "Redefine 'failure' as 'steps toward progress'--a means of learning."*
I am rarely concerned about making mistakes, and I often joke that I prefer to work in pencil instead of pen because it allows me to fix mistakes more easily. However, I realized that in regard to this transition that I'd allowed myself to fall into the trap of limiting my options. I recalled the conversation I related above and wondered where I had let my sense of exploratory adventure go. All of a sudden, I had narrowed myself to a "Is it a yes or is it a no?" with regard to a health coaching practice.
Ah! I don't need to do that: additional meaning for "Allow Yourself to Fail." I have a graduate degree in management, and my marketing machine is a well-oiled one. When I started my consulting business in the early 1990s, the editor of the local business journal called me. He wanted to do an article about my marketing because he said everywhere he'd turned in the last two months, he'd hear something about me or read something about me. I know how to do that...well.
What I don't know how to do so well is not market, not have cards and brochures, not have a business plan--all the things that people do to keep their businesses from failing. You've got to be fully in--fully committed to your success all the books say. But I was more interested in sticking my toe in the water to check the temperature rather than jumping off the high dive. To "Allow Yourself to Fail" doesn't mean that I have to fail: it just means that I am willing to give myself that possibility.
Which is exactly where I was when I ran into the colleague when I was moving out of my office in December. "If it doesn't work, what did I lose?" I will now allow myself to shake free of all that Graduate School of Management programming and stick my toe in several pools of water before deciding where to dive in.
I recognize this pattern other places in my life. Something from outside of me pressures me to make a decision--a commitment--to something before I am really ready. Then I figure out how to "do it right," which inevitably puts me on a course from which it is difficult to deviate. Before I know it, I am years into something I didn't want to be doing. This time I really want to shop carefully. I want to make a decision that is correct for me, not because of external pressure...and then I want to allow myself to fail.
*www.ToolkitForTransformation.com
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