When I was really little I always thought I’d grow up and my job would just be to help people. Not really sure what sort of delusional world I was living in where that was a job that could afford me a decent lifestyle as well, but, hey, kids have wild imaginations.

The crazy thing is, that IS what I do for a living now. My wild kid imagination wasn’t so off.

With my career, I get to help people achieve their dreams. I get to help people improve their lives, their relationships and their health.

I never even thought a career like this existed until I created it for myself.

But I didn’t leap into it right away.

It actually took years for me to figure it out. And it took a lot of pain, mistakes, trial and error.  

And first it started with me being stuck. Stuck in a career I thought would bring me meaning but just simply…didn’t. Stuck feeling disconnected to my purpose. Stuck wondering if this was all my life was supposed to amount to.

Then I got sick. Really sick.

My life was completely torn away from me. I couldn’t work, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t even leave my bathtub, the only place where the pain wasn’t too great to bear, for the better part of an entire year. Until I reached a point where I realized I couldn’t live like this anymore. I knew this wasn’t all life had in store for me. I felt a calling for more.

To put it simply, I got sick from all the stress of feeling stuck and not taking any action towards what I truly wanted to do with my life: help people.

Part of my business is helping women uncover their Core Purpose Values: what drives them and makes them feel happy and whole. Two of my top CPV’s are freedom and service. And I wasn’t living into either of those values when I got sick.

While I was sick I started discovering a new side of myself. Because I was sick of being sick and feeling stuck and I knew I was ready for change. Getting sick was the catalyst for me.

But before I took the leap of faith to pursue my dream of helping others and creating freedom for myself, I started looking for examples of others doing it. To prove it was really possible. And I found that proof.

I found that proof in well known mommy bloggers who shared their home life with their audience and made money doing it. In digital nomads traveling around the world making money consulting and freelancing, sharing their exotic, luxurious destinations all over my Instagram feed.

Then came the coaches. The online coaches who were starting to show up everywhere for me. People who were literally transforming others’ lives –– helping, serving, and creating an impact in the world while creating financial freedom for themselves.

Who WERE these people?

I wanted their freedom. Their flexibility. Their ability to travel. To stay at home with my kids one day. To do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted and not think about the bills I’d owe.

But I automatically placed these people in a league higher than me. I fell victim to the false belief that they had something special that I didn’t have that got them to where they were.

I started to believe that I just wasn’t qualified to be a coach like them. Coaches need certifications, right?

I wouldn’t be able to help anyone… what did I know?! I wasn’t certified in anything, I definitely didn’t have near enough knowledge to help anyone with anything. Did I…?

Well, I did, I just didn’t know it at the time. The truth is, I was scared. I was hiding, thinking I didn’t have enough experience or have what it takes to actually start coaching people.

And I truly believed that until I went to an online business event where I sat in a room full of other entrepreneurs who were just like me, sharing their stories.

They had the same fears, worries, limiting beliefs about their qualifications as I did. But yet many of them were simply getting started. They were just out there, practicing, learning, growing, experimenting, and making money. At that event I learned that the successful entrepreneurs were really just like me, only with a few years more experience under their belt.

In other words, they were just like me only they had already gotten started. They started before they were “ready.” They started scared.

Truth be told, the coaching industry is like the wild wild west right now. There really are no rules or regulations, there’s no degree that ordains you a better coach than someone else.

And there are plenty of coaches out there with certifications who are terrible coaches, just like there are plenty of college graduates with degrees in engineering who are terrible engineers.

A degree or piece of paper is not what makes someone great at what they do. It’s their dedication, their passion, their willingness to learn and grow.  

So when one of my clients comes to me upset, buying into the belief that she’s not ready or qualified enough to be a coach simply because one of her friends told her she needs to be certified, it really boils my blood.

It reminds me of when I was just getting started and felt shame around coaching others without being certified. It reminds me that there are thousands of people who want to be coaches but are getting shamed out of pursuing it.

