Conscious choices
There was a time, not too long ago, when I saw other women coaches and wondered how they could look so happy. They were living their dream, finding time for themselves, and just seemed at peace. Of course, this is not to say they didn’t have any struggles in their lives but just that overall they seemed at peace. The skeptic within me thought they were out of touch with reality, living an almost fraudulent life! How dare they smile and laugh and have a fresh new perspective on life when I was still slogging through my days, feeling overwhelmed at times with trying to find a glimmer of myself between my work life and home life? I judged them. Judged them for leaving the institution of medicine altogether, or at the very least for trying to live life on their terms.
When I would hear advice about setting aside time for myself everyday, I thought it was a joke. Those were lofty ideals that weren’t possible for people in the trenches. They would say to “find your passion” and I scoffed at that. My passions when I was younger seemed so irrelevant and outdated. What was I passionate about? Seems like I had some work to do.
2019 brought me on a new journey of mental health and coaching. I met with my coach who was assigned to me through a leadership program I was in. Through therapy I learned to undo decades of maladaptive thought patterns and behaviors and through coaching, I learned to discover myself. The space between who you were and who you are yet to be is an uncomfortable and vulnerable one. I didn’t want to fall back into old ways of being—not with myself, not at work and not with my family. The act of renegotiating the terms of my relationships was hard and required me to fiercely protect my boundaries; in fact establishing boundaries is something I still struggle with but I am aware of its importance.
The fateful day for me was the last day of the Fundamentals course with CTI. At the end of a powerful, thought provoking and monumentally energetic 3 days, all I could think of was “ What have I been doing with my life thus far?” Everything I had achieved in my life at that point seemed to pale in comparison to the life-altering experience of coaching.
I recently met with a woman, a physician at an academic medical center, juggling her career, her family obligations and her own health. She was struggling to manage it all—the incessant work in the electronic medical record, caring for ill family members, finding time for her own medical visits. While I didn’t have the answers to her specific career struggles, I wanted her to understand the importance of not getting lost in the shuffle. I shared my story and encouraged her to find some time every day for herself, whether it was to take 15 minutes doing something she loved or even just enjoying her cup of coffee. I heard myself saying “I know this sounds lofty and out there, but it’s so important because if you are not here or are unable to function, then all those tasks on your to-do list won’t get done anyway.”
She seemed receptive. And as lofty and idealistic as it may sound, finding a few minutes of solitude or doing something special for ourselves needs to be a priority. I looked back on the past several years and was proud of myself for how far I had come in my own personal journey towards wellness and living with purpose each and every day. It may be in the small moments of reading a book or spending quality time with my family but all of it can be healing. I realized that finding your passion isn’t necessarily a destination but may be more of a journey. I also realized how easy it is to fall back into old ways of being—overextending ourselves, not having boundaries, and living each day on autopilot—when instead we have the power to make conscious decisions about how we live our day to day.
This is the essence of balance, a coaching principle that applies not only with our clients but in how we live each and every day of our amazing lives.
So my question for you is this: In your daily life, what are some conscious choices you have made?