About Me & Self-Agency

Certified Professional Coach: Life & Leadership

When I started my coaching certification in 2018 I felt lost both personally and career-wise. I was divorced, single, and my recent enterprise as the president of a marketing firm came to an end. Something in me said to get certified as a coach - and so I did. Through the year-long process, coaching gave me the tools to assess my life, find an objective viewpoint, address guilt and shame, then make conscious choices that could moved me to where I wanted to be. 

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Before the idea of coaching came to me, there was a moment where I was at my lowest of lows. At the bottom of depression, I wanted to find the opposite of what I was experiencing then. To find the adult me when the child me was the one driving the bus. It was something different than what society offered as a solution. It wasn't rah-rah toxic (denial) positivity. It wasn't fist-clenching grit/girl-boss/grind-it-out (forced) motivation. I was looking for something I couldn't name. It was a combination of freedom, liberation, groundedness, empowerment, authenticity, self-actualization, a voice that knew it's worth and didn't need to scream to feel heard. What was this state of being I wanted? The word I was looking for was agency.

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I believe most of us feel off-balanced and unsettled much of the time. It's normal because life is uncertain and who we are is constantly changing. But with messages of "just be happy, look on the bright side, so many people have it worse than you, a positive mind fixes everything, fake it until you make it, achieve achieve achieve", it is hard to just be. Instead we act as if we are a character in a play that isn't even our own life.

Agency is about navigating the off-balanced waves that life brings without trying to change the waves themselves. Agency brings peace because you focus on what is yours to control and you let go of the rest. And in focusing on what is yours, you also accept where you are at. You feel like an agent in your life, because you are. It's a bit of a Dorathy moment because you've had the power the entire time. What disempowers us is the idea that we have to change the waves, or go to a different ocean, or be a skilled captain, or have a boat like our friends. We don't. 

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Agency is about recognizing the ocean you find yourself in right now, deciding where you want to go from here, assessing the tools/strengths/weaknesses/values you have, the levers you have at your disposal in terms of resources, friends, alleys, to push and pull, and then making and owning a plan to take the next few steps based on what is yours to control. And as you execute your plan, deciding to do so in a way that is authentic to you - with how you show up in each moment, the words you use, the way you engage with others, etc. There is so much we can take charge of if we stop getting caught up in the things that are not ours to control. 

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