Three years.

It’s been three years since I left behind the steady paychecks and heavily subsidized health insurance of external employment. Not to mention the office politics and the daily commute.

November 1, 2022 is Peaceful Direction’s third anniversary as a full-time business.

“What would success look like?” is a pretty standard coaching question. I’ve used it plenty of times with clients. What if I asked it of myself?

This. Success would look like this.

A journey of successes

In my first full month as a coach, November 2019, I booked $2,500 in revenue. This year, my revenue surpassed my full-time salary from my last job. In September. This wasn’t something I expected to do for several more years, if ever.

In the past three years, I’ve served more than 180 leaders across more than 60 organizations, from the nonprofit sector to the federal government to the Fortune 500. That’s more than 1,500 hours of coaching individuals and groups. I’ve met hundreds of new people, from clients to fellow coaches and plenty of bosses and company stakeholders too.

I’m incredibly grateful. This was the year in which I was able to admit to myself that I’m a successful coach and business owner.

And yet, late this summer, I learned an important lesson about my own limits. I found those limits by running right through them without even noticing until after the fact. Late summer found me zipping dangerously close to the edge of burnout – a space I knew well from helping clients navigate it.

A lesson learned

Why was I exhausted, and why was I often letting work slip past my own boundaries? I’d been in the habit of reserving Tuesday and Thursday mornings for extra exercise, reading and writing… and not coaching clients on Fridays. These habits didn’t stick very well in August.

I took a look at my records and realized immediately what was happening. I had 47 clients on my roster in August. This was more than twice as many as I’d had the previous August.

I was juggling multiple cohorts of clients in multiple contract coaching programs. Most of these were once-a-month clients, and a good number of them were wrapping up their engagements. Still, that’s a lot of coaching sessions in a month. To remember details, to engage in deep listening, to stay present: these are just a few things required of a coach. I was doing them. But I could have done them better. 

I couldn’t be as devoted to all of these clients as I wanted to be. So, since that time, I’ve been much more careful about saying yes to more than I can handle. I’ve been defensively blocking my calendar when I feel like it’s getting too full, doing this regularly and several weeks in advance instead of on the spot. And I’ve been thinking a lot about what I’d like to do differently next year.

What’s ahead for year four

I’ve already got a pretty healthy stack of work booked for the beginning of 2023, including a project that will bring me deeper into the water utility sector. That’s a sector in which I served twice as an executive before becoming a coach.

But new years and new adventures often require new intentions. I have a few for the next year.

I’m setting an intention to be more selective about the projects and clients I take on, so I can be relentlessly devoted to all of them.

I’m setting an intention to find support for areas of the business I don’t need to do by myself anymore, and to teach myself how to delegate again.

I’m setting an intention to write and record more content, so I can serve more people and express myself creatively.

I’m setting an intention to delve deeper into facilitation and training.

And I’m setting an intention to work less, deliberately, so I can be more present for my family, my community and clients.

I hope you’ll continue to follow my journey. Onward to year four!