Lamisha Serf-Walls

From Faith To Fear And Back Again

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I know I typically begin the week with either my Inspiration Round-up or Dreamer Highlight, but in light of keeping it real with you lovely readers, I decided to start the week this post instead.  It is something I have been dealing with in the past few weeks and I am sure many of you have (or will) go through it as well.

I spent most of June and July imagining, envisioning, and creating my coaching framework as well as figuring out how I would present the information to potential clients.  The process was very easy-going and high-flying as everything was so exciting.  I didn’t feel a sense of urgency to get things completed by a certain date because I was simply following my inspiration to the very next step.  I had this intuitive knowing that August 1st would be when I open practice up to take new clients.  I had an idea that once I did, clients would come to me and would immediately want to get started.  I even went so far as to set a goal for how many new clients I wanted to book by the end of the month.

We are halfway through the month and I am not anywhere near my goal.  Fear

Bummer.

Actually it hit me much harder than just a “bummer” moment.  In fact, I have found myself deep in the throes of doubtful thinking, fear, and disbelief. My self-talk was running rampant as I condescendingly asked myself “How could you actually believe it would take off so easily?”

This was an admittedly ugly place to be for sure.

As I began moving through the muck of self-doubt, I realized I had allowed fear to take the place of the light, easy-going faith I had as I created my coaching model seemingly effortlessly.  Through that process I kept reassuring myself (read my Ego) that I didn’t have to have it mapped out as to how, when, and who would want to work with me.  I just knew that as long as I do what I love and stay true to myself the people who are meant to work with me will.

While I might have doubted how quickly I would book clients, I never once questioned that life coaching is what I am meant to do.

This weekend I did some thinking about my client goal for this month and couldn’t help but wonder if I had made a mistake by having a number I wanted to hit for the month.  Instead of focusing on writing blog posts, working with my current awesome clients, and creating resources for my readers, I found myself keeping score of how many clients I had (or didn’t have).  And while we are taught in the traditional/logical business world to set goals, map out a plan, and execute, I am beginning to see that might not be the best tactic for me.  My philosophy does center around following my inspiration and the general goal setting is not all that inspirational for me.

So, I am happy to say I have moved through the muck and am moving back into trusting this process.  I honestly believe and know that if you do what you love, the rest will fall into place, so that is exactly what I plan on doing.

In the past two weeks I have moved from a place of faith in the process to fear and back again and I must say it feels so much better.

Do I think I will always be high-flying and trust the process?  Probably not, but I now know it is not where I have to stay.  I can allow my Ego to have her say before I kindly tell her to relax and trust the process.  And what is even better than that?  I can use my personal experience to help my clients who may be struggling with the same thing.

Where do you have doubts in your life?  I am interested to know how you deal with your own doubts, please feel free to share below!

 

Gratitude: Accepting Mistakes

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I am finding my weekly gratitude practice changing and not in the way that I like.  As each week winds down I am finding it more difficult to remember specific moments during the week for which I am grateful, so I have decided to implement a daily gratitude practice written in a journal each day.  This will allow me to get into the flow of gratitude again and will help my weekly post here as well.

For this week as strange as it sounds I am grateful for accepting my mistakes.

As much as I would love to say (and feel) that I am perfect, of course I am not.  I make mistakes, but for some reason those mistakes affect me in a way that can be at times embarrassing and makes me really uncomfortable.  Of course no one likes to make mistakes, but that is usually where lessons are learned right?  Well I suppose I don’t prefer this method of learning lessons, I’d rather study the book of life, only there isn’t one.  So mistakes will happen and I will make many an I will learn from them (hopefully), though it isn’t always easy to accept.

Just a few moments ago, I realized I had made a mistake…several actually.  I was doing a task for my midnight hustle gig and it came to my attention that the link I had set up and sent to several people was incorrect.  This was the first time I had completed this task and I was a little anxious about doing it for fear of making a mistake, and sure enough I did.  Maybe it was my anxiety about making a mistake that caused it, or maybe my intuition was telling me to triple check everything.  Either way, the mistake was made.  Is it a world shattering, life altering, ginormous mistake? No, but sometimes it can feel that way.

So what have I learned???

I have learned to double and triple check my work.  I have learned to fix my mistakes as soon as I realize them and to accept it as a part of life.  Making mistakes doesn’t make me incompetent, irresponsible, or incapable of accomplishing my tasks.  What it does mean is that I am human and I am learning.

Mistakes are going to happen and when they do, I will look to them for the lessons they are teaching me instead of focusing on the how bad it feels at the time.  I am only human and what a blessing that is, mistakes included!

 

Being Ok With Things Unfinished

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With the holidays lurking just around the corner, I feel like there is so much to do and not enough time to complete everything.  In the last few weeks, I have felt like I am playing a lot of catch-up on work stuff, personal stuff, and holiday stuff.  When I begin to feel like things are unfinished, I have to just….breathe.

I am one of those people who enjoys being busy, but only when I am actually getting things accomplished.  I love looking at my to do list and seeing that it is DONE.  Very rarely do I actually accomplish everything on my list, so I often find myself in a constant state of things unfinished, but it doesn’t stop great feeling of putting a check mark next to the things that are complete.

In this process of lists, intentions, and often frustrating circumstances of many, (many) things being undone, I am learning that I can’t do it all, all of the time.  The reality is that I can’t do everything that I want to be done in one day, and very rarely can I get it all done in a week.  Life happens and with a 2-year old, two homes, two dogs, a full-time job, and my midnight hustle (a fun way to say my freelance writing work), life happens A LOT!  So, I may never get it all done, and sometimes I might have to say no to a couple of things for my sanity, but I am learning (yay!), that it is ok.

