To be decided…

Now that I have reached the milestone of becoming a certified coach, I wonder: is playtime over? Surely I have to get out “there” now. Find customers. Get more practice. Start my business… brrrr. It’s daunting. Exciting. Challenging. Scary. An Adventure..!

Believe it or not, but I have always enjoyed “riding shotgun”. I am the one in the passengers seat, who supports in navigation but is blissfully not in charge. I love that and I feel comfortable there. As an HR Leader it was my sweet-spot; supporting my business leaders in leading their business effective and succesfully.
Now, I need to take charge. I need to make decisions about the business I want to set up: what do I want to offer? What kind of business do I want to be?

And so I find myself in the world of “things you need to do when starting a business”: from logo design to website development, from mission and vision to client agreements and terms and conditions… there is a whole world out there which I am suddenly entering and exploring. I quickly learn that I am not a designer, I am not a copywriter and I am not a website builder. Luckily for me, there are many professionals who are and they can help me. So at this moment my biggest challenge is to take decisions about all these things: will I choose this logo, or that font? Is this text describing the business well enough? Does this photo fit on my website? Is it all good enough? Perfect enough? Mirjam enough?

So far a few things that I have always known about myself, became quite apparent:
I am very good at weighing all my options and not make a choice. And I am a perfectionist. I guess these two go nicely hand in hand :-).
Luckily I am blessed to have a quite pragmatic, rational minded husband who patiently act as my sounding board, giving his honest opinion and finally advises me in simple wording: just choose. And you know what? It helps.

While at times it can feel a bit lonely, I know this is what many freelancers have in common: without a team you need to motivate yourself. Make the decisions yourself. Find your path yourself. So it asks for a strong internal driver to keep going. And one thing that keeps me going strong is connecting with people. I love that and it’s one if the things I am good at. Not the formal networking at big events, but building personal relations with people around me, either remote or close. People with whom I can connect professionally and as friends. They are the ‘team’, the colleagues I need to stay motivated. They support and help me to find my path, to get ‘out there’ and host events, invent myself and my business.

And many great things are happening in that regard! I recently hosted an hybrid online & offline event in Shanghai, with two experienced e-coaches dialing in from The Netherlands to launch the concept of e-coaching, and more specific email-coaching, into the Shanghai Coaching Circle. Received with great enthusiasm from the participants we are now preparing to launch a training about the concept of written coaching in China later this summer. And on June 17 I will serve on the panel of experts during a webinar on “the joys and challenges of working remote”, a quite current topic these days.

And so, little by little, step by step, Follow the Adventure is developing from an enthusiastic travel blog into a business that has at it’s core ‘To help people to grow from where they are, to where they want to be’.

See ya’ll!