Welcome to the Courageously Unconventional Podcast!

How do you live true to yourself vs. what everyone expects of you? Especially if the direction you want to go is outside of the normal way you usually do things?

If you've always had a roadmap or blueprint to follow, it can be scary to stray from convention, especially if there's no tried and true path to follow where you're going!
 
While I can’t give you a roadmap, but what I can do is help you build up the courage and trust that you can figure it out for yourself.

Want some extra help creating your roadmap? See if we're a good fit for 1:1 life coaching by scheduling a consult here:  https://lynngrogan.com/work-with-me/

Let's Connect! Find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lynngrogan/

Transcript

Lynn Grogan [00:00:04]:
Welcome to the very first episode of the Courageously Unconventional podcast. I am so thrilled that you're here. If we haven't met before, my name is Lynn Grogan, and for as long as I can remember, I have been interested in how other people live their lives. It's actually one of the reasons I was drawn to becoming a life coach in the first place. Well, at first, coaching was all about helping me feel better about myself and my life, but then I realized that I wanted to help other people do the same. So this podcast is a part of my mission to help people like you accept yourself as you are versus what other people might expect of you or think of you. 

Lynn Grogan [00:00:48]:
A few years back, I read a blog talking about Bronnie Ware's book, the 5 regrets of dying. Maybe you have heard of this, or you might be familiar with this. It was pretty popular for a while. And at the time, Bronnie Ware was working as a palliative in palliative care. At the time, Bronnie Ware was working in palliative care as a nurse, and she started to notice some common things people would say on their deathbed. She summed it up in 5 regrets. Number 1 is I wish I had had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life that others expected of me. Number 2, I wish I hadn't worked so hard.

Number 3, I wish I had had the courage to express my feelings. Number 4, I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. And number 5, I wish I had let myself be happier. When I first when I first heard this list, I was like, yes. I want those things too. And I'm guessing I'm not alone in this because most of us probably don't want to die with any regrets, but then it becomes a question of, oh, okay. So how do you do these things? It seems like it should be self explanatory it seems like it should be self explanatory. 

Lynn Grogan [00:02:02]:
Live true to yourself. Don't work so hard. Tell people how you feel. Stay in touch, and be happier. But as simple as this sounds, it's also so hard for so many of us to accomplish, and why is that? What I've noticed through my many years of coaching is that there is a comfort level and a safety in doing what's expected of you. Basically, if you do what everyone else around you is doing, you're gonna be fine or at least we think that's the case. And that makes sense. Right? We are social creatures, and one of the ways that we learn is by modeling what we see around us. But where this gets tricky is when you start to get that itch to do something different in your life.

Lynn Grogan [00:02:43]:
You know what I mean? That itch. Well, what do you do about it then? This is especially challenging if what you wanna do is different than what most other people around you are doing. So for me, I got that itch very early on in my life. I wanted to travel and see more of the world. And so I think my family and childhood friends thought I'd eventually settle down, get married, establish a career, and get travel out of my system. And for a while, I agreed with them. For most of my twenties and early thirties, I deep down thought something was wrong with me for not wanting to do all those things in the way that they had them, that I was just this lost person who couldn't figure out the program and enjoy living life in a more traditional manner. But for me, settling down never happened.

Lynn Grogan [00:03:34]:
In fact, I took it even more extreme by becoming a full-time RVer just over 10 years ago. And when my husband and I tried to settle down during the pandemic by buying a house, we quickly realized that that was not for us, that traveling was. So for me, finding life coaching and hiring a coach helped me to start to love and accept myself and how I wanted to live my life. And what also helped me over the years was when I worked for a company where I was coaching doctors. So I will say I had I've never worked in health care, and until that coaching job, I had always put doctors on this different pedestal from other people. I imagine that they had these perfect lives. They help people. They make all this money.

Lynn Grogan [00:04:15]:
They're smart and accomplished, and they were basically everything that I had told myself that I should be throughout those many years. To say that I felt intimidated and like an imposter when I started that job would be an understatement. What could I possibly offer to these doctors? So what I learned very quickly, and hopefully doesn't come as a shock to you, is that doctors are human too with the same human issues the rest of us have. And it turns out that what we all have in common is that sometimes we all feel like we're not good enough, that we're not doing enough, that if we just tried a little bit harder, if we did things a little bit differently, that things would be better for us. I learned that what we have in common is that no one ever taught us how to feel our feelings, and that it is really, really hard to not identify our our worth with the work that we do. And what I also learned when I listened to them very carefully is that everyone has that itch to do things a little differently and find ways to live true or to themselves. So is this space I found I could be helpful.

Lynn Grogan [00:05:35]:
I mean, I have been designing my own road map and doing things in my own way for over 25 years. And if you're somebody who has always had a detailed road map to follow, and anybody who is a doctor, a lawyer, or any of those professions that has a really long training period, you have had a road map to follow. So it can be scary to even admit that you wanna do things differently. I can't tell you how many times in coaching we've uncovered that itch. And then the very next question is, okay, great. I wanna do that. What are the exact steps I should take to get there? What do I read? What do I listen to? Where is my road map? So at this point in the podcast, I wish I could tell you that I have the road map, that I have the answer, and that there's an exact formula for you to go and download. But I don't, and I'm not sorry about that.

Lynn Grogan [00:06:31]:
And here is why that is a good thing. I am going to help you figure out how to create your own road map so that it is true to you and something you can repeat for the rest of your life. And the even better news is that you already know where that map starts. The start of that road is the little whisper you already have heard telling you to go that way instead of this way. You can learn to trust that nudge, that itch, and that that that whisper isn't going to lead you astray. You can learn to trust that nudge, that itch, that that whisper isn't going to lead you astray. It's actually helping to aim you in the direction that's next for you. 

Lynn Grogan [00:07:24]:
So while I can't give you a road map, what I can do and what I have helped 100s of other people do through the process of coaching is help you build up the courage and trust that you can figure it out for yourself. And mostly I wanted to create this podcast so that you don't have to go it alone on your journey to figure out how to live more true to yourself. It's actually the podcast I wish I had had when I was figuring this out for myself. So my friend, this episode is the very start of our journey together to figure out what living true to yourself looks like. If as you listen, you decide, hey, I kinda want some more help and support with this, I do offer 1 on 1 coaching where we work together to create your own road map. I'll have details in the show notes about that, or you can go to my website, lynngrogan.com, for more details. But if not, I will see you next week on the Courageously Unconventional podcast. Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen, and share this with a friend if you think it would be helpful for them.

So until next time. Bye for now.