Six years ago today, I was let go from Fidelity Investments and my journey toward becoming a coach began.

I resisted at first. I tried like anything to get another job within Fidelity, and then to develop a consulting business. Until I realized that what I really wanted, what I even felt called to do, was to become a coach helping senior leaders to transform in the same way that my teachers and mentors and coaches had helped me to transform.

In this journey of the last six years, I’ve noticed there are a few things that get in the way. No one told me about these things, and I’m sharing them in the hopes that they will help you create what you want, just as I have been able to create (or at least to start creating) what I want.

1. Know what you want
No one tells you how hard it is to actually know what you want. For you. Not the things that you think others expect of you, or the things you think you can have. The things you actually want.

2. Trust your inner knowing
For me, coaching was about a quiet knowing. I would challenge it, I would say it wasn’t practical, that I wasn’t qualified. But it knew, and it waited for me to come around. I am so grateful for that inner knowing, and for learning that I could trust it.

3. Ignore (most) other people
Chances are, that thing you really want is not on the predictable path, and most people have taken the predictable path. They will sabotage you to make themselves right. Not out of malice, but out of genuine concern that you are trying something that isn’t possible. But there are a few people who will see your magic. Hold on to those people. They are priceless.

4. Be unrealistic
It’s actually easier to do something unrealistic than to do something linear. Because linear requires more and more of the same. Linear is exhausting. Unrealistic requires you to create yourself differently, to see the world differently. And that transformation makes the seemingly impossible easy.

5. Do it even though you don’t know what will happen
So many people refuse to take the leap without knowing where the net is and EXACTLY how it will catch them. These people will never start. Because it is impossible to know how it will work out. You just have to trust that it will.

6. Continue to do it even when it’s hard or you’re stuck
The spiritual teacher Byron Katie says that you can have anything you want as long as you are willing to ask 1000 people. Creation is the same. You may not have to continue for years and years, but you have to be WILLING to. You have to come from that willingness, because otherwise you will stop the first time you run into a learning opportunity disguised as an obstacle.

Six years into this journey, I am so grateful that I have learned each of these. I offer them today to you in both gratitude and the hope that they will help YOU create what you really want.

I see a lot of writing in the self help and coaching world about “making commitments” and “having integrity.”

And for a long time, I put a lot on that. That all I have is my word.

It’s incredibly important to me when I have promised something to someone. I feel horrible when I miss a deadline.

But I had an experience this week that is beginning to change my mind. And I confess, I’m not sure yet what to do with it.

You see, my original #munndaymagic post this week was going to be about climbing a 14er. (A mountain higher than 14,000 feet.)

But when the time came to do it, I knew it wasn’t the right. So I was faced with a decision between keeping my word, and being true to myself.

We had dropped our son off at a month-long camp, and on the way back we stopped in a charming town called Buena (“Byoona”) Vista. Buena Vista is within a short drive of four different 14ers, and two sets of parents were planning on spending Saturday enjoying the town, and getting up early to climb (really more like really hard hiking) one of the 14ers on Sunday.

The other couple were veterans at this kind of climbing. My wife and I were the rookies. I was hesitant, but willing. I said I was game.

The husband ending up not making the trip. He caught COVID and was recuperating at home.

We had gotten up before 5 on the drop-off day, and I slept badly Saturday night as well. So Sunday morning, I didn’t feel so good.

I could have done it, but I really knew that physically I was not up to it. That, if I was true to myself, I would stay home that day while our wives (who are the more dedicated climbers anyway) went ahead and did the climb. That if I did the hike, I would end up angry at them (for “making” me do it) and me (for letting them).

I was so afraid of letting them down. I felt bad, until I realized something.

I often do what others want (or what I think they want) and make myself miserable in the process. And then I get mad at them, and at myself.

Here, it was clear to me that the right answer for everyone was for me to go back on my word, and for them to go on without me.

The first thing that I noticed is that they wanted to compromise, to do a shorter hike so I would come along, so that we do something together.

As I faced this additional temptation, I noticed that if I gave in, no one would be happy. In listening to myself, it became clear that my staying home was actually the best thing. I saw that they would have a great time without me, and that I would have a great time without them.

I broke my original commitment. I stayed home. I journaled. I saw how often I commit to things that I really don’t want to do, in an attempt to please others.

And they had an amazing time, and an even better time telling me about it.

Listening to myself, to my body, let me to some powerful insights.

What might it lead you to?

I was at dinner with a client and he was talking about leaving his current role for a similar role within the company. In a way, it would create a bit of a mess. Someone else be backfilling his old responsibilities, but he was excited about the possibilities in the new role and they were more aligned with his talents.

His boss had come to him and said, “So it sounds like you’re making this move, and that it’s a good one for you?”

And he had said, “Yes.”

Now he was rethinking things. He was feeling bad about whether his old responsibilities would be fulfilled by the new person, wondering if he should stick it out for longer until a more permanent solution could be found.

“But it sounds like your boss has already accepted that you’re moving. And that taking care of your old responsibilities is now his responsibility.”

“Yes, but…I’m not sure it’s fair to the woman who is picking up a lot of my stuff.”

And that’s when I asked him.

“Whose needs are more important. Hers, or yours?”

I could see in that moment how torn he was. That he really wanted to say, and that he knew he should say, that his needs were more important. But he really was putting her needs, or at least what he thought her needs were, ahead of his.

It was a pattern. He saw it in that moment. He saw he had struggled with that a long time.

It’s a pattern I see in many leaders.

Many exhausted, depleted leaders.

Because as much as we like to think that we’re selfless and giving, looking out for others’ needs ahead of our own almost never works out.

We don’t really know what others need. So when we give them what we think they need, it often falls flat. Neither one of us really gets what we need.

When I find myself doing this, I end up exhausted because I never refill my own tank. And I end up angry because I’m doing all these things for other people, denying my own needs, and they don’t even appreciate it!

And then I wonder why I feel so overwhelmed. Not seeing that I’m doing it to myself. Through my own innocently motivated martyrdom.

It’s unsustainable.

It might go against our conditioning to look out for ourselves, but much like putting our oxygen mask on first, it’s vital.

Because you can’t help anyone if you’re dead.