Are you worried about being a leader?

In 2015 I graduated from life coach training. I knew I wanted to help folks with their emotional healing journeys in life, but I was terrified to put myself out there and say that was what I wanted to do. It felt so presumptuous and arrogant to say that I was a person who wanted to lead others through the process of transformation.

I dragged my feet on starting my business, and when I did finally begin my business it was through writing blog posts. I remember my first post was so terrifying for a lot of reasons, but one of them was that people would think I was totally unqualified to say anything about life.

If you're on my newsletter it's because you want to write or are writing from the heart, but you have some angst and hangups about the whole thing. If for you one of your fears is that it is way too arrogant to say you are qualified to say what you have to say, then I've been there! Here's what I learned.

Overtime, I discovered that this was a distracting fear. The fear was that others would think I was too arrogant to say I could lead others through a process of transformation. What was really going on underneath that fear was that I felt totally ashamed and unworthy to have a voice in the world. 

I had a huge amount of self-esteem issues, and I felt so lacking on the inside that I couldn't imagine showing up as a leader of anything. No amount of trainings and education could convince me that I was good enough to say I was a leader.

Unfortunately, this feeling was confirmed by folks around me. I had a friend at the time who would mirror that fear right back and argue with me about who I was to be saying I could help people. 

The truth is it is important to know what you can and cannot do. It's great to know, for example, if you're trained as a trauma therapist or not. But it's also really important to acknowledge what you can do as a leader and to not pretend you don't have the skills you have.

For example, I know I can write and not only that I love writing. I know I can express myself well and clearly. I know I can hold space for others in a challenging situation. I know I can use the tools I was trained to use a coach. I know I can use the tools I was trained to use as creative witch.

I know this, but I also had to take the leap and start. And then I had to keep learning and growing. I've made lots of mistakes and I've grown and learned from those mistakes, but that doesn't mean I wasn't capable to start with.

So listen, this is about being real with yourself and knowing you can do what you can do. But I also know that there is some big underlying work that goes into this...work around your self-esteem that may have been seriously hit or damaged in the past.

For me, the best thing I did was to start writing, even when I felt like a tiny, squiggling worm. For each blog post I wrote, I journaled about my fears, I meditated, I pulled oracle cards, I talked to friends, I got coached. It was so terrifying to write even one short post that I needed lots of support and community around what I was doing.

This is why community support is such a huge part of the work I offer. Every season I offer Enchanted Writing Groups, and our whole mission is to help you turn your writing angst into enchanted flow. We look at the blocks holding you back and work on releasing those blocks while also empowering your voice and self-esteem to give you the boost you need to write how you really want to write.

We meet every week for 10 weeks...a whole season of support and coaching to empower your voice!