Jaclyn Beckerman Coaching

I saw this weekend that I have a lot of charge/energy around the concept of being a “shitty coach” and “not being as good as others”.  If something triggers me to feel like either of those, I immediately shut down and start beating myself up for it. It goes back to a very young conversation that I’m just not good enough and don’t fit in.

I realized it’s not that any of that is at all true, or that anyone else believes that it’s true, but rather that I spend so much time trying to be NOT that, that I can’t actually get outside of it.  There’s some part of me deep down that must believe it could be true because there’s significant fear of being just that.

What I saw, with the help of a couple friends/colleagues, is that if I create it as a neutral place, I can then build, grow and learn from there.  For example, “Ok, so I’m a shitty coach.  Now what?” or “Ok, others are better than me. Now what?”.  At first I couldn’t even be with that concept.  But the reason I couldn’t be with it is because I think I shouldn’t be a shitty coach or inferior, and I am masterful at beating myself up about things I think ‘shouldn’t be’.

However, I realized that if I stopped beating myself up all the time, I would have infinite more space to be with people and to make a difference with my clients.  To really open my heart to others and allow it all.

What do you see for yourselves?

What are some hot buttons that trigger you to get angry or upset with yourself, that you just have a really hard time being with?

Often it’s the things that are the most charged for us that cause us to do everything in our power to not be that thing we fear.  Yet then we’re imprisoned by the belief that at our core we are in fact that thing.

It’s often easier to see in other people.  You almost inevitably know lots of people who beat themselves up for everything and anything possible.  They believe they’re not a good enough leader, they’re not attractive enough, cool enough, smart enough, strong enough, funny enough, etc.  So they do everything they can to compensate for what they imagined is wrong with them rather than be with that fear and create an opportunity to grow.

Well, you too.

What consequences do you see of living your life based on some kind of imaginary fear?

From there, what new way of being would you like to create instead?  Because that is what’s possible from taking ownership of your interpretations and actions.  That is where you can make a difference.

I’m feeling the need to share that I don’t like talking about my business in my posts.  There’s something about looking good and avoiding looking bad that consistently keeps me from writing about wins (or breakdowns) or lessons I learn in my business.

I’ve taken my willingness to be vulnerable with people to a whole different level just by starting this blog yet it’s clear to me that I’m not sharing things that would definitely be of value to folks in order to save face or avoid being judged.  It’s funny because I imagine it’s easy for people to judge lots of the things I talk about in my posts anyway yet for some reason when it comes to my business, I get far more confronted than by other topics.

I think we all do this.  We don’t share authentically with everyone what’s really going on in certain areas of our lives because we judge that they should be going or certain way or shouldn’t be going however they are.

Something fabulous that one of my clients said today was that in looking at how things were in the past (actually just a few months ago), she saw that they had to go the way they did and she had to go through what she did in order to get where she is now.  And because of that, she could see that the process was perfect.  Because today she feels empowered and liberated from some limiting beliefs that had a stronghold on her for most of her life.  But couldn’t have gotten here without going through the muck.  By the same logic, you can’t get where you want to go without going through whatever is in the way and breaking it down.  So naturally then, where you are too is perfect.  And there’s simply still work to be done to get the results you want.

So the thing I want to share about my business today is that I’ve had a breakthrough in it recently.  I shared in my post, Give It All Away, that I finally understood that I wasn’t getting what I wanted in life because I wasn’t giving it to the universe.  I said I wanted to be a contribution and to have a thriving coaching practice but I certainly wasn’t consistently having new clients sign up.  What I see is that I was actually being really stingy with both myself and others – more interested in what I could gain for myself than what I could give away to others and life.

What I didn’t share about my experience that day at Sacred Center was that this understanding that I needed to give to the universe what I was looking to have myself really moved to give more than my usual $2 or $3 donation when they passed the baskets around.  Instead, I filled out a credit card slip and donated $20.  This may or may not seem like a huge deal to you but for me it was an act of giving away the thing I’d been struggling to bring in to myself to something I love – without the story of ‘I can’t afford to do this’ or ‘I need to save money’ or ‘This is irresponsible’ attached to it.  I was contributing to something I saw as wonderful in the world instead of looking to be contributed to.  And it felt great.  Her message (I recommend reading the post if you haven’t already) had really shifted my perception of who I was being in the world.

