It’s Saturday morning, February 15, 2020, and I’m at my desk. It’s time to write my weekly blog post. I have a topic, a title, and a deadline – and nothing else.
Normally, ideas for my weekly newsletter are actively flitting in and out of my consciousness by mid-week, mostly during runs. I consider content, size up structure, and evaluate engaging hooks to draw the reader in. The material’s connection with exercise becomes apparent. By the end of the week, I’ve amassed notes and text so that the composition process is structured and focused.
But this week, none of that happened. For the first time in my 50+ weeks of blogging, my topic was assigned by someone else. And it’s left me stumped. I made a commitment to my Health Coach Institute success mentor to write about my coaching program. Accountability is a hallmark of coaching, and I can’t expect it from my future clients without demonstrating it myself.
Internet research on combatting writer’s block provided some guidance, but most of the tips were already in my repertoire. I worked out vigorously ahead of time, settled in with coffee while dressed in comfortable clothes. I was fully committed to writing my essay, and I possessed the seasoned-writers’ knowledge that the ebb-and-flow of composition can be capricious. But this time, a creative entry into the subject matter eludes me; it’s like stumbling down a darkened hallway in the middle of the night looking for a pathway back to slumber.
There is a painless way forward: simply explain that I’m enrolled in a health and life coaching curriculum to add credibility and support for my belief in a fitness habit-based lifestyle. Creating Daily: Transforming Your Life with an Everyday Movement Habit was just a start. My mission is to convince despairing, completely out of shape folks that everyday movement is easier than periodic, and often sporadic, exercise. And yet, the coaching coursework has become more significant than a way to promote my book’s platform and enhance my own credibility.
Coaching might be a way out of the practice of law, a transitional encore for a decades-long career advising clients on legal matters. I don’t have concrete plans for retirement; it remains a vaguely distant venue that currently holds no apparent appeal. But I’m a planner by both profession and personality. I feel drawn towards, and captivated by, a vocation rooted in listening and learning, sharing and supporting.
I embarked on a life coach training journey uncertain of what I would find along the way. What I’ve experienced is absorbing and engaging. Mentoring others demands examining myself. Asking people for accountability without judgment allows me to accept personal responsibility without reprobation when I fall short. I understand that we each possess everything essential to a joyful and fulfilling life. Some of us benefit from a sideline coach cheering us on, celebrating our successes, and heeding our perceived failings.
My allotted time for literary exploration is over. It’s time to review, spell-check, and call it good. I’m reminded that one noteworthy author likens pushing through writer’s block to running through fatigue. It’s one foot at a time. Plod, plod, plod -- I’m done!