Oh behave!

Please don’t ever subject yourself to a “behavioural specialist” or "life coach". Or for that matter anyone who tells you that they speak three languages: English, Afrikaans and Subconscious…

Last Thursday I met up with a ‘life coach’ as part of my complimentary, obligation free session I was offered at our previous social. I use the inverted commas because basically you can ‘qualify’ yourself in this field. There is no supervisory body or universal standard of practice or training, so, in reality, anyone can call themselves a life coach.

After my ‘life coach’ explained that a life coach is someone who helps people help themselves we began our session with her explaining that her office was to be thought of as a “safe space” and a “neutral area where there are no wrongs and rights”. Oh, what had I agreed to?

Next she started asking me some basic questions regarding my view of success, balance and obstacles. When she asked me what I thought my biggest problem or obstacle was regarding my interaction with others and I told her that I thought it was my inability to properly deal with criticism. I really suck with criticism. Generally, if people say something negative about me, I want to stab them. I generally think that I am right most of the time… As you can see, I have a major ego problem as well. Anyway, biggest problem: criticism. And then we got started...

We started the game of infinite regress.

Coach:           What does criticism mean to you?

Me:                  It means that I am being judged as either good or bad.

Coach:           What does judgement mean to you?

Me:                  Uhm… that I am being categorized, or labelled as something. Either good or bad, usually I tend to think that I am being judged negatively.

Coach:           What does it mean to be judged negatively?

Me:                  Uhm… It means that I am viewed as an outsider, an outcast, different… weird.

Coach:           And what does being an outcast mean to you?

Me:                  Loneliness.

Coach:           And what does loneliness mean to you?

Me:                  Fear.

Coach:           And fear, what does that mean?

Me:                  Death.

Coach:           You see, so when you are criticized, you are not thinking of only being judged – you think ‘death’.

Death! Okay, I’ve been at a few psychologists in my life… Oh, what a fun fact to share. None of them have ever made this connection. My friends, at that moment I knew that I couldn’t take this woman seriously. What if I had answered that an outcast made me think of Tom Hanks and Wilson?

Next she made me evaluate myself on a life wheel. I’ve included a similar “life wheel” below. Basically you evaluate yourself on a scale from 1 to 10 on different aspects of your life.

 

Source: startofhappiness.com

Apparently I was “rationalizing everything” because I hesitated in some areas, especially in the personal growth and confidence sections. I was aiming for high scores but decided to alter them because, hell, you grow everyday and I was experiencing a bad hair day.

Again, just think how differently you could plot your evaluations. It depends on your mood at that exact moment. My evaluations would look drastically different early on a Monday compared to after a successful date on a Saturday. Yet when she asked me to evaluate my overall happiness on a scale of 1 to 10, I gave a triumphant 8.

Unfortunately, according to my ‘life coach’ I had some serious issues of second guessing myself the whole time, becoming the voice of criticism instead of running away from it and an unsatisfactory level of self-confidence.

I needn’t fret though, because for only R3500 I could have a 5-week transformative experience! Yeah!

Not only that but I could in fact start changing certain behavioural patterns straight away. I could start by… wait for it… dressing like a 26 year old. Say what?

Granted, I was sitting in her office with my jeans, tekkies and a top as I was still attending a class later that day… but really?

“Right”, she said, “just because you are studying does not mean that you have to dress like a student. You are a 26 year old. You need to wear some jewellery, apply some lipstick and get in some better shoes”

All I could hear was DEATH!! DEATH!! DEATH!!!

Hahahaha!

Okay, so I won’t be purchasing any sessions which will magically supply this introvert with the self-confidence. I can tell you that the time would probably be spent on finding and developing natural charisma and presentational skills, and using props such as “earrings or fitted pants”. Not interested.

Okay, so bullshitters are many things, but they are not stupid. I could see the appeal and if I had not had extensive previous experience with people analyzing and prodding my psyche I probably would have rushed to the closest store to be some lipstick and heels.

Thing is, I enjoy making mistakes, I enjoy overanalyzing things, people and situations and I enjoy feeling comfortable in my clothes with some make-up on (but no fish scale products like lipstick). I don’t need a life coach to tell me how I should behave, what I should wear and how I should act. That, my dear, is what experience is for.

So cheers to living without a ‘life coach’ and living on my terms. After all, it’s better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection.