Life Lessons
Learn to get
what you want and pave the way to true happiness
Womans Day Magazine,
01/08/02
By
Anne Louise Fritz
Do you
ever wish you could do more with your life? Work at a more
fulfilling job, have a more rewarding relationship with
your husband or do more for your community? A life coach
may be just what you need to start the process. These modern
incarnations of therapists, now numbering about 20,000 across
the country, work with clients to identify their goals and
hidden desires, then give them the skills and encouragement
to make their dreams, from everyday small stuff to grand
plans, a reality. Meet three women who are doing just that
with the help of Kristin Taliaferro, a Dallas-based life
coach.
Gravy and All
Anna
Land was ready for something new. It was 1999 and she had
just quit her job as the national director of a corporate
investment firm in Dallas. "Though I was successful
and had a high-profile job, I wasn't fulfilled," says
Anna. "I wanted to be happy to go to work in the morning,
spend my days with encouraging people and do something creative."
She also wanted to spend more time with her husband and
friends, exercise and take better care of herself, and move
back to her native Austin. She had an idea that she wanted
to go into business for herself, but wasn't sure how that
would be possible. She just knew she had had enough.
After
doing a search on the Internet, Anna, now 32, found Kristin
Taliaferro's Web site, KristinCoach.com, and, after an initial
consultation, signed up for weekly telephone and Internet
sessions. One of the first things Taliaferro had Anna do
was make a list of 50 things that would make her life ideal.
Anna's list ranged from major life changes, such as owning
a successful business and spending quality time with her
children to what Anna calls the "gravy": deep-sea
diving vacations and having healthy houseplants. Taliaferro
said ideally all 50 items were attainable.
Next, they did something called "visioning." Taliaferro
asked Anna to envision how her life would be when her dreams
came true-how it would feel, look and even taste and smell.
Anna found it particularly helpful to make a collage of
photos of her dream life, images that represented joy, freedom,
dignity and integrity. She hung the collage in her office
and uses it even today as inspiration to stay focused.
Anna
worked to clearly define her dream: owning a graphic design
firm and working out of her home. Taliaferro even had Anna
describe ideal clients. Picturing an image down to the details
is helpful, says Taliaferro, since it helps you to stay
focused on your dream and your reasons for wanting it.
Once
Anna had done that, the next step was to start making her
dream come true. Anna's experience in marketing had given
her an understanding of graphic arts and corporate identity.
Taliaferro worked with Anna to develop a weekly plan for
getting her business off the ground and had her report back
every week. "Kristin was supportive in an objective
way that my husband and family couldn't be, because they
were too involved." Today, Anna owns a successful graphic
design business, Anna Land Designs, based in Austin, where
she now lives.
But
Anna's journey toward the perfect life didn't stop with
her business. Once her work and personal life were on the
right track, Anna decided she was ready to give back to
her community. During their visioning process, Taliaferro
noticed Anna had described an image of herself surrounded
by lots and lots of children of all ages. She had Anna focus
on that picture and come up with ways to make that image
a reality. As a result, Anna began volunteering with an
after-school program for underprivileged kids.
While
there, she met and became friends with Susan Kiefer. The
two recognized a need for more, broader programs for the
many children who had nowhere to go after school because
their parents worked long hours. They came up with the idea
of Heart House Free Afterschool, which provides a safe haven
for children in underprivileged neighborhoods. The program
also offers homework assistance, arts and crafts programs
and snacks. Anna and Susan opened the first Heart House
in 2000 in a donated space in Dallas with support from their
families and friends. They have since opened a second Heart
House in Dallas and are planning two more in Austin.
"People
sometimes ask me, 'How do you manage to do all that you
do?'" says Anna. "The answer is that I enjoy everything
I do. There's no part of my day that's not completely wonderful.
Working with Kristin taught me that the life you want is
the life you need. There are no barriers to having everything
that you want." She even has her gravy: She goes on
frequent diving vacations and finds time to exercise five
times a week. "I'm still working toward thriving plants,
though," laughs Anna.
The
Perfect Garden
Not
all of life's changes have to be big ones. Sometimes it
takes just a few tweaks here and there to create a more
satisfying life. That's the case with Maria Truchon of Ashland,
Wisconsin. Maria had just lost 20 pounds. She'd thought
that reaching her goal weight would make her happy, but
it didn't. She still felt something was missing. About that
time, the 36-year-old teacher read an item in the How To
column of Woman's Day with advice from Taliaferro about
knowing what you want. Maria logged on to Taliaferro's Web
site and read some of her newsletters. She then signed on
for a consultation and began working with Taliaferro in
June of last year.
Maria,
a mother of two boys-Henry, 8, and Kyle, 5-started her work
by imagining her life as a garden, as Taliaferro suggested
in one of her newsletters. She asked: Are the plants alive
or withering away? Are weeds taking over the garden? Do
you see flowers? Maria's garden, while full of lilacs, apple
trees and hydrangeas, was also so overgrown with weeds she
was unable to see the blossoms and flowers.
