Life coaching involves a lot helping people to understand and make the right choices. My ability in this field stems from having had a very varied life with many ups and downs.
Sometimes people feel they are stuck through no fault of their own and ‘have no choice.’ I remember working on a particularly depressing project of introducing and employee review system into a local government organisation in the UK. Everybody was so cynical and negative about their employer that I asked, ‘If it’s that bad, why do you stay?’
‘Well, we’ve put up with it for 20 years now, so another twenty won’t make any difference,’ came the fatalistic reply, adding, ‘besides, we would lose many of our pension benefits if we left now.’
‘So you choose to stay.’ I said. It wasn’t a very popular comment.
Some years later, I had the chance to test my own theory first hand. I’d tired of commuting between England and Portugal and training in a different city each night to retire to an empty hotel room. I packed up and moved to Portugal but not with any kind of capital. My wife son and me ended up living in a rundown farm house with no water, bathroom or kitchen for two years. I took what work I could get and ended up at rock bottom when I worked for an old builder called Sr. E as a labourer. It’s not an exaggeration to say he was a cruel man. Each day’s labour brought new tortures. He would often go off for a few hours to come back and curse that I’d done nothing. One Christmas Eve, we worked till seven and then he tried to go home without paying me. In the new year, the next project involved trying to break up a rock floor in a cellar with a pneumatic drill that fell apart every time you hit a hard piece. There was no ear protection and the noise was skull numbing. After two weeks of futile endeavour in the dark pit, I’d reached the end of my tether but what I can I do, I thought, I have a wife and son to support; we’re only one step away from homelessness - no exaggeration; no choice.
All the same, I threw the tool, walked off the job never to return again. I went to a café and bought a beer with my last few escudos. As happens in the Algarve, I got talking to an old guy - English. ‘So what do you do? He asked. ‘Oh, a bit of everything.’ I replied vaguely. ‘Only’, he continued, ‘I’m looking for someone to convert part of my garden into a driveway.’ By chance, within 30 minutes, I’d landed my next job.
Now you can say I was extremely lucky and maybe I was but it taught me one of the most important lessons of my life - there really is always a choice. From that day on, I can say that I’ve never felt trapped and it was the turning point in my history.
Choosing isn’t easy and choices don’t come cost free but very often the cage you’re in is of your own construction and you can walk out the door any time you like.
This video's a little bit cheesy but I have to say I agree with 90% of it. Certainly has some ideas worth thinking about.
