Where My Disciplinarian Blog Starts

My blog is starting on the day I received my first email from Amanda.

The email started with the subject line “My life is out of spiralling out of control I need help.”

The first thing that impressed me with this email was that it was not from a Gmail account made up on the spur of the moment; it was from a business email address.

The email contained Amanda’s full name and contact number, which is the first sign of a genuine person.

Amanda had given a brief outline of her life and what was going wrong.

Amanda had been married 23 years and lost her husband suddenly to a short illness. Amanda’s marriage had been what I call a traditional marriage they both worked, but her husband took care of all the finances and Amanda took care of the home. It worked well for them, and they had enjoyed a happy marriage and life had been cruel, taking him away so early.

They had a small family business, and Amanda was left to run this and her life on her own. 

Amanda described her self as lost, she was not lazy but did not know how to organise her days, and if not told what to do she would do nothing she was one of those people who gave in to procrastination, her life was spiralling out of control. 

Amanda was intelligent; she had never had to budget her finances or organise what paying and by when. Her husband had controlled the finances, worked out schedules and Amanda had just got on doing what was on the calendar it had worked brilliantly for them. But now she was on her own and was lost.

Amanda was looking for someone to steer her in the right direction.

I replied to Amanda’s email and was very surprised at how quick a reply came be answering in full all the questions. I had asked her to tell about her life to help me fill in the gaps for me so I could start to ass what she needed from me.  

With all new clients, I start with a few simple tests to see if they are serious about requiring help or just looking to pass on time. In my job, you come across lots of fantasists.

The first task was for Amanda to send me a list of her goals wanted to achieve with my coaching.

The second task was for Amanda to write down and what she thought her faults were and the reason why she acted the way she did.

The third task was for her to address the issue of consequences when she broke our agreement. I wanted to know what Amanda thought were acceptable punishments.

Two hours later, I got an email with all the assignments completed; this lady was showing all the signs of being serious about getting her life back on track, and she knew the consequences would have to be unpleasant for them to be a deterrent.

The last part of this email admitted Amanda admitted that she was manipulative had taken advantage of her husband, she knew that now she was going to need a firm hand to get her life back under control. 

Amanda was not looking for a quick fix; she was looking for a long-term commitment to changing her life and attitude.

She did not want to get into another relationship her husband had been her only true love, and she could not replace him.

I suggested that we chat more get a feel for each other because there must be an excellent Coach / Client relationship, there has to be a particular connection, not sexual in any way but intimate.

We have to start building a working relationship with trust; without trust, it can not work.

The start of this trust was Amanda gi=ving me her phone number and agreeing to meet me.

 What a small world we live in the distance between us was only 10 miles, and this meant that in-person meetings were going to be easy to arrange.

After chatting for a few days discussing Amanda’s life, we agreed it was time to meet and finalise our arrangement in person.