I have been a
client of Karen Jore for over 9 months.If
you are considering hiring a personal coach, read what I have to say below.
If
you still have questions, you are welcome to contact me through Life Track.
The
Top Ten Things I Dealt With While Having a Karen Jore as my Personal Coach:
Have vision for yourself.This was an easy one for me. I went into coaching with Karen with
lots of scattered ideas for my life, my career, my future - all
possibilities butno real
plans of action.
Believe in the vision you
set for your future.This one was a little harder for me. I had lots of enthusiasm for
the ideas themselves and not much practice with pairing my enthusiasm with
the practical work of achieving my goals.
Desire your goals.
This sounds a lot easier than it really is. For years when I thought about my future and my career I relied on
the satisfaction I got from simply thinking "someday I'll be a
self-employed jewelry artist," but I never did anything about it.
The enthusiasm and wishful thinking I would feel when I thought
about my goals wore thin, and I became frustrated with realizing that a
couple weeks, a few months, a whole year, had slipped away. I think every one of us has secret goals they desire for
themselves, but how many of us really have attained everything we think we
should have attained by age __ (fill in your age)? Not a one. But we can
certainly try. For me a big hurdle was simply recognizing that I wanted
and needed to change my life and my career and only the desire to really
do it would spur me on.
Be intent on your goals and
vision.I was really set in a routine with the 9-5 job, going out or away
on weekends, etc. My job was ok, but I didn't love it. When I started
working with Karen by making the weekly call, it was hard for me to break
the old easy habits of going out a lot with friends, to start to make
lists of tasks I could do, and re-work my time management to be more
directed and focused. It was overwhelming in a way, even though all the
tasks I set for myself were things I wanted to do, in theory.Karen would ask what could I commit to doing each week. In the
beginning this was foreign; my "bad-habit" self would balk and
say "you don't have enough time to do all this stuff" but I did
learn to ignore those kinds of feelings once I took action and felt the
thrill/rush of slowly accomplishing each step of my goal.
Take actions towards your
goals.I would say this is where I am now.I have learned how to manage my time, how to restrain my old habits
of trying to do a lot of projects and not giving any of them proper
attention, how to judge what I can expect to do in a given week, and how
to continue to work in spite of fears of failing. Fear was a huge obstacle
for me to get around, and looking back I feel like I put a boulder in my
own way and then tried to scramble up over it, instead of just keeping my
path clear in the first place. Fear bred inaction for me. I learned to
step back from it and consciously say to myself, "Ok, if I were
confident about this, how would I be acting? What would I be doing?"
and then try to live out the answer. It worked but it was a hard one.
Accept each step of
attaining your goals.I've learned to discipline myself to a weekly schedule of things I
want to do, and also to consciously take time to feel the satisfaction of
having accomplished what I set for myself. Looking back over my
crossed-out weekly schedules in my "Coach" folder is a big plus
for me, but in addition to this, is the acceptance of not being able to
achieve everything I might set out to achieve. There is a lot to learn
about yourself when you start working with a personal coach and one of
them is limits and/or how much you can do in a week, how much time is
right for you in terms of achieving a specific goal, etc. Believe me, I
made mistakes thinking things would be easier than they turned out to be!
The Coach/Client
Relationship.I find that having Karen as a personal coach is like having a
personal trainer; you first have to want to change something about
yourself.You show up at the
gym to meet your personal trainer; similarly you call Karen each week for
the 1/2 hour.Your coach
won't do the work for you: just like how a personal trainer will spot you
on the weights, but won't lift them for you, Karen will support you in
reaching for your goals and your vision of yourself, but she won't force
you if you stop helping yourself on your own.She helps you figure out how to move your life forward
in the same way that a personal trainer figures out your gym workouts for
you.And similar to how you
reach a point where you're in the physical shape you want and are
motivated enough to do gym workouts without a personal trainer, there will
come a point with Karen where you've gotten to where you want to be and
have the good habits established to keep you going.
It's Not Therapy.
You can't go on and on about why you're in the bad/misfortunate place
you're in and can talk very little about how it makes you feel.What you concentrate on, what you talk about,and what you plan for with Karen is what you can actively do to
make your life the one you want, starting with today.It's not about your past; it's about your future.There is no whining; there is only good-vibe-producing planning and
doing on your part. No one achieves their life goals by moping around on
their dark side. We've all got them and when they crop up they should not
be ignored. But that's not what coaching is about - it's about making
practical, positive, and effective changes that you think of and that you put in place in your life. Karen is there to guide you through that
process.
"I'm too
independent/I'm creative enough/I don't need a coach to achieve my
goals."Are you the person you envisioned you'd be at the age you are,
having done and achieved everything you set out to do in life? Yes? Then
you probably don't need a coach and you're 1% of the population. But if
you answered no, I suggest you try the weekly coaching call. I didn't
really think I needed Karen as my coach.I was of the mindset that if I really wanted to do something I'd do
it.But I gave it a try and
here I am 9 months later after starting to work with Karen and I've gotten
more done, in terms of changing my career from 9-5 corporate zombie to
almost being a self-employed jewelry artist, than I did in my 29 years
previous to that.
Karen is pronounced "Carn,"
like "yarn." She's Norwegian.
