Put Me in Coach...

Last summer, I started working with a former boss, friend and mentor as she was finishing up her certification in life coaching. Even before she decided to make this her life's work, I had always considered her a mentor, and though we've kept in spotty touch over the years, she's just one of those people who has played a pivotal role in my life, and I knew she could do the same for others.

I'm not sure if anyone else has ever had the feeling -- you meet someone and you just know that they were going to be an important part of your life in some way. From the day I met Gayle 16 years ago, I knew we had been predestined to meet. I had just moved to Boston right out of college and needed to work. The temp agency that I was working with placed me at Boston University, working for Gayle in the Development office there. And the rest is history.

Gayle took a chance on me and gave me a permanent job that no one else would have, one that I was not qualified for on paper; she believed in my abilities and saw potential. She is warm, generous, and encouraging; she believes in me and helps me believe in myself. She is just one of those amazing people that everyone should be so fortunate to have in their life. So when she asked if I wanted to be a part of the process as she was getting her certification to be a life coach, I jumped at the chance. I wanted to be a part of something I knew was important to her and try to return the many favors she's bestowed on me. And maybe, just maybe, I would learn a thing or two.

You see, as much as I consider myself an ambitious person, I've never been someone who really knew what path I was going to take. I think that has both helped and hurt me. It's helped because I've stayed open to opportunities that have come my way, some good, some bad, some wonderful that I would have never dreamed of for myself. And yet, it's hurt me too because one thing I've come to realize is that, without clear goals, what are you working toward? Without some sense of direction, days seem to pass in a blur, and you turn around and think, "Right, there goes 2011, and what have I done?"

Even if the answer is plenty, without goals, it's hard to measure where you're going vs. what you want to do.

But alas, therein lies the problem that has always plagued me: What do I want to do? Seems like an easy question. Only not so much. Not for me anyway.

And even still, even if you set goals, it's nice and all, but unless you align your actions with your intentions, you're going nowhere. We know what they say about the road to Hell, and believe me, I've paved a few in my day.

So working with Gayle was a chance for me to think about who I am, where I wanted my life to go and where it would take me. Especially because the area of focus that she was offering was a course designed to help you bring more love into your life and ultimately, wait for it, your soulmate, The One, with a capital T, capital O.

Now, some of you more cynical types may be thinking, "Soulmate? Please." But all I know is, I'm a pretty game person and I'm open to a lot of things, so I knew that, if nothing else, I could benefit from a little self-reflection.

Self-reflection isn't really a strong suit of mine. In both work and my personal life, I tend to just keep moving forward, without looking behind too much. It's messy back there. A person could get hurt. At work, I always tell my team that my philosophy is that it's better to act, make a mistake, and apologize for it than be paralyzed into inactivity. You know, go out onto the ledge, that's where the fruit is and all of that. Just do it, don't overthink.

Yet in my personal life, I tend to overthink everything before doing anything, analysis-paralysis at its best and worst. Exactly the opposite of what I preach at work. But even with all of that thinking, I don't take the time to self-reflect. It may take me forever to decide to do something, but once it's done, it's done.

Working with Gayle was going to force me to spend an hour each week (and plus some) thinking about me and reflecting -- peeling back some of the layers, who I am, what I want in life, what I want to do with it, and yes, what my soulmate would look like.

I confess, in the beginning the process was a lot for my over analytical, practical brain to wrap around.

What does that mean: What does my soulmate look like? The answer was not to think literally, in terms of hair color or build, but what characteristics I might want in the best mate for me. What's most important to me. But to get to that, I had to begin the process of uncovering who I am -- without knowing who I am, I couldn't begin to think about who would be a good partner for me.

The key thing seems to be to focus on what you do want versus what you don't want. If you believe in the laws of attraction, and I do, it's far better to spend time thinking about what great qualities I want in a guy versus what I don't. You know, so all the time I spend thinking "No scrubs..." doesn't somehow call them all to my door.

Which brings me to one of the most important revelations: What you want in life, whether it's a soulmate (scrub or not), the winning lottery ticket, that next great job ... is not just going to show up at your door without effort. Well, unless the delivery guy from the local Mexican place is somehow The One for me. He might be, but somehow the fact that he essentially throws the food at me and runs away doesn't really seem like a positive indicator. I may not be the best at reading men, but I think I'm spot on here. But even then, I have to actually order the Mexican food, he doesn't just show up with it, so I've made my point...

