My First Experience with a Life Coach

The first time I met a life coach was back in 1998. I was 20 years old, a newly single parent of a five month old, and I’d just moved back to my hometown after leaving an abusive relationship. I was receiving government assistance to get back on my feet, and my social worker told me that in order to keep receiving it, I had to attend a Life Skills course that was supposed to lead to a job.

What I Thought a Life Skills Course Would Be

I had no idea what to expect. Looking back, I remember exactly what 20 year old me was thinking: I don’t need this. I don’t need someone teaching me how to take care of myself or my kid. I was smart, I was capable, I had this handled. But the course was mandatory, so off I went.

Walking into the room, I recognized a couple of familiar faces, two girls I’d gone to school with who also had kids by then. There were six or eight of us total, ranging from 20 to 60-something.

We sat in a circle that first day and went around introducing ourselves. The woman who spoke first, probably in her 30s, would be leading our group for the next eight weeks. She introduced herself as a life coach.

I Had No Idea What That Even Meant

I’d never heard the term before. I had no clue what the job title actually involved, but I remember being intrigued anyway. She had this confidence in who she was and what she did, and somehow she seemed to believe in all of us in that room more than we believed in ourselves.

I remember thinking, at 20, that if I ever had a career, I’d want it to be that. Not that I had career ambitions at all, honestly. All I wanted was to raise my kid. I had no interest in a career, I just didn’t have a partner to make staying home an option, so I needed to work.

So there I was, sitting in that circle, about to spend the next eight weeks being “equipped for success.” And somehow, it actually changed the direction of my life. Not because I landed a part-time job at the grocery store afterward, though I did. It changed my life because meeting that woman cracked something open, a new way of thinking about myself and the world I was standing in.

Twenty Years Later

Fast forward two decades to my next real experience with a life coach.

I was fresh out of a relationship, newly on testosterone, genuinely trying to figure out who I was becoming. I reached out to a queer friend of mine whose work centered on helping people find their soul purpose and start actually living it. We worked together for a couple of months, and even in that short window, it was genuinely valuable.

Why I’ll Always Have a Coach of My Own

I have a life coach now too. We meet twice a month to work on the goals I’m actually chasing. I believe in coaching enough that I plan to always have one, because I don’t think I’ll ever stop having goals worth working toward, and I want to keep building the most fulfilling life I can, not just arrive somewhere and stop.

When you’re doing the hard work of building a life that’s actually yours, there’s nothing more valuable than doing it alongside someone who’s already walked the path from awareness to acceptance to action.

That belief is part of why I built Life on Your Terms, an 8-week group coaching program for queer and trans folks who already know who they are and are ready to build a life around it. It’s the kind of support I wish I’d had more of along the way, not just once, but as an ongoing part of actually building the life I wanted.

“The first person who ever believed in me before I believed in myself was a life coach. I’ve been chasing that kind of belief, and helping other people find it, ever since.”