There’s a difference between being happy in what you do and needing what you do to make you happy. It can be a pretty thin line. Lately, despite all my self coaching, I didn’t realize the extent to which I was needing my coaching to make me happy. Things have seemed to be looking good and then…nothin’. I’ve been in a holding pattern where not much is happening and I haven’t been able to figure out why. Until now.
I’ve been expecting my role as a coach to bring me complete and utter happiness. When I coach, I just have so much fun and I’m completely in my element. I’d love to do it most of the time. What I failed to realize was how completely wrapped up I’d become in being a coach and what that means to me.
In my pre-coach days, I was a stay-at-home mom, the support system for my family. I sacrificed myself to the needs of my family and expected to find happiness and a sense of self-worth in my efforts. But I was always looking outside of myself for the payoff. There were, however, no paychecks, there was no constant stream of outward displays of love and appreciation. All those hugs and kisses and little gifts of love were fabulous, but they weren’t enough. I was expecting my role of mom to fulfill me, to bring me joy and happiness, to complete me.
When I became a coach, I realized how skewed this thinking was. By identifying myself as just a mom, I wasn’t getting much bang for my buck. I was investing myself in the other members of my family and the role, but not in myself. I felt empty inside. I wanted more. I just didn’t know what.
I thought all that was over when I became a coach because I had found this new role from which I could gain fulfillment. Being a coach is fulfilling. I love the connection and relationships I have developed with other coaches and clients. They are like pure gold, but still, by themselves they aren’t enough.
I have expected three things to flow from my coaching which I believed would validate my worthiness and create happiness: money, clients, and followers. I have had them all off and on, but recently, not so much. And my self worth, self confidence, and happiness took a nosedive and were replaced by self doubt, confusion, and emptiness.
This is the problem that occurs when we look outside of ourselves for happiness. It’s great while we are getting the payoff, but when we don’t get it or it slows to a trickle, we become disconnected and live without the joy we really want.
I was doing it again – seeking happiness outside of myself just like when I was a stay-at-home mom. I overly identified myself in one role that is not, nor can ever be, all that I am. I was looking for happiness in a role and relying on its outcomes – money, clients, followers – to bring me happiness, a sense of worthiness, and a sense of fulfillment.
I had once again completely invested myself and my happiness in being some thing and earning external rewards. I forgot that true happiness comes from within. It comes from honoring the real, authentic me not some false external rewards that society tells me I should want.
When we do this, we cut ourselves off from the bigger picture of all we really are. We end up feeling lost, disconnected, confused, hopeless, and a host of other bad feeling emotions. All our self worth, all our connection, all our happiness can’t come from being any particular thing other than being the authentic, essential self.
The essential self is your inherent personality. It is the you that you are born being. It is your preferences, personality traits, likes, dislikes and it knows the path to your joy.
But there’s another part of you – the social self. The social self is the you that takes on the beliefs and norms of your culture, family, and any social organizations you belong to. It is responsible for your socially appropriate behavior. It is concerned with what others think and how you are perceived. It likes to fill people’s expectations of you by achieving external rewards which never leave you feeling fulfilled for long.
When the two selves agree, happiness ensues. But sometimes the social self rules without regard to the essential self. When the essential self wants something out of line with what the social self deems appropriate, the social self tries to shut down the essential self to act in accordance with what it thinks is right based on its accumulated system of beliefs. This results in feelings of disconnect, unhappiness, emptiness, numbness, and a lack of fulfillment.
When I overly identify myself as a coach and expect external rewards to make me happy, I am allowing my social self to run the show. When I simply engage in the act of coaching without regard to what anyone else thinks, when I do it simply because I love it, I am living from my essential self. And my coaching is a million times better because it is coming from a genuine and authentic place within me.
If you overly identify yourself in one or two primary roles or if you think external rewards will bring you happiness, then your social self is running the show. Know that you are so much more and underneath all of that social self stuff, the essential self is there, trying to tell you how to get the lasting happiness you truly want. Know that when you feel bad, you are simply out of alignment with your true self. Getting back in touch is all you need to access those feelings of happiness, joy, and fulfillment.