Needing certification to be a coach is such BS and here’s why. ⁣

Imagine that you‘re out in the middle of the ocean. Your ship just sank and you need rescuing. A helicopter with the rescue team flies overhead and they’re shouting down at you.⁣

“Hey, do you want a life raft, a life preserver, a rope, someone to come down and get you, or do you want us to send for a Coast Guard boat to come?”⁣⁣

You’re not going to care which method they use to save you. All you care about is that you are getting saved. ⁣⁣

The same goes for your clients and future clients. They don’t care what method you use to help transform or save them. They only care that they get help. ⁣⁣

Your coaching methodology is the life-raft, the preserver, the coast guard, the rope, etc. All that matters to them is that you have a method that works to get them the results they want. ⁣It can come from a certification, sure, that’s perfectly well and good! But it doesn’t have to.

You can create your own methodology with your own knowledge and experience that lives right in that head of yours and then prove it with your first few clients. If it needs tweaking, you tweak it.⁣

This is what I like to call your PCM: Proprietary Coaching Method. It’s not something you need to get certified in. It’s a method you develop yourself by putting all the knowledge, experience and passions buried in your head down onto paper in a step-by-step process. ⁣

It’s something I walk my clients through with my coaching, and it something you can do to transform others’ lives without a certification. ⁣

I’m so grateful that I’ve come far enough in my business now that I get to remind my clients of what I’ve built with no certification. I get to show them that it’s possible to be an amazing coach, help others, make an impact in the world and create a good income for yourself without a degree or certification.

Look, your LIFE is your degree. Your experiences are your certification. And your own growth is your proof. Proof that you can help others.

You simply just need to be one step ahead of the people you’re trying to help. You don’t have to have it all figured out. You don’t have to be at the end of your journey.

You just need to be passionate about what you do, feel called to help others, and be willing to get better at what you do through investing in your own learning, coaches and mentors. You can’t expect to be a good coach if you yourself aren’t willing to be coached.

Will I get certified someday? Probably. I am constantly wanting to expand my knowledge and toolkit as a coach to master my craft. Certification in something like NLP or spiritual psychology definitely calls to me. But it’s not something I needed to get started. And it’s not something you need to get started either.

I learned how to coach through getting coached myself and by taking what I learned from my mentors, my life, books and podcasts and putting it into my PCM.

So my recommendation? Start practicing on a few friends as clients, start getting out there and coaching and even see if it feels like a good fit.

Go experiment and have fun developing your own PCM. And if it works, no one will care if you’re certified or not!

And if you get stuck along the way, come find me and I can help you with your PCM and coaching biz.

Want to start a coaching business? Get my free download on How to Start A Profitable Coaching Biz Without Certification.

I think we are all born as our true selves, fully aligned with our souls but as we grow up we encounter situations, experiences, beliefs, and people that add these layers upon layers of excess that obscure this true self. It gets harder and harder for us to connect with it the more we are influenced by the world around us. This limits our happiness and sense of fulfillment. I touch on this in this post on my blog about why you should spend time alone because one of the best ways to reconnect with your true self is to spend more time alone, away from the noises and distractions and influence of the external world.

We are constantly being bombarded by people, the news, the media, advertisements telling us what to like, what we should wear, what we should look like, and what we should care about. But what about what we truly care about? What about what brings us true happiness? When was the last time you took some time alone to reflect on the real you and how you truly feel about everything? Most people call this soul-searching, but what if instead it’s more of a soul-excavation?

I went to hear Marianne Williamson speak on Monday night here in Los Angeles and she brought up something that I want to share with you guys. She said,

“When Michaelangelo was asked how he created a piece of sculpture, he answered that the statue already existed within the marble. God himself had created the Pieta, David, Moses. Michaelangelo’s job, as he saw it, was to get rid of the excess marble that surrounded God’s creation.”

If you know anything about Marianne Williamson, you know that she’s not Christian – she’s actually Jewish – but anyway, to get the point across without any religious undertones, just replace the word God with Universe, unless you prefer to use God. Really, it’s totally your choice. We are all created by the universe so what this means is that you are already your true self. Your soul, your authentic self, already exits within you. You don’t have to find it. You don’t have to go soul searching. All you have to do is remove the excess marble that surrounds it.

Just think about that for a moment.

We are not tasked with having to define our true selves. We are not tasked with having to find our purpose or make up our true, authentic selves (ugh, thank you, because that sounds impossible!) We already are our true, authentic selves. Instead, all we need to do is figure out which pieces of ourselves that we’ve accumulated over the years aren’t truly us.