You don’t get an extra reward for rushing through life doing, doing, doing, you get the most out of life from simply being. So as I venture into my evening with a crippling list of to-do’s, I’m going to intentionally let some things go, because I would much rather indulge in a little bit of down-time, than stress about what I can’t get done.

What is left unfinished in your world that you are ok with, if even for the moment?

The other side of Rejection

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As a writer much of the writing process revolves around getting your writing published and in order to get accepted, you usually have to go through a lot of rejection.  And while some people can take the rejection in stride as they move onto their next project, I am still learning to look on the bright side.

Today I received an email stating several of my pieces that were under review for possible greeting cards had been rejected.  This isn’t the first time I have received a rejection, and while I am generally a little disappointed, I am usually able to move onward and upward.  Today was a little different.

Over the last few weeks I have been feeling like good news was just around the corner.  I just knew the next time I heard from the greeting card company, that I would be getting several pieces published.  I even had a number in my head of how many I felt were going to be published and a vivid picture of the check I would receive.  Imagine my disappointment when instead of getting a check in the mail, I got a rejection via email.

I was slightly stunned.  I really felt with all of my being that I was going to end this year on a really high note with my writing.  I could just feel it.  I knew that something big was going to happen and since I didn’t have anything else currently in the works (writing wise), this had to be it. Right?  Surprised, disappointed, and feeling a little rejected, I retreated to my office to update my list of pending poems.  It was there I realized I had a choice to make.

I could either wallow in my disappointment, trying to figure out what was “wrong” with my poems, or I could choose to look at the bright side.

I decided to find something positive to focus on, so instead of focusing on the 5 poems that were just rejected, I decided to look at the ones I have still in the process.  I counted almost 75 poems still being considered and of those 75, about 10 are in the final review process and are one step closer to being published.  That is truly something to celebrate.  I also realized while I could choose to take these “rejections” personally, the truth is it’s really not personal and if I have any hope of publishing an article, or book one day, I have to develop a thicker skin.  The business side of writing is not for the weak at heart, and the easier it is for me to take the rejections now, the better I will be down the line.

So where does that leave my gut feeling that something good is waiting just around the corner?  It’s a little bit shaken, but still there.  I still have high hopes of ending this year on a good note with my writing and I have 2 months for that to happen, but if it doesn’t, I will choose to see the good in the situation, just as I did today.

The moral of this story is this: Dreams are magical and perfect creations in our imagination and as they begin to manifest in our reality, it may not always go as planned, but there will always be a choice to see the good in the situation.  And if you make the choice to give up on your dream because of the challenges you face, it probably wasn’t your true passion to begin with.

 

Away From the Flock

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You’ve heard the saying “birds of a feather flock together” or  “misery loves company”, I was living those sayings for awhile and not in a good way.  For a long time I found myself drawn to people who could commiserate with my misery, particularly in the workplace.  I found myself in a job that I didn’t love, working for a boss that was manipulative, frustrating, and simply unfair.  Many of my coworkers felt the same way, so each day we would spend our breaks complaining about our work lives, though not many of us were doing anything about it.  I soon realized this was not healthy thing for me, and it was keeping me in a very negative mood most days and I just didn’t like the person I was becoming.  I would like to say I came to that realization on my own, but I didn’t.  My partner helped me realize I was allowing the negativity to affect me as a person.  Not only was it affecting me, but I was bringing my anger and frustration home, which was not something I wanted to do.  So after many months of thinking “I can’t help it”,  I made some changes.

 
I began seeing my job for what it was, a job, not a career.  While that thought alone didn’t fix my problematic boss situation, or keep me from being frustrated day in and day out, it was a start.  The next thing I did was limit the time I spent complaining and started focusing on the positive aspects of my position.  I began thinking of what the future may hold for me and what lesson I was supposed to be learning.  I had been looking for another job on and off for about 2 years and had difficulty finding the “right” position which I attributed that to the lesson I still had to learn in my current position.  I didn’t immediately know what the lesson was since I was so focused on the negativity, but then something happened…I changed my attitude.

Once I changed my attitude about my situation my situation changed.  It was like magic!  Within a few months I was asked to apply for a position with another company that seemingly fell out of the sky.  I wasn’t actively looking for another job at the time, but this position fit perfectly with my family life and the impending move we had planned in the coming months.  I couldn’t believe it!  Just when I had stopped looking for the things to complain about, and stopped flocking with the negative crowd, my reality changed and it changed for the better.  Lesson learned…or so I thought.

Lately I have been feeling a pull towards the future me.  The one that has her own business, sets her own hours, and is doing the work that she loves.  A version of me that seems so very far away and at times the thought can be frustrating.  Add to that the stress and frustration at work and I found myself beginning to move towards the flock of negativity again.  Not. Good. News.  With that said there is a flip side to this and that is, I am aware of it.
I am very aware of the road I am beginning to travel down, and I remember very clearly what happened the last time I was on this road.  So I am choosing to turn around and head down a more productive, more positive, more optimistic path.  One of faith.

I have faith that I am being challenged right now for a reason, and while I don’t know what that reason is, I know it will lead me to something better.  I just have to believe not only in myself, but in my dream.  And I am going to do just that.

I intend to be more aware of my complaining and limit it as much as possible so I don’t follow the flock down a road I have already traveled.  I already know what is at the end, and it is not pretty.  I choose to embrace the positive aspects of life and have faith that those positives will multiply.  I’ve seen it happen before, and I know it will happen again with a little faith.
What about you? How do you stay positive, even when your outer circumstances are less than ideal?