5 ways to free yourself from life coach criticism from your loved ones so that you can more easily pursue your dreams

Life coach criticism can be brutal… especially when it comes from loved ones.

For many of us, choosing to pursue our dreams, especially when it comes to our careers, can bring pushback, concern, and resistance to the path we feel called to choose.

When you tell them you want to become a life coach, for example, they may say things like:

• “You need to choose a practical career.”
• “How will you support yourself and your family?”
• “What about benefits and retirement?”
• “Don’t get your hopes up.”
• “Get a good job, stay as long as possible, and work hard until you retire.”
• “What happens if you fail?”
• “You should be looking for a real job.”

Strong family ties can mean that you feel an extremely powerful pull to do what they say and make them happy.

If this sounds familiar, you most likely have been raised to be a loyal member of your family. That can be a WONDERFUL thing!

This article is for you if you’re feeling called to become a life coach, or chase any dream that your family might not understand.

When Personal & Professional Criticism Comes From Family Members, This is What You Need to Know

Keep the following tips in mind when faced with life coach criticism from family and friends. You can move forward with grace and integrity.

1. If life coach criticism is coming from friends and family, they may be coming from a place of love

It’s very likely that your family cares about you and wants you to be safe and secure. Their intentions in criticizing you may be pure, even if they aren’t showing their concern in ways that you would love.

In the face of judgment, remember that people are often basing their responses on their own worries, problems, and past experiences, not necessarily on what’s true or possible for you.

To them, life coaching is probably a new concept. Depending on their age, they may have grown up in a time when life coaching wasn’t a viable career. Many of your family members have most likely never had the opportunity to meet or know a successful life coach.

Sometimes there’s just no changing the way someone looks at your decisions and actions (at least, for now), but know this: You CAN choose to hold deeper levels of understanding as you also choose how you react to their opinions and perspectives.

The most important thing is this: Their response does not mean anything about you. Your potential as a successful life coach is not limited by their opinions, experiences, or beliefs.

When judgment is rooted in care, albeit misguided, it will often dissipate as they see that you are actually okay.

2. Don’t put all of your energy into pleasing others while missing the opportunity to invest in yourself and your future

Spending time trying to change someone else’s opinion likely won’t result in the outcome you’re hoping for.

If your family wants to see you for who you are, they will. If they’ve chosen to interpret your choices and career moves inaccurately, they will.

Does this mean you shouldn’t make any effort?

Does it mean you shouldn’t care about what they think or feel about you?

No- your desire for acceptance, support, and approval from those around you is normal!

But I highly recommend paying close attention to how much energy you choose to put toward defending yourself. Are you trying to change the opinions of others while potentially abandoning yourself and your dream?

Instead, double down on your efforts to be the best version of yourself on your own terms.

Focus on self-acceptance instead of hoping to gain it from someone else.

Other people are going to do what they are going to do… and so are you!

3. Remember that achieving your goals takes time, action and perseverance

Taking action in service of your dream is your choice to make and no one else’s.

Maybe you’re afraid that if you act despite other people’s warnings and being a life coach doesn’t work out, you’ll have proven them right.

Or are you afraid that if you go after your dream and fail, it will mean something about your worth or value as a person?

Are you afraid that by going against your loved ones, you’ll lose your strong family group and your dream, leaving you with nothing?

Let’s explore this way of thinking a bit more…

Very few highly-successful people succeed on their first try, and their setbacks didn’t prove anything.

In fact, there are countless examples of people failing before they achieved massive success:

• Walt Disney was fired from his first job for “lacking imagination”. Then, his first animation company was forced to close when he couldn’t pay rent. The loss seemed devastating at the time, but the very next character he would go on to create was none other than Mickey Mouse.
  
• Thomas Edison, the famed inventor of the lightbulb and who held more than 1,000 patents at the time of his death, was told as a child that he was “too stupid to learn anything.”
  
• Albert Einstein didn’t start speaking until he was four, reading until he was seven, and was generally thought to be mentally handicapped. Yet, he went on to win a Nobel Prize and alter the world’s fundamental understanding of physics.
  
• Elon Musk was denied multiple job positions and was demoted from two of the companies he founded before starting Tesla and SpaceX.
  
• Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team (need I say more?).

If those that came before you had seen their challenges as proof that other people were right about them, they wouldn’t be the successes we now know them to be.

Instead, highly-successful people understand that life is a journey. There’s no rule that says they need to make their journey look how others think it should.

Even when it looks like their doubters’ predictions might have been accurate, highly-successful people never allow obstacles, challenges or failures to define them.

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4. Acknowledge your family’s fears without allowing yourself to be defined by life coach criticism

If you have people in your life who depend on your decisions, you can help to ease their minds by acknowledging that their worries are valid.

Sometimes, all it takes for someone to feel better is to know that they are heard and understood.

The concerns that they have about your dreams and plans represent an opportunity for you to ask yourself challenging, growth-oriented questions.

Even in your desire to become a professional coach, you may still need to consider valid questions from those around you.

The difference is, rather than getting lost in their fear and judgment, you can acknowledge their questions and concerns from a place of possibility and maintain your commitment to the potential in your dream.

Then, take it one step further: Invite your loved ones to step into the realm of possibility with you.

What dreams do they have that are bigger than their fears?

How could you becoming a life coach help them to create the lives they love living?

What dream can your whole family share that will give all of you the hope, motivation and faith to overcome your old fears and patterns of belief, so you can build the future you want together?

5. Remember that YOU are truly the only one who knows what you’re called to do in your life and in the world

Today, just for a moment, I’d love to encourage you to ask yourself this question:

“What if, this next year, I could actually become a successful life coach who helps empower others to create lives they love living?”

What would your life look like then?

Visualize it! Be specific.

Imagine, as clearly as you can, what your life would look like and feel like:

• What kind of coaching clients would you serve?
• What would it feel like for you to facilitate life-changing, transformative coaching sessions?
• What would your wildly successful life coaching business allow you to do or have more of in your life?
• How would living your passion and experiencing great success actually strengthen and improve the relationships you have with your family?

Answer these questions imagining there are no limiting circumstances – where time, money, and the opinions of others are not factors. In answer to these questions, you will find your truth.

And when you hear the voices of doubt, fear, or criticism chiming in, tune it out, and tune only to possibilities.

Are You Really Ready to Find Out What It Takes to Be a Successful Coach?

If you dream of making a profound and lasting impact in the world but aren’t 100% sure you have what it takes to be successful and actually make a difference in the lives of others…

I’m running a free short workshop that will provide answers to some of the questions you may have about being a life coach!

Once people begin to learn these pillars, the most common response we hear is that they regret not having discovered it sooner.

Don’t let this be you!

DON’T go it alone, and DON’T try to build your coaching business without first understanding what it takes.

With the right tools, support, and an unwavering belief in everything that’s truly possible for you, your success is inevitable.