The magic, the reason this is so significant to share, is that the very next day, I had a new client hire me.  While I know I’m a great coach and provide a lot of value for people, actually bringing in new business had definitely not been my strong suit in the past.  So just believe me when I say that this blatant manifestation of the law of attraction was pretty phenomenal.

I have been living and being from this place ever since.  Very aware of my intentions and solely out to contribute to people whether they are friends, prospects, clients, colleagues or family.

This past Sunday at Sacred Center, when they passed the donation baskets around, I at first gave $3, then I decided that was too stingy and was compelled to give more and added another $5.  I also did a workshop which I knew I wanted to participate in and was another $10.  I only had one sample session set up for this week, my first since that last one.  Now THIS prospect, who is wonderful and my ideal client, hired me as well.

More and more I’m feeling confident and certain that my practice is going to thrive and I will be able to serve myself by serving others!  My dream is to support as many people as possible in transforming their lives to be the life of their dreams! (In the future that will also include books and inspirational speaking!) And I must say, living (and loving) from this place and creating this life is SO exciting and rewarding!

What do you see would be possible for YOU if you started living from a space of contributing rather than ‘getting your needs met’ or ‘what’s in it for you’?  (And lets be honest, ‘what’s in it for you’ tends to dominate most folks way of being whether they intend it to or not.)

I finally realized in my call with my coach today that pressure is simply a context and one that I masterfully create at that.  In fact, mine could be lumped together as a context of pressure and playing victim and rebellion.  This is a major context that I’ve been skirting around with my coach for quite some time because I even felt pressure around the conversation!

I realize that I resist so many things in life because I feel they’re based out of pressure which I want to avoid as much as possible.  Even when I have great things going on in my life, I often get caught up in and tend to focus on the areas that are not working and where I’m not creating the results I want.  I’m pretty sure THIS is where the “I don’t want to”, “I don’t feel like it”, or lazy way of being stems from.  I also get that it’s a completely made up construct that I have created and let take on a life of it’s own.

If there were no pressure, I can see that things would seem more easy and care-free, basically I would be able to exist in a state of freedom. Whatever I do would be because I want to do it, not because I need or have to to satisfy some condition I previously decided needed to be satisfied. I would be able to take action from a place of commitment and creation, rather than fear or obligation.

One of the predominant areas this shows up in is around my coaching practice.  I mean, I can easily imagine that if I were to take action from freedom instead of pressure or a sense of obligation, the results are going to be unbelievably different.

SO, what I’m up to is creating a breakthrough in busting through the pressures.  Life beyond the context of pressure.

I certainly haven’t figured out how yet.  But coaching isn’t about having it all figured out first.  It’s about declaring what you want and then becoming who you need to BE to fulfill on that declaration.

In service of this discovery process, I’d like to ask, how do YOU not create pressure for the things in your life?

Thanks in advance for your contribution and support!

Awhile back, my sister posted this amazing picture on Facebook of the two of us as children.  I exclaimed to one of my cousin’s how I wish I had pictures like that yet didn’t have a single one. Being the youngest of three (6 years younger than my sister and 10 younger than my brother), my parents had fizzled in their obsessive picture taking (and more importantly saving) habit by the time I was born. (Something I’ve vocally chastised them for in subsequent years).  My cousin said she was sure she had some and would dig them up.  I never pursued this though. Months later I received a birthday card from that same cousin with a surprise in it.  It was a piece of paper folded up that turned out to be a collage of pictures from when we were all little! Such an amazing and thoughtful gift.

Recently, my other cousin (the first one’s sister) was over my apartment for the first time and saw the collage.  She pointed to one of the pictures within it where I was maybe about 5 or 6 or so (?) with a huge smile on my face and my arms thrown around my first cousin’s neck.  She exclaimed, “THAT’s exactly how I remember you!”

