In a recent blog post I wrote about the personal meltdown that I experienced five years ago. I talked about hitting a low point in my life where it seemed like I made all the wrong decisions and ended up broke, divorced, laid off, and desperately looking for answers.
This was a painful time in my life that shook my foundation to it’s core and woke me up. Everything I had worked hard for had fallen apart and I found myself in unfamiliar territory…feeling alone, hopeless, and lost.
Fortunately I had the insight to seek help and I hired a coach to help me begin rebuilding my life. Slowly I began to dream again.
I started getting glimpses of a new and better life, but these glimpses would only show up in flashes that were often undefined and infrequent.
I knew that I was on a new path – a path where I felt a strong urge to serve others in a new and creative way.
Working with my coach, Shelley Hawkins, I began to see how I could leverage my newfound clarity to build a career and life that really mattered to me.
I was learning to live unapologetically, in alignment with the truth of who I really was.
I never could have anticipated what happened next in my life. The more aligned I became with my inner desires, the more my life seemed to support me!
I was getting raises and bonuses at work, I met and married the most amazing woman in the world, I started a little blog which led to a few coaching clients which led to getting paid for work that I love.
Who’da thought I could have all this?
Certainly not me just a few years earlier.
By working with Shelley, I started to believe that I deserved to have good things happen to me. My personal collapse a few years earlier allowed me to see that unless I was brave enough to trust and believe in myself, that life would be a series of endless storms, slamming me against the rocks.
It didn’t happen overnight, but I decided to start trusting my inner desires and slowly pursuing the people, activities and experiences that interested me the most. And by doing so, I began to listen to my own inner wisdom instead of all the ‘noise’ out there.
What Came Next & Why It Matters
Another little storm hit in August of 2013. I was laid off from my six-figure corporate job.
But something had changed in me. I had used what I learned from Shelley to literally reinvent my life.
I had learned how to pursue meaningful work outside of my job and had started generating income by coaching a few clients that also wanted to start doing more meaningful work.
I had learned how to embrace change and pursue creative freedom outside of my job. I wasn’t getting rich, but I was building a life around the people, projects and activities that meant the most to me.
I felt like I had cracked the code for reinventing my life in a more meaningful way.
This matters because Shelley and I sat down three months ago to discuss this process of reinvention. She had also gone through some personal struggles which gave her the opportunity to re-emerge as a brighter and more complete version of herself.
The result of this discussion was a revelation of sorts. We both realized that we had been through similar phases, felt similar things, and used similar strategies for reinventing ourselves.
We also realized that many of our coaching clients had experienced a similar ‘reinvention cycle.’ Many were getting stuck in this process of reinventing themselves, especially when it came to reinventing their careers or pursuing more meaningful work.
That’s when it hit me! Reinvention is a normal part of the process. In fact, reinvention is necessary. It will either happen with or without you. I highly encourage you to have an active role in the process of reinvention.
Be sure to join us next Tuesday.
In gratitude,
Michael
