Understanding the Role of a Life Coach: How Working With One Has Shaped My Life

Lana Perry, a Life + Career + Wellness & Weight Loss Coach

By Lana Perry

Not everyone understands why someone would work with a Life Coach. I mean, I didn’t before my first experience with one — so that’s not surprising. I wanted to take a moment to fill in the curious  1) what Life Coaching is, and 2) specifically how my experiences with Life Coaches at different points in my life have massively impacted the quality of my own life, so you can see Life Coaching in action.

What is Life Coaching?

I’m actually going to quote a few things from Wikipedia here since they have done a good job of outlining the role of a Coach:

Coaching, with a professional coach, is the practice of supporting an individual, referred to as a coachee or client, through the process of achieving a specific personal or professional result. The structure and methodologies of coaching are numerous but are predominantly facilitating in style; that is to say that the coach mainly asks questions and challenges the coachee. Coaching is differentiated from therapeutic and counseling disciplines.

So then, for the different areas I Coach within…here’s the deal:

• Life Coaching: I work with clients to identify and achieve personal goals using a variety of tools and techniques. Work toward improving overall quality of life, or progress in a specific area.
• Career Coaching: I work with clients who are interested in exploring the next phase of their career, how to get more from their current job, how to transition into a completely different field, how to identify true passions, how to begin self-employment, etc.
• Wellness + Weight Loss Coaching: I work with people who want to improve their state of mind, body and personal environment. This could include weight loss, managing a condition, or simply making dramatic improvements to health, immediate environment, or carbon footprint.

How Working With a Life Coach Changed My Life:

1. Career self-worth and satisfaction

• I learned to understand how much I had been tolerating from the job I had at that time, and how much change I needed to make to obtain the kind of life and happiness I was looking for through my career.
• I received affirmation that the career change I wanted to make, which at the time several years ago was quitting my job and going down a different career path, would be great for me – which gave me the confidence I needed to pursue something so major. Just two months later I was Program Manager for a Life Coaching company.

2. Respect for body and health

• I learned that it was time for me personally to stop partying, stop the long nights, stop the sleeping all day on the weekends from the long nights, and start savoring the daylight a little more.
• I became inspired to lead a much healthier lifestyle and received the support I needed to make that change, since there weren’t many people in my immediate circle who could relate.

3. Motherhood

• I worked with a Life Coach during the 4 weeks before my daughter was born. My goal specifically was to shift my mindset from crazy, work-related stress and chaos into a mindset that would be most beneficial to Motherhood. She actually had me create a vision board around Motherhood that is awesome and hanging as a piece of artwork right now.
• The two qualities I wanted to harness within myself were Patience and Presence and I did just that! Anyone who has known me knows that being impatient has been a strong personality trait of mine. But those same people now see that I’m probably the most patient parent they’ve every witnessed in action. This was a huge for me! I also learned how to tap into a more present version of myself. For the last 2 years of my daughter’s life, I’ve savored every single moment to the point where I don’t actually feel that she’s growing up “so fast” like everyone says – I’m so tuned in, the pace she’s growing is astounding but seems slow and beautiful.

4. Love life

• I learned to throw out some of my negative romantic relationship qualities that were not going to get me the kind of man I wanted (and certainly wouldn’t keep him around). I eliminated my girly neediness and little girl behavior
• I also got really firm around which things from a partner I will not tolerate. No longer would I play games or lower my standards, I would demand respect and understanding, and if I wasn’t getting that – I’d be out the door. (This mentality ended up landing me the man of my dreams!)

I truly wouldn’t be who I am today without the three different Life Coaches I’ve worked with over the last several years. They have allowed me to upgrade the way I think and make decisions. They have seriously brought out my own GLOW in a way I wasn’t able to do on my own. Friends, boyfriends and parents can offer lots of compassion and advice, but there is absolutely nothing like working with a skilled Life Coach. If you’re interested in talking about how Life Coaching can take you to the next level in your life, feel free to email me at lanaelizabeth@gmail.com

What Does Your Excess Body Fat Really Represent?