Taliaferro
asked Maria to identify the weeds in her garden, otherwise
known as her "tolerations," or things in her daily
life that she put up with, but didn't need to. One of the
simpler tolerations Maria was living with was a disorganized
home. She set herself to the task of organizing her kitchen,
getting rid of the pots and pans she didn't use and all
her mismatched plates and cups. "Now I can open a cabinet
and see space!"
More
importantly, Taliaferro helped Maria realize that she often
put her own needs after those of her children, her husband
and even the students in her fifth-grade classroom. Like
many women, Maria didn't think her needs were important
enough to be acknowledged or even articulated. Taliaferro
had Maria begin making requests of others and asking for
help when she needed it. "I didn't even know how to
begin," says Maria. She practiced with Taliaferro on
the phone and experimented with writing out requests before
making them. One of the most satisfying was to her husband,
Dan, an irrigation foreman, who travels frequently for work.
When Dan is on the road, long telephone calls are their
only interaction, but much to Maria's dismay, she could
always hear the television in the background on Dan's end
of the line. Maria worked up the nerve to ask him to turn
off the tube when on the phone with her, and he agreed.
"Now, I know he's focused on me when we speak, and
our calls are more meaningful." Maria is now so good
at making requests that she does it many times a week, sometimes
without even realizing it.
For
the next step of Maria's transformation, Taliaferro asked
her to dream big: to imagine what her perfect life and home
would be like. "I would sit outside, and at first nothing
would come to me," says Maria. But eventually, piece
by piece, she started to see her dream house. "The
kitchen would have a big picture window with a table in
it where my family could have leisurely meals." While
her dream house remains somewhere in Maria's future, she
is now able to realize it is a possibility.
One
of Maria's other goals was to begin writing more, something
Taliaferro identified during their initial conversation.
"I've always enjoyed writing," says Maria, "but
until Kristin came along, I didn't recognize it as something
important to me." Maria particularly liked poetry,
something she learned from teaching. So she began setting
aside half an hour each day to write. She has even worked
up the courage to share her work with her friends and family.
"Working
with Kristin has made me more aware of and open to possibilities,"
says Maria. "While I'm still working on identifying
my dreams and goals, I now know that everything is possible."
Maria's imaginary garden, the place where it all started,
is now pruned and weeded and overflowing with beautiful
blooms.
Finding
Her Niche
Barbra
White, now 35, of Albuquerque, New Mexico, had just received
her MBA from the University of Phoenix and was already at
a transition point in her life when she found Taliaferro
on iVillage.com in June 2000. While in business school,
she had quit her full-time technology sale job, which kept
her in the office for nearly 12 hours a day. "I was
bound and determined to find something I was thrilled with
and to do something meaningful," says Barbra.
When
Barbra was researching careers on the Internet, she stumbled
upon the idea of becoming a life coach herself. "I
felt a complete and immediate fit," she says. "I
couldn't believe all this had been developed without me!"
she exclaims. "I knew I wanted to be part of it."
She hired Taliaferro to help her do just that, and at the
same time, she enrolled in Coach U, a virtual school for
life coaches, which holds classes online and via conference
call.
One
of the first assignments Taliaferro gave Barbra was to list
three ways she would like to be described. Barbra wanted
to be considered a fantastic complimenter of other people,
to be direct and to be spontaneous. Her life plan, including
her career path and the activities she chose, needed to
reflect those three ideas. Taliaferro also had Barbra use
the same visioning techniques that had worked for Anna,
asking her to look into the future and imagine her life
coach practice two years down the line and to describe the
perfect business in as much detail as possible. Barbra spoke
of working with groups and other coaches in workshops, and
even went so far as to describe 15 future collaborators
and clients. "When you have a clear intention, you
tend to notice things you might not have noticed before.
For example, I found myself joining organizations where
the type of people I was looking for would be."
As
Barbra's coaching business got off the ground, Taliaferro
suggested they start focusing more on her personal life.
"I found myself really absorbed in my work-building
my practice, doing all the things that need to be done when
you're running your own show. In short, I wasn't having
enough fun," says Barbra. So Taliaferro and Barbra
began working on creativity and play. In her home office,
Barbra created a "Flow Board," a wall covered
in butcher paper where she can hang her favorite photos
and write inspirational quotes. "It helped me be silly
from time to time." Barbra also tried to get better
at following her whims and being spontaneous, even when
it came to simple decisions such as what to have for lunch.
She also found time to join a tennis league, began antique
shopping and made her relationship with her husband a priority.
All were things she had wanted to do when she was working
and in school, but imagined she'd find time for someday.
It
was helpful to change gears from work to play, says Barbra,
because she was starting to get impatient with her life
coaching. "Even though the practice grew quickly, I
still wanted to be at another level. By focusing on my personal
life, I was able to loosen my grip on the business, and
that's when things really started to go right.
"My
life is one-hundred percent better after coaching,"
says Barbra. "I figured out who I was and started making
time for all the things I always thought I wanted to do.
Now I laugh a lot. I'm even getting more wrinkles from smiling
so much!" Someday is today, and Barbra is nothing if
not a complimentary, direct, spontaneous woman.
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