Why some are successful in achieving their goals and others are not, is not a mystery.
From an early age, I counseled my friends. There was always a stream of friends into my house to talk with me and my mother, another natural counselor. People would tease that I was born a counselor.
When it was time to choose a career, I did not know what I wanted to do. My mother suggested Occupational Therapy. I had no idea what that was or how she found out about it, so I spent a summer volunteering in an OT Department and found I liked helping people, finding creative ways to motivate them and seeking solutions to their challenges.
With that experience, I was off to Boston University for a science degree in Occupational Therapy. After graduating and beginning to work in my chosen field, first as an intern then as a therapist, I soon realized that whether my patients adjusted to life with limitations or simply got better, was not something I could control. As a therapist, I knew exactly how to help them and what would work. I found that did not matter as much as the patient himself or herself. Some created miracles. Others got worse regardless of the interventions we provided. I had a spiritual experience or should I say a spirit-to-spirit experience. It was apparent some patients were dealing with spiritual challenges more than physical. I was not prepared for this aspect of their healing, so I left the profession.
From there, I moved into healthcare administration where I did not have to treat patients. At the same time, I enrolled in seminary to find spiritual answers to heal the spiritual side of people. Six years of training and I was off to give spiritual counseling, sure that I could finally tackle the underlying cause. In the end, I found the same result. Some of my parishioners were eager to find their spiritual wellness and to live a prosperous and happy life. Others, I found, did not want to change, were resistant to change or comfortable where they were even if it was not where they wanted to be. I was in a new profession with the same challenge, so I retired from the ministry.
As I meditated on what to do next, I decided I wanted to work with people who were focused on success, who wanted to do whatever it took to achieve their goals – business owners! I believed that business owners were a group of people who start their business and fully focus on its success.
During my years as a child counselor, therapist, and minister, I realized that I have a gift. I know how to achieve goals and was eager to work with whoever wanted success. Well, I have been working as a business coach for 20+ years and while most of the business owners I work with are, in fact, willing to see themselves and make changes, many others are not. In this new profession I fount the same challenges I experienced when I started as a therapist decades ago.
That brings me to the Women Achieving Goals Retreats that I conduct annually in my pursuit of supporting those who want to achieve their goals. Success begins with knowing that whether we do or do not reach a goal, it starts with us. There is no one to blame and no circumstance to blame. It is our thoughts about things and the concepts that we hold that get in our way. It is the energy and emotions that we stay in long after the event has passed that continues to create our reality. It is our perspective on ourselves, each other and our life that creates what we are experiencing right now and what we have or don’t have.
In coaching sessions and during retreats, the focus is self-reflection. Because we cannot always see the forest we are in, having someone to help guide us on our journey of self-discovery keeps us from believing our thoughts about things and our tendency to create a logical conclusion that deflects our awareness. These ideas are unproductive.
If you are achieving your goals, congratulations. You have a gift. If you find some area of your goals that never seems to manifest then go within and find what is in you that you can let go of whether it is a belief, an emotion, resistance to someone or something or a limited vision of success. Go within.
Best wishes on your success, Kay