I spoke with three prospective life/career coaches in the past few weeks. The first guy was pretty good, although a little impersonal for my tastes. The second person, a woman, was terrible. She had no idea how to lead the conversation and when I asked her what a typical session looks like, she said, “Well, basically I just ask you what you want to be coached on that day.” I was at least glad that I seemed to be able to recognize a bad coach when I saw one. But last night I spoke with a guy who was perfect. He was organized and had a definite method and process, but also very compassionate. He really took his time, explained a lot, asked me a lot about myself, and seemed unaware of the clock – I spoke with him for over an hour and he wasn’t even getting paid for the consultation.

Although I’m still feeling crappy about my current situation, I at least feel like this will be potentially a great thing in my life. If all goes well I plan to send my husband to him so he can figure out what HE wants to do.

One thing that he said that really hit a chord in me was this: He said, “Ok, so you’re 31 now, and you’re looking back and feeling like you’ve missed a lot of opportunities and thinking that it’s too late to change things. But picture yourself in ten years when you’re 41. By then maybe you’ve gone back to school and transitioned to another career and been enjoying your work for, say, the past 5 or 6 years. How does THAT feel? Does it look so bad from that view?” And he’s totally right. I feel overwhelmed with the idea of starting over, but if I don’t do something, in ten years I’ll be in the same spot I’m in today but feeling even worse than I do now.