The significance for me in this was realizing just how far I’d strayed from that little girl who wanted nothing more than to love and be loved.  I was gifted at over-the-top, whole-hearted, give everything love. I think many people just couldn’t be with this much love and couldn’t handle it. Consequently, I was frequently devastated and heart-broken by it not being consistently received or reciprocated.  They would tell me things like I was too much and needed to calm down or ‘OK, that’s enough!’.  What I made that mean was that there was too much life in me and I needed to make myself smaller to make others comfortable.

As a repercussion for the pain and disappointment I felt emotionally, I made a decision at some point when I was young to instead withhold my love. Replacing it with judgment and cynicism veiled by a mask of friendliness and optimism. I withheld my love in order to avoid disappointment and heartbreak, essentially to protect myself from that terrible feeling. Inevitably this made it very difficult for me to accept it as well. I proceeded to do this for most of my life. In fact it’s really only over the past six months that I’ve had a significant breakthrough in being, sharing, and allowing love.

About six months ago one of the head leaders of the coach training program I help lead, Accomplishment Coaching, reflected to me that her experience of ‘Jaclyn on automatic’ was of no intimacy.  This made a huge impression on me.  Six months later, that same leader’s acknowledgment to me was to thank me for being ‘almost embarrassingly intimate’ and a ‘fierce stand for love’.  When I mentioned the reflection she’d given me six months earlier, she said she’d honestly completely forgotten it because that person no longer existed and it was so far from her current experience of me.

THIS is why I do this work.

Ultimately, I now genuinely understand that as a child my capacity for love was just enormous. This is and was my GIFT. It wasn’t those people’s fault that I didn’t feel it was received or returned from them and they weren’t hurting me on purpose.  They didn’t do anything wrong and they loved me to THEIR best or full capacity, whatever that was at the time. But of course I was only a child (and human) and didn’t understand this.  In fact I don’t believe many adults truly understand this.

It’s only because of this journey, becoming a life coach and being committed to this work and sharing it with the world through Accomplishment Coaching and Landmark and this blog and actually taking what I learn into my life and integrating it through action that I’m able to open my heart again and truly experience loving the people in my life fully.

And God, am I so incredibly grateful.

My sister (God bless her) nudged me that I hadn’t yet written a post today and needed to get on it. (Said in much kinder, gentler terms, but absolutely needed and appreciated).

If I haven’t mentioned this already, I graduated from, and now lead, one of the best coach training programs in the country.  My apologies if I have and I’m boring you to death with my emphatic endorsement of this company (Accomplishment Coaching).  It meets once a month, Saturday and Sunday, 10am-6pm for the participants, 8am-8pm for us, the leaders.  As such, these weekends are inevitably incredibly intense and rigorous, calling forth your highest and greatest self and blatantly reflecting your survival strategies for getting by.  This is one of those weekends.

I found out today that what I was relating to as my breakthrough in leadership was really just a breakthrough in managing whatever is thrown my way.  You may have already deduced that. You may have not. I for one was thrilled enough with my job managing things that this was most definitely not what I wanted or expected to hear.

Again, leadership takes a lot of willingness to ‘work on it’.

I have NO idea what leadership looks like from a place other than ‘the rules’, ‘managing’, or ‘how’, or even what the hell to do with this idea.  But I do know that it’s the next step for me to have a breakthrough in (and develop) my leadership.

What was reflected to me is that I manage things and follow the rules/instructions (really well) rather than make up my own rules and creatively (and spontaneously) create.  Which, of course, is then what I was invited to practice. So this is what I’m now taking on.

On a somewhat separate (or not) note, I had a breakthrough in my relationship to connecting with others(!).  I realized that I’ve held on (against?) people that in order to prove their friendship to and connect with me, they should succumb to or accept my invitation to be a part of my life via getting together when I propose plans or supporting me in some way or another.  The breakthrough was in realizing exactly how much others are going through in their own lives.  That they don’t (always, or maybe even usually?) have it all together and are juggling a lot of balls in the air.  When I really got present to this, all that I could see or recognize was my complete and utter compassion and love for them.  I suddenly understood that being wrapped up in my own experience, I’d made it all about me.  I wanted THEM to do something WITH or FOR me to prove they loved me.  The ‘kerplunk’ moment was realizing, ‘Oh my God, what can I do FOR THEM?!?!?‘  And actually asking them for what they needed and how I could support them in their lives.

