So, do you love people and do you love helping? I suspect that you do. That’s the lion’s share of the people I find in my audience. We are the helpers. We are givers. We are the ones who love to love, to love on other people. Want to know a little secret? The hardest part about endeavoring to be a transformational coach is to remember I don’t have to be perfect. I don’t have any answers. I don’t have to have any answers.

But when my own personal life goes to hell in a handbasket, it’s hard to keep going. Have you ever had that experience where you look at your own life and you’re going, “Girl, please. Who should listen to you?” We’re gonna talk about how to keep going when everything doesn’t look perfect. Let’s get going.

Welcome to the Unlock Your Life podcast, a podcast for highly successful visionary women who want more out of life. If you feel that ache of unfulfillment in your soul, you’re in the right place sis. Join life mastery consultant Lori A. Harris as she teaches you how to stop living for others and finally put yourself first. Let’s dive into today’s show.

So it’s really interesting that one engages in work of being a helper. It’s so tempting to think that oh in order to be a helper, I have to be perfect. While everyone knows intellectually, one, no one is perfect. And two, in order to be a helper, you don’t have to be perfect.

In the age of social media and what people call cancel culture and everyone having their own little miniature glass microphone in their pocket, it can be tempting to shrink and shy away and refuse to offer the help that you know that you have and want to share. It can be really tempting to do that. But the truth is, we are not required to be perfect in order to be helpful.

So in this month of May, the month of vocation where we are considering our callings, I want to talk to you about how to keep going in the work while everything at home might feel a little shaky. Might feel less than perfect.

So I am a person, and frequently things come up. While I love serving my clients and when I’m actively engaged in the practice of coaching, I really love it. I don’t really have any trouble doing it. It’s in the spaces in between that sometimes things can get a little dark. Sometimes I can have a question about should I even be doing this? Who am I to say?

Those times usually come up when I’m in conflict with another person. Someone that I love, someone that I care about, and things are going less than perfectly. I have a desire that we experience more connection. I have a desire that our relationship experiences a healing. But on the way to that I can experience some sorrow about the state of affairs at the time.

It’s very tempting to engage in a practice of giving the situation more meaning than it deserves. Attaching meanings to the situation that are not accurate or true, and attaching meaning to the situation and its application to my life and my vocation.

As a person who is using this work as a transformational coach to expand my ripple, to help more people have more life, build a life they’d love, and experience more freedom, that is my mission. It can be tempting to think, “Oh, I am only allowed to do that when everything is going perfectly in my life.” Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever felt like I can only be helpful if everything is perfect for me? That is a paradigm, a thought pattern, a way of thinking that can keep us stuck, and keep us from offering our gifts to the world.

So if you have a calling that requires you to show up and to be a giver and to offer assistance to others, I implore you to resist the urge to require that kind of perfection from yourself. Instead, I have a few tools that I rely upon to keep myself in the game and to simply keep going.

What’s the first thing I do? I remember my why. I go back to why is the work important? Why do I want to do it? Who is it that I want to serve? When I remember my why then I’m reminded that I’m only here to serve. Only here to help those people who would find it helpful. So when I can remember my why, then I remind myself to stay in service, to move my ego aside, and to remember why I got into the business in the first place.

Secondly, I’m reminded we don’t have to do anything alone. Just as I provide coaching and assistance to my clients, I have a coach, and I get assistance for myself. So it helps me because it keeps me in integrity. It’s one thing to say this is really important work and you really will improve your life and experience a healing if you engage in it and talk about it. It’s another to model it.

So just as I love on my clients when things are going less than perfectly in their lives, I allow myself to be served in that way and have someone be prepared to remind me of what it’s true, to see me outside of the frame, and to help me gather myself and get to the other side.

Another thing that I like to do is to rely on and remember the training. When it’s tempting to go down the rabbit hole of everything is falling apart, everything is terrible. I remember the training. I remember the things that I would share with my clients, and I can self-coach myself, and remind myself of what I know to be true. I’m reminded that the training is inside of me. I can trust it. I can lean on it. I can let it help me when I don’t have the strength to hold it all up by myself.