These pieces, or layers, are identities we hold on to that others have defined for us. They’re identities that we thought we needed or identities we were told we should have. They’re identities that protected us during painful past experiences but no longer serve us. That’s the key: they no longer serve us.

So get rid of them! These are the layers that are simply obscuring our true selves and the process of removing them is as simple as taking the time to look at each identity and asking yourself if you still want to identify with it.

And this process doesn’t take a lifetime, even though it often seems like it’s that far away. It can happen as soon as you start to consciously pay attention to yourself, your thoughts, and your true feelings. Take some time to get away from everything, or at the very least, spend a few minutes every day totally unplugged from the world, with no distractions to just be alone with your thoughts. Start asking yourself which parts of your identity you want to hold on to and which parts you want to release.

A little over a year ago I was feeling totally lost and confused. Stuck and stagnant in life. I had a good life and yet I felt like something was missing. Like there was more out there that I wasn’t experiencing. Like I was meant for something more, but I just didn’t know what that was or how to get there. I was lacking a sense of purpose and fulfillment.

Well, a few months after that the universe really gave me a kick in the ass and showed me the way. It wasn’t how I was expecting any of this to happen – getting stuck with a horrible skin condition was probably the least pleasant way of showing me how to get on the right path. But it worked.

I spent SO much time alone that I had no choice but to reconnect with my true self. I barely talked to friends, barely even talked to my boyfriend. I spent the majority of my time meditating, sleeping, and binge-watching Netflix (that was the only thing that would take my mind off the pain). Then, when I was finally out of the painful phase, I took a week-long solo trip to Lake Tahoe and just unplugged from the world.

I took the time to ask myself questions about who I was, what my values were, what I enjoyed, what I didn’t enjoy, and what parts of my identity I liked and didn’t like. It was truly amazing and just what I needed to get re-aligned with my true, authentic self. I was finally taking my happiness in my own hands.

Mind you, I didn’t wake up the last morning of the trip thinking “OMG I am in touch with my soul!! Woooo!” But when I got back to LA after my trip it was as if everything had changed. I had such a clear vision on what I wanted to do with my life and such utter confidence in my ability to get there, something within me had come alive. I honestly believe that was my soul mobilizing.

Pulling a quote from Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Big Magic here:

“Your soul will mobilize accordingly. It will mobilize ecstatically, in fact, because this is what your soul was born for. (Trust me, your soul has been waiting for you to wake up to your own existence for years.)”

If you’re feeling like I was a year ago, please, for the love of donuts (I really like donuts), don’t wait for the universe to kick you in the ass. Do it yourself. Stop being a passenger in your own life, start piloting that airplane like a boss. Stop waiting for stuff to happen to you and go after what you want. No one is going to give you permission to do what you want, to be what you want or to have what you want. You need to give yourself permission. You only live once, this life is so short and so unpredictable, you don’t know how long you have. Why not live your life on your terms?

Trust me, you really don’t want to have to wait for the universe to hand you some crap experience for you to get moving, because trust me, it will. Why do you think so many of us transform so drastically after painful experiences? Why do you think there are so many leaders, authors, speakers, out there who have gone through tragic or painful experiences first before becoming this new version of themselves? It was the kick in the ass they needed to truly change. But you don’t NEED a painful experience to change. You can do it yourself. So don’t wait for it, I’m begging you. And if you’ve already had that painful experience – it’s time to USE it. Let it transform you.

So you see, my lovely modern spiritualist friend, you are much closer than you realize to happiness and a fulfilling life. You just need to peel back the excess layers and reconnect with the real you. So stop soul-searching and just start removing the bits and pieces of yourself that don’t feel like you. Do you create drama in relationships because that’s what you see on TV or what was modeled for you by your parents? Is that part of your identity you want to keep? If not, release it.

Are you working a job you hate because you believe you “are” a marketer, engineer or any other job title? You’re identifying with your job title. You are so not your job. You are working your job. There’s a big difference. If that’s not an identity you want to keep, release it. And so on and so forth for every aspect of your life you can think of!

You will know when you’ve uncovered your soul. You’ll experience so much clarity, so much joy, so much confidence, your life will be turned upside down in the best possible way.

Happy excavating, friends!

P.S. Want a free workbook to help you define and release the identities that no longer serve you, paving the way to happiness and fulfillment? Download it here.