See, what I realized was, that in the bigger sense, all I wanted was connection.  And that I was making connection all about me.  When I was able to get ‘responsible’, or ‘at cause’, for creating connection by connecting TO THEM, instead of waiting for them to connect to me, my mind was blown. I realized I can get the same outcome I’ve been searching for through my own actions, rather than waiting for someone else to ‘get it right’ or ‘figure it out’.  And it’s infinitely more powerful, more connected and more loving.

Talk about a life altering realization… I’m sure my friends will be thrilled.

True.

But it’s also incredibly rewarding.

When you’re part of a team, everyone still has their own stuff going on and lets be honest, most people avoid responsibility like the plague.

Therefore, taking on a leadership position of any sort requires you to really step up and enroll your team in creating something amazing together (whether it’s something that seems large or small).  That’s the magic fairy dust.  What I’ve learned is that a truly great leader does not do everything by themselves!  They create structure, support and enrollment from their team (or the people in their lives) in order to achieve the best results they possibly can.

This opportunity is frequently thrust upon me as a mentor coach in the Accomplishment Coaching coach training program.

When I first took on this position I would consistently hold back from making requests for support. I was incredibly confronted by the idea of relying on others to support me, assuming that I either wouldn’t receive it or that it was my responsibility alone to complete whatever task I took on.

Over six months later, although I’m still constantly learning, I’m actually finding myself making requests easily and being a leader within my team.  Trying out new ways to communicate effectively and achieve common goals by taking action and creating results together.  Trust me, this isn’t always easy.  My automatic response is generally to ask everyone to pitch in a few times, after minimal response give up and just take things on all by myself, handle them, and then be resentful of the fact that no one helped me.  (Talk about being victimized by my team and my assignment).

NOW, I’m finding myself instead choosing to create breakthroughs for myself in leadership and in partnership.  Getting more intentional and creative with structures sufficient to everyone’s resistance.

For example, after various (and mostly fruitless) attempts at getting folks to do some reconnaissance phone calls to identify something we’re looking for for a future weekend, I was close to giving up and doing it all myself (can you hear the small violin playing in the background?). I’d also like to be clear here that I’m not blaming them.  I can take responsibility for that I wasn’t being an effective leader – they didn’t do anything outside of what would be expected of any human beings asked to take on yet another task among the many they already have.

Just short of taking it on myself I stopped myself, realizing that this was not the point of me taking on this task.  The point was to produce the result AND enroll and inspire my team to work together.  After all, I took on this position in order to develop my leadership, not to simply manage whatever was thrown my way.  So, I came up with the idea to have a power hour (pretty much what it sounds like) to make all the phone calls we needed to to spec out some information for a future weekend.  I got everyone aligned with either the same hour or a time they could do it on their own (and be held accountable to me), and poof!, like magic, all the calls were made within the same week and the task is on track to being complete!

I seriously couldn’t be prouder of myself for sticking it out and producing the result with them instead of once again doing it all by myself.  I got to experience myself as an effective leader AND team member at the same time.  Pretty cool stuff…

What are some of your experiences with taking on leadership positions or tasks?  What’s your automatic thing to do when put in this position?  Also what are some things you’ve done or ideas you have for creating enrollment and partnership when working with others??

I’d love to learn from your wins and I’m sure others would too!

This story was relayed to me in my Landmark Forum in Action seminar last night.  It really struck me as incredibly insightful and inspiring and I wanted to share it with you.  Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below!

The Sense of the Goose

In the fall when you see geese heading south for the winter flying in the “V” formation, you might be interested in knowing what science has discovered about why they fly that way. It has been learned that as each bird flaps its wings, it creates uplift for the bird immediately following. By flying in a “V” formation, the whole flock adds at least 71% greater range than if each bird flew on its own.

