I talk to many of my clients about this exact topic but I myself haven’t talked about it in a while, so let’s do that today. I am available for hire for a 1 month and a 6 month life coaching program. I am a general life coach and my coaching is primarily based on the dharma of the Buddha. I am interested in you not just solving your problems but also you taking complete intentional control over your life in all aspects.
To learn more about what a life coach does, read my previous guide to life coaching. (Read full story)
Now you know what I do and you may know how I think about and approach life problems. You may even consider hiring me and working with me. Then what is the difference between contacting me today vs. contacting me in 4 weeks? Maybe 6 months? How about a year? What is the cost / benefit analysis of waiting to get coaching?
The Trajectory of Your Life
I can’t exactly tell what your life will be like in the future but I can generally help you predict what your life will be like. In general, in the most general sense your life tends to resemble your parents’. There’s a reason why Greek tragedies and works of literature like Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart” have a theme of repeating the life of your parents: it’s just how the grand wheel of karma works.
Regardless of whether you’re aware of it or not, the basis of your personality and how you define pleasant and unpleasant is set during your formative years, more specifically the first three years of your life. After that you have varying degrees of influence like how you were schooled, what interpersonal relationships were like for you, what your family considered important, and so on which leads to your personality and traits.
In your day to day you unconsciously engage in a lot of activities that feel so normal and ordinary for you, you don’t even notice it. But the moment you start living with another person you see how what’s so natural for you isn’t natural for another person, and vice versa.
So when you live your life continuing to do things that feel familiar, feel normal, feel easy for you, where are you most likely to end up at? You’ll end up in a familiar place, and what’s more familiar than… Family?
You may be living somewhere completely different from your family. You may have a job that’s completely different. But those differences tend to be minor compared to the grand theme of your life driven by your karma. While that is important, fortune telling to you to tell you you’re going to be like your parents isn’t my goal here.
You’re experiencing some suffering in your life. The reason for that suffering is how you live your life unconsciously. Just like how a person constantly drinking sugar beverages is more likely to be overweight, just like how an alcoholic is more likely to develop liver problems — the way you repeatedly live life has an impact that you can experience and observe.
That won’t change easily. It can change, but it won’t change easily. Think of all the times you tried to pick up a new habit, new hobby, or a new way of life. Some of them may have stuck, but if you’re comparing percentages what do you think is the success rate of a new influence sticking to your life permanently? It’s likely very low because karma is very, very resistant to change.
If you got the diagnosis for a treatable disease, would you wait to treat it? No, you would treat it immediately. How about when you haven’t gotten a diagnosis?
Learning By Regret
When we have choices to make, sometimes we make the choice based on the risk/reward probability. You make a choice because the rewards for that choice outweigh the risk. That’s rational thinking.
Humans think they’re rational all the time but actually they’re more emotional than they think. This has been the topic of many researches and books. We frequently engage in actions with potential negative outcome thinking that it won’t be that bad. Sometimes we just have a good feeling about things. Sometimes you just don’t care about what happens tomorrow because you’re enjoying today.
But tomorrow comes and oh boy, do we get to regret our past choices.
This isn’t all bad. If I didn’t know how horrible food poisoning was going to be, I would be a lot more carefree with my grocery management. But one food poisoning was enough for me to completely change how I decide what to put in my body.
What happens though, when the obviously regret-inducing choice is the preferred choice by your unconscious habits?
This is how a minor bit of suffering continues to accumulate its size. It’s like compound interest. Day by day, decision by decision, and action by action the suffering increases just a bit; many times without you even recognizing it!
Like I said, learning by regret isn’t always bad. In fact I think it’s an important educating force in my life as well. But if I could learn the same lesson without the regret, wouldn’t that be preferable..? Especially if I know how much regret I’m potentially in for?
You said yes to a request for the 10th time and you don’t have enough time to fulfill all requests. You could just quit your job, but how can you be sure this same pattern won’t follow you to your next venture?
You kissed and made up with your spouse after a big argument. You’ve had enough fights. But what happens when the relationship is tested again for a different reason? Even if you break up or get a divorce. Can you be sure that the same frustration that comes from looking at your loved one won’t return in the future?
And these are only problems that you already notice. There are countless other directions your karma is pulling you towards, and they’re headed towards suffering. Not because your karma is horrible or anything like that, but that is just the nature of living life driven by desire and likes.
Your car is headed towards a cliff after about 100 miles. Wouldn’t it be better to turn back now? Rather than 99 miles later?
Second Best Time
There’s a saying in jiujitsu: the best time to start training is 10 years ago, and the second best time is today. What would your life look like if you had complete intentional control over your life 10 years ago?
Everything that happened to your life outside of your control would still have happened. Living a self-driven life doesn’t bend reality to your liking. But think of some specific times in your life where you felt a certain way:
- You had no choice but to do something
- You simply couldn’t do something, there was no way
- Your path was already determined
- You want something, but you can’t get it
Every time you feel like you HAVE to with no other choice, what if you could have chosen otherwise? That ass who bullied you, what if you could have stood up for yourself even if you take a beating? That study program, what if you could have gone for it regardless of what your parents thought about it?
Not all important life moments are from those big pivoting moments. What if you generally said yes to more things? What if you saw yourself as someone who can handle anything that comes as a consequence of their choice? What if you were the main decision maker of your life, not your parents, spouse, boss, or anyone else?
THAT is the life I want for you. To pursue life in a passionate manner because you’re living for YOU. All the decisions you made in your life, all the things that you did, all the outcomes of your life — it benefitted other people, it made other people happy, but what are you doing for YOU?
You’d buy flowers for your significant other, you’d work overtime for your job. You’d do things you wouldn’t want to do for your parents and you’d do all these things for other people but what about you? What would you do for YOU?
I want you to be passionate about your life, come to me with questions every week and text me when you have a burning question. I want you to test out all the things I offer in your life and come to me with resistance and experience. I’ll show you the keys to your own life, and spoiler alert: it’s already inside of you!
Use ME, use my services for YOU. I’m not offering my services for me, I’m already perfectly happy. I want to give all of my excess happiness to you, so that you can do it for others too. All you need to do is email billy@julylifecoach.com to get started. You can do it tomorrow, you can do it in a week; but when you have the keys to your house, would you wait a week to go inside?