Above The Line Thinking – My Experience With A Life Coach

Recently I had a life coach session, which is not something I had ever considered doing before. I had heard of life coaches and had chatted with a couple, but never used one before.

My session was with Anita Dickons from Above The Line Thinking. She is a life coach and while I had heard of life coaches, I had never used one.

The first thing I had to do was a survey, which gave Anita a good idea of where my thinking is based on the Values Pendulum tm. Anita reviewed my answers then compiled a 23 page report for me to read, but we also had a Skype chat for an hour to go over it all, see where my thinking is, help me to realize where I need to make changes and how I can do that.

At the start of the report I loved that the question you are told to ask yourself throughout everything you are reading is:

“Is what you are doing getting you the outcome you desire?”

I have often heard “The definition of insanity is repeating the same action expecting a different result” and this is a similar thought, but posed as a question it can make you think a little more.

My results were interesting. I have a lot going on in my personal life and my answers had me spread fairly evenly across the board. There was no area where I stood out a lot. However, another interesting thing is that there are 7 levels of thinking/values and my thinking seemed to be broken between level 1 which is survival and level 5, which is independence. I know exactly why I am this way, which I wont discuss, but it was interesting nonetheless. Since the results can only be read from how you are at the time you take the survey, I don’t feel that this is my way of thinking normally as I have had some very unusual circumstances occur in the past 6 weeks.

Anita and I discussed some of my circumstances and why I am currently the way I am, how to move away and upwards from it, future plans, where I want my life to go etc. She gave me a lot to think about. The good thing is I was already on this track so open to the changes. The areas I need to think about and focus on are:

Love: What do I want? What sort of wife do I want to be? What do I want in a partner? She suggested to write a very descriptive soul mate check list as well. I have had friends do this and it worked really well for them. The sort of detail Anita said to go into I found interesting because some of the things she mentioned I simply don’t care about. The most important things to me to have in a partner are that we trust, love and respect each other and intelligence is a huge factor for me. I wrote a list, but am still pondering how I feel about things.

Work: Where do I want KylieOfiu.Com to be in 5 – 10 years frm now. What do I want my business to be? Where do I want to focus my efforts? How will I be making my money? Etc.

Health: What do I want to look like? How can I make that happen? Health issues to resolve…

Children: Do I want more? How will I raise mine? What values do I want? How will I help them? etc

House: Picture, describe and visualize my dream home. The look, feel, smell, textures, the location. Picture it exactly.

Friends: This is a big one and I will explain it a bit further on. I have mentioned it a little in this post.

Support: My main support network is in Canberra and I would like to be back there with them at this time in my life. I need to develop a support network wherever I am though.

My daughters, who are my everything and really want me to have more children…

Basically, in all aspects of my life I need to think about exactly where I want my life to be and how I can achieve that.

Now, back to the friends, as I have mentioned before I currently live in a low socio-economic area. Most of my friends are at a completely different level of thinking. Everyone is ‘poor’, no one can afford anything, but no one tries to look at how they can better their life.  When I say poor, I mean they think poor too and have the attitude everyone has to be in debt, no one tries to save etc. It is a high crime area and while not EVERYONE thinks this way, the majority do. They prefer to complain and anyone who achieves more or tries to be more is cut down.

For example, once I moved house I had a realization. I had been separated from my husband for months and when we were together he preferred me not to dress in certain ways. Once I moved and was away from him I realized I can do whatever I want. So I wear dresses all the time now. He didn’t like me in pink, yet I love it. Right after I was robbed I walked into my favourite store and there was this dress on sale, the last one left, in my size. It is perfect and I love it.

BUT since dressing nicer, as in pretty dresses from shops like Cue and Sheike I have received a lot of comments. Sometimes compliments, but when it came to my friends and other women, it was mostly comments. Some are in jest, but mostly it is clear women (even my ‘friends’) are jealous  and do not like me to look better than them.  I don’t mean to sound conceited, but I have lost a significant amount of weight, am more confident and most women at locations I go wear pajamas or sweatpants and singlet tops with no bras. When dressed how I do, I stand out.

This is just one example of my ‘friends’ cutting me down on a daily basis. I will continue to dress how I want, but I am also going to look for new friends. I have actually cut most of these people out of my life now for numerous reasons and feel so much better for it.

I hate where I live and I thought I was stuck here as I couldn’t afford elsewhere and legal issues make it hard to move. Just a few weeks ago in dance class one of the girls announced she was moving very close to the city. Other girls in the class made fun of her, like she is going to be a rich snob, but she simply said “I can pay the same amount of rent for a nice apartment in the city as we do for a house here. The city is a lot nicer.”

It got me thinking, just because I have to stay in Sydney now, doesn’t mean I have to stay out here and who says I have to stay in a house? I have lived in units before. So one of the things I will be doing now is heavily researching better areas and how I can move to them, while not causing legal issues for myself. At the same time, I am researching Canberra and aim to move in 6 months, provided all goes well in my personal life.

Actually, since going over this with Anita, a lot of things have started to happen. I have begun to make a few new friends outside my normal group. I have begun to look for better areas to live in. When it comes to my health and looks I have started laser hair removal for free and other opportunities for things I wanted with my looks and health are looking a lot more possible this year. Also, my career appears to be taking a turn I contemplated last year, but put out of mind because it was not feasible at the time. Now an opportunity has arisen and I am acting on it.

I think I am more aware of the opportunities since focusing more. I lost my focus while my personal life was in shambles, but since picking myself up and choosing to be a survivor, not a victim, doors have begun to open again.

This weekend I have decided to dedicate a chunk of time to creating my vision board/motivation wall again. It came down a little while ago and I didn’t bring it with me when I moved. Now it is time I had one again.

All up I found it an interesting exercise. Since I was already starting to change my thinking I am not sure how much of it was Anita and how much of it was just timing. She was fantastic and if you feel you need extra help I think a life coach is a great idea. Make sure you do thorough research though. You can find Anita at Above the Line Thinking and her Facebook page can be found here.

What are your thoughts – have you used a life coach? Do you think they are a good idea? Why or why not?