All my excess fat represented a lot more than too much food and too little exercise!

By: Lana Perry

I weighed 70 pounds more than I do now throughout all of my 20’s and I remember feeling like I existed somewhere in the gray area between total denial and self-acceptance. The reasons for my weight gain seemed obvious at the time: too many keg parties, a preference for carbs and fried foods and zero exercise in college.

It never occurred to me that all that excess fat actually represented something much deeper, as did my inability to lose much more than 5-10 pounds. When you finally admit that the weight has to go, actually making that happen can be a lot harder than we think. That’s because it’s nearly impossible to be in the right mindset to lose weight until you deal with what your excess body fat really represents. Until then, the entire process is a daily struggle – you’re forcing your body to lose something it’s not yet ready to let go of.

Here is what excess body weight can represent:

• Loneliness
• Emotional pain
• Struggle
• Financial turmoil
• Job dissatisfaction
• Bad relationship
• Grief or mourning
• Feeling lost in the world
• Guilt
• Feeling “less than”
• Lack of self-identity
• Fear
• Desire to hide
• Self-defeating beliefs
• Lack of respect for self

The factors that truly created your personal weight gain are individual to you and once you deal with those issues head-on, you’ll see how much better your body responds to your weight loss efforts — the weight practically loses itself (with a lot of hard work). The mind and body are undeniably connected in a powerful way. It’s not something that’s talked a lot about publicly, but the weight loss journey is an incredibly emotional journey into the mind. The amount of outward transformation we see in people that lose weight is NOTHING compared to the amount of transformation that has taken place within.

Had I not finally confronted some issues I didn’t know I had (which was actually a matter of circumstance, not choice), I don’t think I would have lost the weight and experienced such a monumental change in my perspective. In studying for my Food Psychology Coaching Certification, my eyes were truly opened and I learned the science and logic behind what I’d experienced. If you’re ready to lose  weight and want this to be the healing, massive transformation it actually is – instead of a nonstop, day-to-day struggle to get yourself to the gym and avoid bagels, I’d love to work with you. Email me at lanaelizabeth@gmail.com and we can talk more about my approach. It’s your time, let yourself GLOW!

Intro + Making the New Me

So here we are, the honorary first post of the blog. This blog will officially launch very soon, sign up for an email update (to the right) so you know when that happens!

But while we’re waiting, let me illuminate for you what has been going on that’s led me to creating Glow Hard or Go Home.

Phase 1: Party, party, party…work, work, work. Rinse and repeat. That’s pretty much how I spent all of my 20′s. I gained a lot of weight, didn’t consistently exercise and didn’t take nutrition seriously. I had very little dedication to my well-being. And I held roles at companies that hypothetically were pretty cool, but being the nonstop “hub of the company” became an all-encompassing, stressful vacuum.

Phase 2: Career breakdown. I suddenly found myself laid off from my job as Program Manager for a Life + Love Coaching company, while on maternity leave (July 2009)…it was pretty ridiculous. Without the money coming in, my now husband and I were forced to move from our paradise land of Cali to Georgia. Once I got here, I poured my soul into a publication as Editor in Chief and Self Empowerment Director, only to have the biz owners falter so hard the magazine never came out.

Phase 3: Health breakdown. An inflammation of my Iris in my right eye (it was basically red, painful and sensitive to light) led me to the Dr’s office where I was way less than delighted to find out I had a few other pretty important health issues (Dec 2010). I was shocked, so upset and felt helpless. I’ll get into more specifics of what was/is going on in future blog posts.

Phase 4: Glow Hard or Go Home. With regards to both my health and my career, I decided to go crazy and learn to dominate both. I wanted to take my health and my career back into my own hands to be successful in both areas without relying on others. It truly felt like it was now or never, and I went with NOW.

In pursuit of my goals, I’ve learned so much from personal experience, lots of resources, other coaches and visionaries and observing friends and colleagues. I’ll be sharing those goodies with you on this blog as a way for us to Glow together! Can’t wait, let’s do this!

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