What I've also learned is, well, it helps to have a specific goal, and a timeline for achieving it. Without a timeline, there's no incentive to align your actions with your goal. We all want to be successful, in whatever we do, and the specter of a deadline helps keep us honest. It keeps the goal right up in front of mind where it should live as something important to us. It's a daily reminder when life takes over in its insanity -- when work gets busy, when you get hit on the head ... "Hey, at one point, while in sound mind and body, you decided this thing was important to you."

Oh, yeah, right.

But why is it so hard remembering the things that are important to us? If it's my life and I can do with it what I want, why don't I know what I want to do with it? The more choices I have, the less I seem to know. Again, a high class problem, but a problem nonetheless.

So in this case, in thinking about The One, aside from the obvious "no scrubs," what qualities do I find necessary and important? Don't I want what everyone else does? Isn't it obvious? You know, someone smart and kind with a good sense of a humor and a job who doesn't have a criminal record?

Well, yes and no. I mean, definitely yes to all of those things, but other things too, like being family-oriented, nice to old people, and a generous tipper. If there is a lid for every pot, then my lid had better be helmet shaped -- meaning, as unique a person as I am -- as we all are -- so are the qualities that I am looking for in a mate/future husband.

And along with those good qualities, I also think that finding the person you're to spend your life with is really finding the person whose annoying qualities annoy you the least and vice versa.

I'm sure we all know what it's like to feel down and feel like you want to be in a relationship and you're not -- but then, here comes the salt in the wound, you realize that the most annoying/obnoxious/intolerable person you know is in a relationship. How can this be? EVEN THIS PERSON has someone. I might as well become a nun.

And then you meet their boyfriend (or girlfriend) and you realize, "Ahh yes, this person is perfect for her," and even better, "There's no way in Hell I would ever want him to be MY boyfriend."

Whew, that was close.

Or when we were little and used to go to sleepovers at a friend's house. Everything would be fine and dandy until your friend would commit some unforgivable offense like having a Menudo poster hanging in her bedroom and all bets were off. Not realizing what she had done, your friend would ask if you could sleepover again, you'd have to call home for permission in front of your friend and then pretend that your parents were absolutely forbidding you to stay over again, "Mom, can I PLEASE stay over Joanie's house again? Oh, what's that mom? I can't sleep over at Joanie's again? What? Uncle George Glass is coming to visit all the way from Africa. Oh too bad..."

Maturity means that you know that your My Little Pony collection is just as bad as that Menudo poster, and that's okay, it makes you who you are.

And what's why most of us don't settle down at 12. Well at least now that we live past 30.

My grandmother used to say, "I don't care what you've got, show me what you do with it." You can be the smartest person on the planet, but unless you decide you're going to do something with it, well, you're not so smart after all, now are you?

So I'm treating this opportunity as the gift that I know it is. Having started the life coaching process before my accident, I can say that I know now what a great gift this time for self-reflection has been. As much as the overall process has been about finding "The One," it's really about taking a look at the person you are, the person you want to be, and what kinds of people you want to share your life with, yes, romantically but also otherwise. Having started taking a hard look at my life by working with Gayle before this happened made it less of a shock when all of a sudden, the brakes were slammed and I had a lot of time on my hands to confront the big questions.

It's like those times when I was (much) younger and used to go out and have one too many drinks. Working with Gayle has been like that one sober moment you have right before the last drink that puts you over the edge where you see into the future and think, "Oh man, I am so going to regret this tomorrow" and then down the hatch it goes. But when you wake up the next day you know, "I deserve to feel like this." If I hadn't started reflecting before the accident, it would have been like the thankfully fewer and farther between times when I woke up the next morning thinking, "What the heck happened last night? Why is Mrs. Derek Jeter written on my hand? Who the heck is Emily and is she really dead? And why are there peanut shells stuck to my face?"

Don't judge now, we've all been there. And those were some good times.

I'm not saying I have all the answers, or any of the answers, really. I am still just as confused as to what I want to do with my life. But, having looked back a bit, I know how I got here, and I have a better idea of what I need to do to move forward. Even if it's just one day at a time, it's something.

So put me in coach, I'm ready to play.