Are You Living Your Practice Life or Your Real Life?

I don’t have my shit together.

As a life and career coach, I’m supposed to have my shit together.

But I don’t.

I don't always make enough money to pay my bills. I don’t eat right. I don’t have a life partner. I’ll never be in shape the way I was when I was swimming 4 miles a day. Or when I was 25 and training for a marathon. Or 35 and playing Ultimate Frisbee.

It’s beyond embarrassing to admit this. Yet, it’s so, so necessary.

I've been waiting for my "someday" life to start. All these “shoulds” and “supposed tos” have stood between me … and everyone. It's so much easier to relate to people when I'm myself instead of how I think you think I should be.

Because no one ever really has all their shit figured out. None of us have reached the end goal, you know, the place where we’ve finally got it ALL together and can finally, once and for all, sit back and rest, satisfied that we got everything just so. Just perfect, with nothing left to fix.

(Unless you’re talking about death. I guess that qualifies as a resting place.)

What I’ve been chasing, even though I know intellectually that it’s not a real place, is a place where I can finally rest because my life is just the way I want it: perfect. THEN I can be happy. Perfection isn’t actually possible, so I reach for the stars, miserable in the moment because I’m not there and won’t ever be.

No. No more of that. I don’t want a life of thinking I ought to be some place I’m not.

Do I want to grow and learn? Hell. Yes.

Do I want to face my fears? Oh, yeah, definitely.

Do I want to show up for my life? It’s about time. Game on!

Are there things I want to achieve? Of course.

But it’s not about pushing for some unobtainable perfection and arriving at a place where I no longer have problems. It’s not about waiting for something to happen so that I can start life.

This is where I’ve been, in a “someday life" that begins …

After I lose the weight, I’ll start dating.

After I earn $100k, I’ll believe I’m a “successful” coach.

After I get another client, I’ll quit my day job.

Someday, I’ll write a book.

There is no living in “someday.” Believing “someday I will be happy if” is the very thing that makes me think there is something wrong with my life. There's nothing wrong. It's simply life.

I miss 100% of the shots I don’t take. (So do you, btw.)

I’ve been trying to find the perfect formula for my life; the perfect set of rules to live by so that I never have to be uncomfortable. Life really, really doesn’t work that way.

So the shot I’m taking today that makes me nauseously uncomfortable?

The first step is writing and posting this.

Second, I'm asking you, if you've gotten all the way to the bottom of this post, to work with me. Life is too short to spend time practicing and waiting for the real one to begin. Let's talk. Your real life is only a phone call away.