When the fear stops you from doing what you love

My coach challenged me to talk about the fear of selling I’ve been experiencing ever since I realised that being a coach involves selling coaching. I tried to get it out on the page, not even committing to publish anything. After a few attempts that went nowhere, I let it go.

Then yesterday, as I was driving to work, going up and down a row of little hills, the poem above just showed up and I used a transcription app to catch it. Now that I have it I feel like I can share, like, sharing is suddenly a good idea - I will let go of some of this fear and some of the shame, and you will know the struggle of another which might make you less alone in your own struggles.

So here we are - I am admitting that I am scared of sales.

I worked with some amazing coaches and I’ve gone from scared and disgusted by the idea to just scared. Yes, the idea that I go out into the world and tell people what coaching can do for them felt viscerally disgusting - like gross and slimy, like I was lying and tricking people. I’ve worked through that - now selling is sharing information on what you are offering with people who have agency to make a decision for themselves. The disgust is gone, but the fear is still here and it got bigger, because I’ve forced myself to do it when I wasn’t ready. It’s like I’ve been making myself jump into boiling water and pretending it’s a pool. Thanks to this my system is on high alert, and at this point I am going nowhere fast, which is fine. I am ready to hear my body and do one thing at a time, but I am not giving up.