A few months ago I was fortunate to meet a woman who was developing her coaching practice. She was learning a new approach and wanted to take on some clients gratis for three months. After a few discussions we agreed that meeting three times a month for three months would be a mutually beneficial arrangement.
As we near the end of our arrangement, I find that our time was a blessing—I learned to identify a lot of the hang-ups I experience in pursuit of projects that excite but scare the hell out of me. I learned where I hide-out when I “play it safe” (full-time jobs). I feel prepared to take on the next phase of my writing and life projects.
Two weeks ago, near our last session, my coach mentioned that our time was drawing to a close, and she asked if I would want to continue working with her. She suggested we meet at least twice a month, and that I commit for at least three months. She told me her fee.
“OK,” I said, doing the math. “Let me think about it, but I think that sounds good.”
Over the course of the week, however, I began to wonder. Sure, I’ve been enjoying the coaching, but I hadn’t planned on continuing; at least not yet. I had figured I would go it alone and see how my writing projects were doing before asking for PAID help. The coaching had been helpful, but did I really need more?
I told my bfriend that I planned to continue. When I told him how much I was paying his eyes widened with disbelief.
“Do you REALLY want to do this?” He said.
“She’s been very helpful,” I said.
“Yeah, but that’s a fat chunk of change. And what if you decide you don’t want to stick it out?”
“Of course I’d stick it out,” I said, “if I paid to stick it out.”
“But would you want to?”
The questions Jesse was posing were rudimentary, but I felt like he was asking me for the meaning of life.
“She’s been meeting me for FREE, Jess,” I said, as if this somehow explained why I was bound to enter the contract.
“That’s your problem, Jory,” he said. “You’ve got an issue with obligation.”
It occurred to me that he was right. And as things began to unfold over the course of the next two weeks, a new realization came to me: My life has been lived in fulfillment of obligations, and that I’m not the only one. There’s a group of us—in corporations, in marriages, in half-fulfilled situations—that live this way and then wonder why we aren’t getting what we want. And nearly all of us are women.
My friend, the Business and Leadership Coach Kimberly Wiefling alluded to this tendency of women's while chatting with me some time ago; but she had added a different twist. Not only are women often slowed by slogging through seemingly harmless obligations, we are stopped by the worst impediment—ourselves.
“Ever hear of the Impostor Sydrome?” she said.
This is a fairly common condition that affects many women, particularly those who are achievement-oriented. It’s a belief that one’s accomplishments are not deserved, that one has somehow fooled the system and will inevitably be found out for the fake that she is.
Those with Impostor Syndrome find it tough to accept acknowledgement. I once turned a bright purple-red when I was asked to come to the front of the room and receive accolades for a project I had completed. Instead of taking it in, all I could think of was how I’d hardly done anything, and I was really being teased.
Combine this Impostor Syndrome with a profound guilt for not giving others their props for having helped you, and there you have it—a new, even more twisted form of self-encumbrance—The Beholden Woman Syndrome. Like any illness it seeps into your cells and makes you constantly question if you’ve done enough for people. You spend money, time, and energy trying to Karmacally pay these people back.
Armed with this new realization, I spoke to my coach this week, constantly reminding myself not to apologize. I told her that, while I really appreciated the coaching, I was about to enter into an agreement with her more out of obligation than anything else, and that I wanted to initiate future conversations when I felt the time was right. What she said was so unexpected I didn’t know what to say:
“OK, Jory. That sounds good.”
I wanted to praise her for her understanding, her kindness, her overflowing generosity. I wanted to burn her name into that Acknowledgements Page in my brain, but I didn’t. Lesson Number One learned.
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