There’s something you keep coming back to but for some reason, you’ve still not got around to it.

Maybe you’ve been thinking about signing up for a course but can’t quite commit. Perhaps you’ve been given a contact in a new industry but you never seem to get around to writing the email. Or it could be that you’ve always wanted to live in a new city but the move just feels too big.

You might really want to do all these things, but your head keeps getting in the way with all the reasons not to:

• “It’s a big investment of my time/money.”
• “I don’t know if it’s the right thing for me.”
• “I don’t want to look stupid.”
• “If I do it, it means I have to commit myself to it.”
• “I might not like it, and then I’ll be disappointed.”

If there’s a nagging feeling in your gut or something that keeps popping up for you, then it’s probably worth exploring. 

In 2014, I signed myself up at the Institute of Integrative Nutrition to become a Health Coach. At the time, I knew that being a mentor was important to me. Having moved to the States and surprised by how the food affected me, I had become interested in nutrition.

I recognised that I wanted to support people in some way and so I thought…maybe this is it!?!

It was a big commitment, and I was nervous about the investment, but I figured that either way it was going to be a new move in the direction I wanted to take. So I took the plunge.

See related post: Feeling Stuck In Your Job? How Taking New Steps Will Lead You To A New Career

On completion of the course a year later, and as a newborn Health Coach, I was stumped as to how to get going and I still had some resistance to it.

By this point, I had decided I was going to leave New York and head to the tropics of Costa Rica. Since I wanted to move into the health and wellness industry, and it was booming out there, it was the logical move for me (sitting on golden beaches did not influence this decision in any way of course…).

I decided to base my trip around doing a 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training. My reasons being that it complemented the Health Coaching and it fulfilled my love for movement and interest in the mind-body connection. Now, I am by no means an established backbending yogi. In fact, my practice had only really become regular a couple of years earlier, so I was still a spring chicken. Nonetheless, I felt drawn to it, so off I went.

Throughout the whole Yoga Teacher Training I was experiencing an inner tug of war about whether I wanted to teach or not.

I was coming up against a wall of ‘shoulds’.

If I do this teacher training then I ‘should’ be a teacher. If I’ve invested this time and money I ‘should’ practice every day and dedicate myself to this.

See related post: Not Sure What To Do? Get Clear On Your ‘WHY’ With These 3 Questions

I eventually managed to let that all go and embrace it just for myself and see what happened.

What did happen was on arrival to the town I was considering calling home, I scoped out a couple of studios and put myself down as available to teach. An hour later I got a call and was asked to go in to cover a class. Suffice to say, I felt unprepared and nervous.

Now, the biggest thing I learnt from all this wasn’t that I suddenly wanted to become a yoga guru. It was that I learnt to find my voice.

Because of my teaching, I became more confident in speaking in front of people and, most essentially, being myself in those situations. 

Fast-forward another year, and I moved to Spain for a job at a full-time wellness retreat. If it hadn’t been for my experience as a yoga teacher, I don’t think I would have got the job.

With the lengthy title of ‘Health and Wellbeing Mentor and Yoga Instructor’, the thing that drew me to the job was the mentoring aspect. Not teaching yoga. I would get to use my coaching skills and lead workshops. The yoga part was just the hook.

Although I enjoyed teaching, it wasn’t my focus, but it was the crucial ingredient that got me the job. And that job served as a springboard into the industry I’m in now.

It allowed me to get clear on what I wanted…and what I didn’t want.

For me, I knew I wanted to be a coach, but it wasn’t in the world of nutrition. Over a period of two years, it transpired that everything I had learnt along the way was relevant, but not in the way that I had anticipated.

Everything serves a purpose.

Whatever skills you acquire, whatever course or qualification you do, whether you use it or not, is always worth it. It will tell you what you do and do not want, it will give you skills that you can transfer in ways that may be unexpected. It will allow you to hone in on your goals, even if that means by process of elimination.

So, if you’re thinking of taking that course. Take it.

If you’re thinking of writing an email to someone. Write it.

If you’re thinking of living in a new city. Explore it.

None of this means you are wedded to an outcome. It doesn’t have to be right. You don’t even have to enjoy it – you’ll still be gathering information.

What it will give you, is the opportunity to grow.

So, give it a try. And if you do, it could end up opening up a whole new world of intrigue that you didn’t know was waiting for you.

Good luck!

If you need support and are curious about how a Career Change Coach could help you become unstuck, please do get in touch or find out more on my Services page.