My mom agreed to get a family picture this month. I am very excited because I do not have a professional picture of my whole family. My mom has never wanted to do because she does not like having her picture taken but she agreed on Saturday night…

Monday morning she starts feeling very anxious about taking the picture and when I call, she has decided not to take it. I quickly go into a speech to convince her to go. I start persuading her the best as I can even though she sounds nervous and really doesn’t want to do it.

I STOP. Why? Because this not who I am. Coaching is all about helping people live their lives NOT force your life on them. If my mom was a client, I would have responded to her and said, then don’t do it if you feel this bad. So that is what I said to her. She completely relaxed and felt better. I then talked to her about how she felt and why. After we talked for awhile my mom felt better and we hung up.

Tuesday morning she work up feeling great and after some self reflection she decided to continue with the picture. By not forcing choices are her, but allowing her to live HER life, she was able to make the personal choice (without pressure or outside influence) to do the picture because she wanted to. This freed her of the anxiety and panic.

What could you do with your life if you didn’t have people trying to persuade or pressure you into this?

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