It’s somewhere near the end of January, and if you bothered to make a new year’s resolution, you’re either on your way to starting it or you’re like the rest of us and have forgotten it, or maybe you are in the process of deciding that your resolution is way too hard, overwhelming, or just not right for you, after all. Most of our resolutions or goals come to their demise not because they cannot be accomplished, but because we don’t know where to begin, or we know where to begin, but don’t have the support and encouragement to keep going. Any time we try to make changes in our lives, even small ones, it seems like the other people or situations around us conspire to keep them from happening. Work gets more challenging, children get sick, pipes burst, or any number of other things simply get in the way. Change is not only difficult to maintain, but it is scary to the people around us who liked us the way we were, and aren’t so sure they’ll like us changed. Or they want us to change but wonder what that will mean for the relationship that runs pretty well most of the time. Maybe they will have to change, too, or maybe we will expect them to change along with us, which they may not want to do. Working through this can be confusing and frustrating, not to mention difficult to talk about. Most of this communication is non-verbal, and comes out in actions. This can all lead to an attitude of wanting to just give up those lofty resolutions. We were doing fine without them, and this is just too hard. Too often, that’s exactly what we do – give up. That’s where coaching comes in.

A coach can help you make specific action plans to address the steps you’re going to have to make along the way to get to your goal. She can support you when everything else around you seems to be conspiring against you. She can help you work through the thorniest of those situations that seem to make the resolution look so impossible to achieve.

A friend of mine told me recently that he would like to get coaching to move him forward in his career, but he just couldn’t justify the expense. I have to say, this is a common response that any coach or therapist has heard many times. My response, of course, is that you can’t afford not to. I think of coaching as an investment in yourself, something that can provide you with results today and help you create the significant changes you want to make over time that will make your life more meaningful. That’s an investment that will provide high yields for years to come.

In these unsure financial times, almost everyone I know has lost investments they have made in the stock market, retirement funds, or in property value, but when you choose to invest in yourself, I don’t see how it’s possible to lose. The purpose of coaching is to tap into your own internal resources to develop new ideas that will influence your decisions, resulting in real changes in your life. You do things differently because you see yourself and your life more clearly. And you have a partner in your coach who can see your potential and encourage you to take on more challenging tasks, resulting in powerful changes you never thought possible. Isn’t it time to invest in yourself?