Biggest Lesson I’ve Learned…”Practice What You Preach”

As a Career Coach for the last 20 years, I am paid to give advice.  And I give that advice confidently.  I know if my clients apply the advice, it will work.

With a nearly 100% success rate, I even have the statistics to prove that it works.

So why is it hard for me to apply my own advice?  Why don’t I take my own medicine?

Maybe it’s the same reason why they say doctors make the worst patients.  Or why the cobbler’s children have no shoes.

We seem to be able to do for others what often can’t do for ourselves.  I see the problem and, more importantly, the solution so clearly for others, but can’t always see it for myself.

It’s so frustrating!

I pride myself on being somewhat of a “Success Whisperer”.  My clients not only achieve, but very often exceed, their own goals and expectations.  It’s a wonderful thing and the most rewarding part of my job.

There is nothing better than helping someone transform from “thinking” she can do it…to “knowing” that she can!  It’s incredible.

Which brings me to my guilty confession…I am at the same intersection of “thinking” and “knowing” that I have helped so many of my clients successfully navigate, and it’s much easier being the coach than it is the client.

I know I’m in the dark ages when it comes to technology.  I’ve admitted it a million times that technology and I are not a natural fit.  I don’t get it.  It’s not intuitive to me.  And I get easily frustrated, overwhelmed, and paralyzed.  It’s not fun.

However, I do understand how technology can be a successful business strategy, but I have always resisted putting my toe in the water…until now.

People have asked me for years about my career-related products and if they can buy them online.  Unfortunately, that would require an online store on my website, online marketing, Google analytics, and all the other things that cause me to break out into a sweat.

If I were my own client, the solution would be so easy.  Start slow, only bite off manageable sized pieces, and outsource the technology responsibilities to other experts.  Focus on what you do best and let others do the rest.

This is exactly what I have finally done, but why did I take so long to take my own advice?

This is the $64,000 question.  But the reality is that we all have limitations and insecurities.  We can be a total rock star and filled with confidence in one area…and simultaneously filled with anxiety and self-doubt in another area.

The ironic thing is that overcoming this conundrum is exactly what I do for my clients.  I lay out a strategic, step-by-step action plan with proven techniques that generate results.  It’s all about setting the goal, making a plan, working the plan, and achieving the goal. 

It’s time I treat myself like a client.  My approach clearly works for my clients, why shouldn’t it also work for me? It’s time I “practice what I preach”.

Please visit my new website, and online store, to see how I’ve finally taken my own advice…http://aimeecohensuccesscoaching.com/ !

I would love to hear from you about your own “guilty confession”.  What do you do for others that you have a hard time doing for yourself?