7 Years of Not Giving Up

Seven years. Seven years today since I first coached someone and they paid me money for it.

Real money. Pounds. English pounds.

It was before that that someone first said yes. A different person, actually - these two people were both my first client in different ways. When the first yes came in, for a moment I didn't know what to do. Luckily I'd been well enough trained by my mentors at the Coaching School that I stuttered something and away we went.

I was reflecting with a friend of mine about the entrepreneurial cycle that comes round every now and again of... it's time to get a job. Sometimes it ends with some thoughts. Sometimes with some googling of jobs. Sometimes with social media posts. But it ends. At least for those of us who are still entrepreneurs.

Seven years of not getting a job. Seven years of not quitting. Of not giving up.

As I've written about before, really all that matters is that you choose every day not to give up. Not get divorced. Not to drink. Not to quit.

That doesn't mean there haven't been moments of doubt. In fact, moments of doubt seem to be part of the territory. There have, in fact, been many. Many.

This week, there have been many. Personal circumstances have had me looking at my finances. In the cold light of day. Wondering why I don't make more money. Mostly I know: because I don't choose to make more money. Not that I could instantly make more money if I just chose to have it. Rather, I make decisions based on all kinds of things, many of them not 'what will enable me to make the most money I can?'

And yet there are those moments of doubt.

In many ways, money shows our impact in the world. So what does it say about me that I make more than I've made before but less than MANY people.

But money isn't the only thing that shows impact in the world.

Last week I did my 2000th hour of coaching. 2000 hours. I don't know if that's 'a lot' compared to other people. But I've been watching that timer tick up. That's one of the ways I know I've made a difference. An impact in the world. That counter, ticking up, shows me that I MUST have made a difference, because of each of those hours does. That counter, ticking up, is also how I know I haven't given up.

And it's how I know I'm building for the long term. (Because, coaches, if there's one thing that will help you grow your coaching business in the long term, it's coaching people.)

Seven years of not giving up.

I remember something that started happening after coaching for about two and a half years. Coaches I was talking to, when I told htem that, started saying 'Oh, you've been doing this for a long time'. It didn't feel like that then, but it has started to now.

Seven years is long enough to have recorded videos less than half way into my time as a coach. Longer ago now than I had been coaching then.

Seven years is long enough for magical conversation-in-the-future visions I created with clients to start coming true, right on time.

Seven years is long enough for clients to become friends.

Seven years is long enough to have created a body of work that is too large for me to remember.

After seven years, I feel like I've been doing this a while. But not a long time. Because I can see those people ahead of me on the path, who have been coaching for decades. I've spoken to many of them.

If you don't give up, if you keep creating, then over time you create a bigger and bigger body of work. Sometimes, surprisingly, you'll find you've created something magical.

And still the lessons feel hard-learned. To have all the kinds of people around me that I need. To compare myself to me, yesterday, not others today. Still I have to keep learning them.

I wonder what 14 years of this will look like.

As long as I don't give up, one day I'll find out.

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This is the latest in a series of articles written using the 12-Minute Method: write for twelve minutes, proof read once with tiny edits and then post online. Read the archive of articles written using the 12-Minute Method here.

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