There was a time when I was having a conflict, and I was upset, and I had to do a jury trial. I just didn’t feel like doing it. However, it didn’t matter because I was active and engaged. The training that was so deeply ingrained in me was so deeply ingrained that I could almost do it on autopilot. My brain would hear something, and if it’s objectionable, it would object even when I really just wanted to go home and be under the covers.

So allow yourself to be aided by your training. Whatever it is in your profession that you do as a helper, remember, you are a trained professional, and you can rely on the training to take you through and to be infused in your gut to make it possible for you to keep going. Again, don’t require yourself to be perfect. None of us are perfect.

When you can be honest and upfront with your situation, it’s far more valuable to the community that we serve that we share the truth of who we are and how we move through life using the tips and tools that we’ve learned and been trained in in order to help not only ourselves, but to help our clients as well. So be vulnerable, be honest, be authentic, be real, but don’t try to be perfect.

The last thing is remember you don’t have to know all the answers. You don’t even really have to know any answers. What we need to be able to do to help another person is just be one step ahead. So if you know the way and you’ve gone a little bit further on the trail and you’re a little bit higher on the hill, you have perspective. You have a vision, and you’ve gone a little bit further.

You’re able to offer a little bit of guidance. And that has value. You don’t have to know everything, but you can offer what you do know. Let yourself be that guide even if you’re only one or two rungs ahead on the ladder.

So as a person who is a member of this community endeavoring to have an impact, endeavoring to help people and to change lives and make lives better, be kind to yourself. Don’t require that you know all the things and have all the answers. Allow yourself some modicum of imperfection. Watch the growth that you will experience and be able to share in your practice as a helper and a healer.

The five tips that I gave to you in order to keep going when you’re experiencing a difficult time in your personal life that makes you question whether or not you have value in your professional life. Start with why. Remember why you want to do this work. Stay in service. Set your ego aside and remember, you love people, and you love helping. If you stay in service, you will be able to keep going.

Two, don’t go it alone. Just as you love to help other people and benefit by giving assistance and insight to others, don’t go it alone. Allow yourself to be nourished and assisted as well. Get the services for yourself that you encourage your clients to get.

Three, remember the training, trust the training, and know that the training will see you through. It’s deeply ingrained in you. You can rely on that and depend on that to keep you going. Don’t expect or require perfection. It’s not going to happen. It’s a trap to keep you from making progress, to keep you stuck.

So allow yourself to grow and experience growth that each of life experiences come to come and help you and to teach you. Get the learning, get the experience, and share the truth of your experience, the truth of your being. Be vulnerable, be authentic, be real, and watch how you grow and your clients continue to grow as well.

Remember, you don’t have to have it all answered. You don’t have to know all the trail. You just have to be one step ahead, a couple of rungs up higher on the ladder, higher on the mountain to enjoy a higher view to give some guidance to how far you’ve come and what to watch out for.

This is what we do as helpers. This is what we do as changemakers. This is what we do when we’ve decided that we want to expand our ripple, experience more freedom, and bring more people along the trail with us. This is the beauty of being a person in service. I know that’s what you love doing, and I love it too. I want to help all of you have a good, good, good experience.

This has been episode 46 of the Unlock Your Life podcast. Thank you so much for listening. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. If you know someone who’s having difficulty keeping going or questioning their worth as a helper, remind them and give them a new perspective on why their work is important, why they are just the person to do it at this particular time. This is a great way to be reminded of the service.

You can share this episode with a friend. You can go to loriaharris.com/number46 and that will take them directly to the episode. If you’ve enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. You can also find information about me and my services there where you can sign up for my newsletter where I contact people once a week, let you know what I’m up to, how I’m helping, and who I’m serving, and who’s benefited from the work in the last few days.

Thank you for listening. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, go to Apple podcasts, follow, rate, and review the show. I’d love a five star review, and I’d love to hear from you on what you think might be helpful to make the show even better. Thank you for listening. And remember, it’s your life. Make it a great one.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Unlock Your Life podcast. If you want more information on how you can transform your life and do it quickly, visit loriaharris.com. See it on the next episode of the Unlock Your Life podcast.