Your journey is a self-determined one.
But just because you’ve {very likely} learned how to be self-sufficient, and largely self-motivated, and perhaps even emotionally self-reliant with your art or self-expression, or running your biz, or launching your new side-hustle, doesn’t mean that your journey is destined to a lifelong solo act.
From my own experience along this 12-year odyssey of running my own creative and coaching businesses — and, working closely alongside more than 300 creatives, authors, and professionals since 2012 — I have learned that the solo act (or, “figuring everything out,” all on your own) is often our first and most important step to getting started when claiming our callings.
Why is that?
Because our dreams are our own to realize.
Our journeys into our souls are our own to receive.
We have to rely upon ourselves, especially at first, to honor the callings of our hearts. Because, of course, it would be wrong to expect someone, anyone, to “make them real” for us.
The natural starting point is to rely upon ourselves to understand, unpack, and manifest the contents of our own hearts.
It only makes sense that we learn to lean on ourselves to find the path of our callings.
At least, that’s true, in the beginning.
The journey of claiming a calling often begins “all on our own” because what it means to claim a calling is to “call out” to that which calls to us: a vocation that stirs our souls; a song that only we, at first, can hear.
Claiming a calling begins by forging a new (or, a far deeper) relationship to our own selves, so that we may understand the truth of what is calling to us, and why.
But, at some point, remaining in a solo act — and trying, after months or years, to “do everything all on our own” — starts to yield diminishing returns.
We start to feel burdened, if not completely overwhelmed, by the sheer number of ideas we have.
When we get stuck in our solo act, we tend to face repeated anxieties and stresses and second-guessing about the potential paths that we could take, at any given time.
If claiming our callings is really a “Choose Your Own Adventure” story, the number of choices to choose from, and forks in the roads, and detours that tempt us to follow them, and opportunities to take an early exit off this highway to who-knows-where can spin us into self-doubt, imposter syndrome, and creative paralysis.
Here’s a secret:
The solo act that we started, at some point, has to evolve.
Every solo gig, eventually, must become a communal, collective, co-creative, or collaborative one…
…if we want to keep growing and going.
Because, even self-determined journeys have their ceilings.
One person isn’t supposed to change, let alone save, the entire world.
We need one another. It’s how we’re built.
Even on the path to claiming our callings.
Your Journey is Precious to You… and It Still Deserves to Be Shared
One of the big hesitations I hear from folks about joining Claim Your Calling℠ is that they’re worried that their own big questions, biz priorities, and creative projects will be overlooked, brushed aside among a larger community, talked over, or simply not given the full attention and support that they deserve.
If you, too, have been wondering, “How much space is available for the whole of me, and all I want to create, and what I’m working through… inside of small-group coaching?” my answer is this:
More than enough.
Every month, you and I first come together for 1:1 coaching in a private space to unpack, process, game-plan, and decipher all of the clues, feelings, data points, and desires that show you your way forward in the weeks ahead.
Every Friday, I make myself available for weekly Voxer “Office Hours” for unlimited support, bonus Q+A, and accountability check-ins.
On top of all of that, our two, monthly, small-group coaching containers — The Roundtable (featuring Spotlight Coaching) and the Leadership Lab — establish dynamic, diverse practice and experience spaces where you will…
- Deepen your self-knowledge skills and inner-worldly deciphering by using your voice, being seen, and leaning on collective energy for support and ideas
- Share first drafts of your art, expressions, marketing materials, and other works-in-progress for highly qualified feedback and considerate reactions from trusted peers and like-minded colleagues
- Give yourself the safe space to “work it out,” out loud, because the myth that there is a perfect time or perfect place is what holds us back from starting, at all
- Surprise yourself with how much you can get done when you stop trying to do everything, all at once, and internalize a simple process for working one, integrated, sustainable step at a time
This is why I feel so confident assuring prospective clients that they will be heard, witnessed, cherished, supported, and given plentiful space to explore, practice, be heard, and make gains on their paths.
But if that’s not enough of a promise for ya?
To give you an idea of just how much Claim Your Calling℠ has covered since our inception, here’s a shortlist of some of the many topics we’ve covered in our small-group coaching experiences, so far…
- Navigating Over-Sharing (Or, the ‘Vulnerability Olympics’) on Social Media
- How to Find Your First Paying Coaching Client
- Does This Podcast Need ‘New Elements’ To Make It Engaging… Or Not?
- How We Use Journals: What’s the Value of Chronicling Our Experiences?
- Starting a New YouTube Channel: How to Find Direction As You Go
- So I Have a 1-Year-Old Podcast… Now What? How to Deepen Creative Direction
- Testing a Coaching Questionnaire to Find the Right Clients (and, to Avoid the Wrong Ones)
- What Do You Hear: Listening Session + Feedback Support on a New Sample Podcast Episode
- Brainstorming Effective Lead Magnet Ideas for a New Coaching Business
- How to Turn Our ‘Guiding Principles’ Into New Content Ideas
- Using the Subtle Art of ‘Space’ to Serve an Audience
- Watch Party: Let’s Give First Impressions On This New YouTube Channel Welcome Video!
- What This Self-Designed, 30-Day, Mind-Body Challenge is Teaching Her About Leadership
(This doesn’t even begin to touch the number of writing prompts, reflection exercises, breakout discussion rooms, accountability check-ins, Members Portal discussions, and all the private 1-on-1 coaching sessions that we’ve had so far!)
As you can see, not only is there plentiful space for your projects, ideas, whims, wishes, and the “moving target” of your desires to get explored in real-time…
…the beauty and benefit of being a coaching client of mine and a member of this small-group coaching community is that you are also learning, witnessing, getting inspiration, feeling fueled by creative ideas, receiving natural motivation — not anxiety or forced pressure — by simply being a proxy to community members’ own wins, struggles, and achievements.
Claim Your Calling℠ is designed as much to resource, support, and inspire you as it is about moving you further and deeper onto the path of claiming your calling.
As for you what focus you may bring into the small-group coaching atmosphere?
These days. and in the weeks months ahead, you may be focused on…
- Birthing a new creative project like a book or resuscitating a project that has since fallen by the wayside (we’ve all been there!)
- Starting a new side-business that you hope can become your full-time work as a self-employed person, by learning from others who have
- Creating a suite of products or e-courses that capture and offer your expertise to others (starting with the first, right one, and going one at a time)
- Guiding students, clients, or readers into healing, wholeness, or expressions of success and personal freedom… and getting qualified feedback on what works from fellow community members
- Sharing all that you’ve learned in your own journey so that others do not feel alone in theirs… by creating story artifacts and other means of attracting readers and clients
- Building a body of work that you can look back upon in 1, 2, or 5 years with pride and satisfaction… and finding a creative journey that honors you, along the way
- Breaking out from corporate life to establish a teaching, healing, or creative platform of your own… without hitting “eject” as soon as the going gets tough
- Bringing people together into your own mastermind, coaching community, or premium-membership group, and being a part of how I do mine, as a reference point!
There are 100 paths before us at any given time.
There is no right or wrong path to choose.
The “right” decision is to make the one step that feels right, for you, for your family, for your heart, and for the corner of the world around you, for now.
There are no dead-ends: each step yields a new world of possibilities.
The important thing to do is to keep walking.
Steadily as you can. Surely as you are able. And in your own right timing — no one else’s.
If the time is right, join me in Claim Your Calling℠.
Sojourn on, dear friend,
