Finding Balance
Today was a personal maintenance day, with a facial and a haircut on the agenda.
I was very interested when both my facial lady and my hairdresser asked me if I didn’t find my work as a coach rather draining. They both told me that they find their work very tiring and need to consciously put up barriers between themselves and their clients to avoid taking on all their clients problems and energies.
I found both of these conversations interesting and heartening; it is good to know that I am not the only one who gets affected by their clients’ moods and experiences.
Maintaining a healthy balance is something that I have battled with since I began coaching. Although I am better at not taking on my clients feelings so much anymore (I used to experience everything with them, insomnia, nausea, depression….) it is still one of my greatest challenges as a coach.
I am what Judith Orloff calls an ‘Intuitive Empath’ and I easily and unconsciously absorb and experience the feelings, emotions and sensations that people around me are experiencing. This is particularly true of my coaching clients as the interactions that we have are so intimate.
My intuitive empathy is one of my greatest gifts as it allows me to really understand what my clients are going through and it allows my intuition to kick in and provide valuable direction to me in the coaching room. But it is also the thing that makes me get easily exhausted and overwhelmed and has resulted in me burning out more than once.
I love coaching and firmly believe it is my calling in life. If I could, I would see five clients a day, five days a week. But after many years of trial and error in relation to client load, I now choose to limit the number of clients I work with every week to around seven. Any more and I get burnt out after a month or so, and any fewer and I feel as though something is missing in my life.
Seven is the perfect number for me to do what I love and do it well.
But it is not the perfect number to keep me busy, satisfied and financially secure. I will write another book one day – sooner rather than later probably, and that will certainly keep me busy and happy. But I am not quite ready to start that just yet.
So in the meantime I do some consulting as well. In addition to being a coach I am a crime prevention consultant. The work is interesting, important and well paid and feeds another part of my soul. Again, though, too much consulting makes me tired and emotionally drained.
My working life requires a balance that I am only just managing to find.
Do any of you other coaches out there find yourself walking a similar tightrope?
Feeling overwhelmed in your life, work or relationships?
- Purchase one of my self-study online courses.
Tags: avoiding burnout | client load | exhaustion | intuitive empath
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