So, there I was, in my regular session with my therapist, and she says to me, seemingly apropos of nothing, “Have you thought about being a life coach?” My head spun a little.

I had objections. “My life’s not exactly entirely in order…” I began.

She said something to the effect of, “No life coach that I know has it all together. No one does at all, really. You don’t have to be perfect, you just have to be able to help others, and you already do that.” (I’m paraphrasing here, but I’m going to show her this and I am fairly sure she’ll approve it.)

Then I thought about the stereotypical life coach. The kind of person who exudes so much confidence that it comes to the point of arrogance. I said that I didn’t want to be that kind of person. She assured me that I didn’t have to be. I thought about the aggressive tactics that are used by some life coaches and encouraged in the people they coach. I silently told myself that I didn’t want to coach that way. So I also silently resolved not to. To instead to coach resilience through uniqueness, and kindness and empathy, and hopefully help to put more of that into a world that sorely needs it. At this moment, I realized I had bought in to the idea. And then in the next moment I realized that my therapist was waiting for me to say things out loud. Oops.

I thought some more about it over the next couple of days. I thought about how a productivity technique I had already been employing was something I might want to offer as a service, even outside of my coaching. Body Doubling would be something I could do for others, the way others had done it for and with me. In fact, I had thought of a name for it. Doppelhanging. This was a service I could provide on a set schedule, so that my availability would be assured, since I’d experienced such frustration with finding people who were ready and able to do it when I was looking.

Besides Doppelhanging, I thought about the Productivity Sprints and Creativity Sprints I had hosted in the past few years. So many people thanked me for hosting them. They, like myself, had accomplished so much in each sprint. My Productivity Sprints resulted in so many tasks finished. My Creativity Sprints resulted in material that has been published. I had since taken Scrum training as well, which helped reinforce my sprints as useful techniques.

So there I was, taking the biggest step of my life. Registering a business. Putting myself out there. Making all the moving parts click together. Realizing that yeah, I do have the ability to do this. You know why? Because I truly understand what it’s like to feel like I couldn’t do this, and I did it anyway.