So for the past 2 years I have been studying to get my Life Coaching qualifications. What, some of you may ask, is Life Coaching? Well, it’s part psychology, part counseling and part therapy. Basically, without getting too complicated, the goal is to get people unstuck. To figure out what may have lead them into their present unhappy situation and what we can do to help move them out of the rut and more towards their goals and visions.
I’ve always had an interest in psychology. I love trying to figure people out, why they say the things they say, or act the way they act or even better, what are the things they are not saying?? But as my fellow Irish will testify to, the Leaving Cert points necessary to study psychology in Ireland, were well into the high 500’s. We’re talking A1’s in all Higher Level subjects. Realistically, that wasn’t on the cards for Shinks. But luckily here in the US, they never heard of a Leaving Cert or an A1. So once I made the decision to retire from track, I took the opportunity to study Life Coaching.
I finally graduated back in February, yeah me. And from there my plan has been to start my own practice, with a website being my first priority. Now that we are all living in a cyber world, once I start getting my name out there, I know the internet will be the first place people are going to go to find out more about me and Life Coaching in general. I mean that’s exactly what we all do now, in the absence of a direct www.address, we Google, Wikipedia or Yahoo anything and everything we are interested in.
That has been the goal, but I got stuck. Unfortunately my computer knowledge is basic, very basic and web design = serious challenge for me. So for the past few months I have been stressing, trying, reading, learning, hiding, avoiding, trying again, searching, plodding, quitting, trying again, avoiding, crying, yelling, frustrating, HTML’ing, Front Paging and all the “ing’s” you can think of to get a website designed and live. But to no avail. And honestly, I don’t have the $5000 to pay a professional to do it all for me.
But recently I’ve been avoiding the whole website thing completley. I’d become so overwhelmed by the task that I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t want to touch it. Clearly I am not an excellent web designer and honestly, I am not the type of girl that enjoys doing things I am not excellent at, or at the least have the potential to be excellent at. So I began operating under the illusion that somehow it was magically going to take care of itself. That I would wake up one day, turn on my laptop and there would be a fabulous and very professional website. But alas, this never happened. Time has been ticking away and still I am no closer to my website goal.
So the other day Husband decided to have an intervention. It was not pretty. He had to say and tell me things I didn’t want to hear, but needed to. He had to play the bad guy. As a couple its tough. There are times when you need to just be supportive, encouraging and offer a soft place to land. Then there are the times when you have to step up and give your partner a swift kick in the arse. Often in a situation, its hard to judge which is the best line to take. You don’t want the other person to feel ganged up on or attacked. You want them to know your intention is coming from the right place and that you are concerned and want more for them. And even though it was not fun to be on the receiving end, I knew it wasn’t easy for him either to say what needed to be said.
So now I am back on the website path. Trying and trying and trying. I have all my content written and I have designed the roughest looking, most amateur website you have ever seen. But hey, we have to start somewhere, right?? And as the saying goes, “nobody said it was going to be easy”. And this definitely is not. Its been soul destroying and draining. Maybe that’s a tad dramatic, but it’s definitely been a nightmare.
I’ve always had an interest in psychology. I love trying to figure people out, why they say the things they say, or act the way they act or even better, what are the things they are not saying?? But as my fellow Irish will testify to, the Leaving Cert points necessary to study psychology in Ireland, were well into the high 500’s. We’re talking A1’s in all Higher Level subjects. Realistically, that wasn’t on the cards for Shinks. But luckily here in the US, they never heard of a Leaving Cert or an A1. So once I made the decision to retire from track, I took the opportunity to study Life Coaching.
I finally graduated back in February, yeah me. And from there my plan has been to start my own practice, with a website being my first priority. Now that we are all living in a cyber world, once I start getting my name out there, I know the internet will be the first place people are going to go to find out more about me and Life Coaching in general. I mean that’s exactly what we all do now, in the absence of a direct www.address, we Google, Wikipedia or Yahoo anything and everything we are interested in.
That has been the goal, but I got stuck. Unfortunately my computer knowledge is basic, very basic and web design = serious challenge for me. So for the past few months I have been stressing, trying, reading, learning, hiding, avoiding, trying again, searching, plodding, quitting, trying again, avoiding, crying, yelling, frustrating, HTML’ing, Front Paging and all the “ing’s” you can think of to get a website designed and live. But to no avail. And honestly, I don’t have the $5000 to pay a professional to do it all for me.
But recently I’ve been avoiding the whole website thing completley. I’d become so overwhelmed by the task that I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t want to touch it. Clearly I am not an excellent web designer and honestly, I am not the type of girl that enjoys doing things I am not excellent at, or at the least have the potential to be excellent at. So I began operating under the illusion that somehow it was magically going to take care of itself. That I would wake up one day, turn on my laptop and there would be a fabulous and very professional website. But alas, this never happened. Time has been ticking away and still I am no closer to my website goal.
So the other day Husband decided to have an intervention. It was not pretty. He had to say and tell me things I didn’t want to hear, but needed to. He had to play the bad guy. As a couple its tough. There are times when you need to just be supportive, encouraging and offer a soft place to land. Then there are the times when you have to step up and give your partner a swift kick in the arse. Often in a situation, its hard to judge which is the best line to take. You don’t want the other person to feel ganged up on or attacked. You want them to know your intention is coming from the right place and that you are concerned and want more for them. And even though it was not fun to be on the receiving end, I knew it wasn’t easy for him either to say what needed to be said.
So now I am back on the website path. Trying and trying and trying. I have all my content written and I have designed the roughest looking, most amateur website you have ever seen. But hey, we have to start somewhere, right?? And as the saying goes, “nobody said it was going to be easy”. And this definitely is not. Its been soul destroying and draining. Maybe that’s a tad dramatic, but it’s definitely been a nightmare.
1 comment:
you can do it.!!! After all the hard hours you put into training to win a 2 minute race, a web page will be a breeze for someone with your determination and work habits. go to your area community college or even high school and take a course in web page design. you will be up and "running" in a heart beat.
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