Lesson: People who are a part of a team and share a common direction get where they are going quicker and easier, because they are going quicker and easier and because they are traveling on the trust of one another.

Whenever a goose falls out of formation, it suddenly feels the drag and resistance of trying to go through it alone and quickly gets back into formation to take advantage of the power of the flock.

Lesson: If we have as much sense as a goose, we will share information with those who are headed the same way we are going.

When the lead goose gets tired, he rotates back in the wing and another goose takes over.

Lesson: It pays to share leadership and take turns doing hard jobs.

The geese honk from behind to encourage those up front to keep their speed.

Lesson: Words of support and inspiration help energize those on the front line, helping them to keep pace in spite of the day-to-day pressures and fatigue.

Finally, when a goose gets sick or is wounded by a gun shot and falls out, two geese fall out of the formation and follow the injured one down to help and protect him. They stay with him until he is either able to fly or until he is dead, and then they launch out with another formation to catch up with their group.

Lesson: If we have the sense of a goose, we will stand by each other when things get rough.

The next time you see a formation of geese, remember: it is a reward, a challenge and a privilege to be contributing to a team!

(Author unknown)

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This seems to have come at the perfect time since in my post yesterday I spoke of only fostering relationships with amazing people from now on.  This story really just reinforces what I’ve already realized: that (for me) being with like-minded people who are raising their vibration (or spiritual consciousness) or doing transformational work inspires me to be bigger, bolder and step further into my leadership.

Conversely, I can see that being with folks who are very judgmental or pessimistic pulls you into their vortex of negativity and drains you.  So again, the message is, surround yourself with those who bring you up, not down!

Being with other leaders who have courageously taken on this kind of work allows me to step up and take on the challenge of learning to lead effectively and as a team part of the time while allowing others to take the lead and supporting them other times.

The bottom line is: the weight of the world does not have to rest on my shoulders alone. Which I think it may seem like sometimes. I have wonderful people I can enroll in supporting me in whatever way I need because they love and care about me – and I get to do the same for them.  These people most definitely challenge and inspire me.  From my leadership team in Accomplishment Coaching, to all my fellow participants in Landmark, to the folks I meet at Sacred Center and Siddha Yoga and the various other spiritual, mental, emotional and physical venues of my life. I have to say, it’s pretty amazing to realize the vast richness of the resources I have and am creating.

..is to travel.  I don’t really know for how long.  Perhaps for a year or so, perhaps longer?  But I know I want to travel and to write.  At the same time I want to be in an amazing relationship, have some coaching clients as well as passive income and be lit up by what I do.  That’s what I really want.

After a call with my coach today, I realize that up until now this has really only existed for me as a wish or a fantasy.  Something that I so deeply wanted but to me seemed outrageous, frightening, and perhaps a little unrealistic.  The biggest reason is probably that this would cost a lot of money.  Also, I’m not totally confident in my writing skills or if anyone will want to read what I have to say, it certainly seems like it would be harder to meet someone while traveling and I don’t know if people will understand or support my decision to do this.

Yet, the heart wants what the heart wants.  And it would make me happy.  Really, blissfully happy.

It’s not that I haven’t said this before, it’s that I never committed to it before and believed it could happen the way I want.

So the first step is declaring it as something that will be… scary as that might feel.  I don’t have the how figured out.  But that’s how it usually goes in coaching.  Declare now, figure out how to make happen along the way.

So universe, there you go…. do your thing.

Well.. this is my first post on this blog. So hello cyber world. It’s nice to be here.

I have another blog (blogspot): www.jnbcoaching.blogspot.com. It’s more inspirational pieces I’ve written. It’s fallen flat for awhile as I didn’t really feel like I had anything to write about. Ok lets face it, I’m just a bit lazy sometimes. Ok, a lot lazy. Feel free to check it out anyway.

