States of Mind

How to deal with ups and downs?—

First, it’s absolutely normal.
You can’t always be okay.
I wanna tell you about a similar experience I had.
It was during my first months as a life coach.
I’m gonna break it down into 4 steps.


1.    I started working as a life coach.
After a couple of months, I was working about 13 hours a day.
Meaning, I was spending 13 hours a day with 13 different people.
Meaning, I was listening to 13 different “life problems”.
You know, when you’re a life coach, you’re more of a therapist.
Clients told me everything — probably because they felt safe with me.
But after a couple of months, something strange started to happen.

Let me explain…

2. Sometimes, when I wasn’t working, I started to feel bad.
Like I was in a “bad mood” — with “bad feelings.”
And it’s really rare for me — I’m quite a positive person.

Here’s the funny thing:
→    Everything was going great in my life
Relationships? Okay!
Job? I loved working as a life coach.
Money? No problem!
Health? Everything was okay.
So, what was the problem?
Why did I feel bad at times?

3. The problem was this:
→    I was an “emotional sponge”

Meaning I absorbed all the emotions of my clients.
I wasn’t used to spending 13 hours a day with 13 different people.
I wasn’t used to hearing all those “life/business problems.”
And most of my clients were top managers and entrepreneurs.
So, real challenges!
So, what did I do?
4.    Simple! Every time I felt bad, I used to:
→    Stop what I was doing for a second
→    Ask myself, “Why am I feeling bad?”

And after 20-30 seconds, an answer would come up, like:
→    Oh, I feel bad because my client (who is a lawyer) has an important court hearing today.

The fun part?
As soon as I figured out why I was in a bad mood, I felt better right away.
I just needed to know what was causing it.
This happened maybe 2-3 times a week for 3-4 months.
Then it became a habit.
I think now I do it automatically.

Who knows…

So, what can we learn from that?

Simple — when you feel bad:
→    Stop for a second
→    Ask yourself, “What am I feeling?” (I used to skip this step)
→    Ask yourself, “Why am I feeling this way?”
→    Accept what’s happening and move on

We’re human.
It’s okay not to be okay.