The client archetypes described below are an amalgam of more than 65 clients and more than 500 hours of coaching individuals. Does your own experience align with one or more of these journeys?
Stuck Creator
The desire to create is as vital to our health as the air we breathe, yet the demands of life often prevent us from living aligned with our purpose. We unconsciously abandon our need to create, thinking we can force ourselves into a box of "normal" expectations.
The Stuck Creator often feels:
Lost
Hopeless
Overwhelmed
Depression
Apathy and lethargy
Imposter syndrome
Therapy and affirmations fail to resolve the underlying doubt or catalyze action
Uncertain where to start
Unable to stick to a schedule
Sleep is erratic due to...see next line...
Compulsive need for dopamine-driven relief (scrolling, gaming, information-seeking)
Lack of structure is draining
Emotional and physical pains
Sense of not being worthy
Never going to get anywhere
Triggered just as progress is noticed - self-sabotage
I'm just tolerated - no one truly loves and accepts me
COR.E Energy Coaching (tailored to your situation, budget)
The creators I work with appreciate connecting with someone who understands situational depression due to feeling trapped by tolerating an inhospitable environment. These individuals may be young adults who did rather poorly in school and feel hopeless about finding a future that is fulfilling. They're accustomed to adults judging them by their lack of "productivity" and failure to "conform" to the expectations of society. Their disruptive tendencies are self-protection measures - granted, they are maladaptive.
When parents interview me to work with their adolescents or young adults (ages 15-30) I often have to work very hard to convince the parent that they remain absolutely key figures in the young person's life, and coaching the parent is just as important as coaching the young person. Of course, we'll be working on different things, but parents feel such relief in connecting with a person who really gets the burdens they've been carrying for so many years, the shame of knowing their child is brilliant but not "performing" and feeling like a failure as a parent. Too often, parents are schooled by the experts that they are just not "parenting" hard enough - not punishing the child enough. This is rarely the case, and unlikely to work.
Take a chance on coaching for yourself, first, before trying to convince (or coerce!) a salty young person to try coaching after they've already gotten nowhere with therapy. You may be more important than you imagine and a shift in your communication patterns (and self-perception) may be all it takes to open things up!
What is possible? These are real client outcomes:
Getting to know and accept the true me
Setting up systems to track all my ideas
Structure allows me to start and stop as needed, and pick up where I left off
Accepting that the way I work is ok and normal for me
Identifying patterns in my life where I have done my best but have not really thrived
Acknowledging where I can take action even if the externalities of my life don't change
Finding a way to unconditionally love others as a path to offering myself the same grace
"Things ARE slowly changing. I'm allowing goodness into my life."
"It feels like, honestly, nothing. It is like dropping a heavy bag from a lifetime of being unseen and undervalued, misunderstood and misaligned."