My intention with this shiny new blog is to just post about my life and the journey that I’m on. I do A LOT of transformational work and it has made a PROFOUND difference in my life. I’m a completely different person than I was just a year and a half ago. It sort of makes me wish I had started this sooner but to be frank I really just wasn’t jumping for joy at the idea of pouring my heart out in a way that exposes me so completely. Besides, it’s par for the course for me to have amazing ideas but to not actually get off my tush and do anything about them for undefined periods of time.

Now, and this one’s a shocker, in the past I’ve had some seriously debilitating fears of exposing my true thoughts and feelings to people because I didn’t believe they would accept me if I shared them. Oh, I’m sorry, you say you feel the same way? Welcome to humanity 101. It took me too long to realize that this is how the entire world feels and people are just as afraid of me as I am of them.

So – here’s the nutshell of my world. I’m an ontological life coach. Ontology is the study of being meaning we’re looking at how you’re ‘being’ in the world that has things going the way they are. I’m 25 years old (at least until May 5). I know, I know. You’re thinking she’s so young to be a life coach! What could she possibly know about life? It’s like a broken record how many times I’ve heard that. WELL, quite a bit if you’re interested. But coaching has nothing to do with life experience or knowledge. It’s predominantly provocative questions that have my clients dig deeper to gain insight about what’s really going on for them, where they’re getting in their own way, pointing to blindspots, helping them get perspective and having them find their own answers outside of how ‘life as usual’ tends to go for them. I graduated from one of the best coach training programs in the country (Accomplishment Coaching) and now help lead the program in NYC coaching & training new coaches. Although leading this program can certainly seem arduous at times, it’s absolutely incredible and is constantly and unwaveringly making my life better.

I also recently completed the Landmark Forum. If you do or don’t know what that is, it’s essentially a transformational education. Ontologically based just like my coach training program. I’ll be taking the advanced course in March which I’m really looking forward to.

Anyway, I won’t go into crazy detail about either in this 1st post of mine because I’m certain you’ll hear tons more about it as I post.

I was raised Jewish but never really bought into any religion’s ideologies. To be fair, I never really understood a good amount of what they were saying – partly because half of it was in hebrew and partly because I just wasn’t interested. But I will say I love the cultural traditions of Judaism. Not to say I wouldn’t love to have a Christmas tree someday either (a secret desire I believe most Jews harbor). I definitely consider myself to be spiritual and I’m sure you’ll get that. I’m a work in progress in this area though. I don’t have a set anything I believe in but I do believe in God and love. I believe we’re all one and that our purpose is to learn from one another in order be our best selves & to have an experience of ourselves AS pure love. I on and off go to Sacred Center in NYC which from what I gather is nyc’s version of LA’s Agape – a non denominational spiritual center (called a church but I’ve yet to find comfort in that word) where they talk about opening your heart to love and the gifts the universe has to give you and stepping into your own personal truth. It’s amazing there and soul feeding. They base their teachings on the Tao Te Ching and The Science of Mind (with principles of the law of attraction thrown in there.) I undoubtably love it there.

I LOVE books like Conversations with God, Power of Now, The Four Agreements, The Celestine Prophecy, The Alchemist. A Return to Love, . I’ve also recently read Ghosts Among Us, Many Lives Many Masters, Embraced by the Light. Currently reading Eat Pray Love (Elizabeth Gilbert) and Dark Side of the Light Chasers (Debbie Ford). I’m like a junkie for this stuff. Though admittedly, I CAN BE a slow reader (depending I suppose on how riveting and/or easy to read the book is) and sometimes put books down half way through for an indeterminite – amount of time.

I’m sure there’s more to say about my spiritual quest but I won’t go into it right now – inevitably it will come up later anyway

ANYWAY, I’m planning to just blog about my life. The process(es) I’m going through. What I’m learning and how I’m growing. The new insights I find out about myself. Based on my experience, chances are you’ll learn things about yourself as well along the way. I mean, we are all one after all.

So I hope you’ll join on this journey with me. I really see that this can be a way, just one way, to help change the world. One inspiration at a time. I hope it serves you dearly as I’m sure it will serve me as well.

Love and light,

Jaclyn