In this post: I’m going to share with you my journey on how I started my health coaching business, struggles, reflections, and how I built it to be the successful business it is today.
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How I Went From Adrenal Fatigue to Building A Successful Health Coaching Business
I just wrapped up with a private client, I don't work with a lot of private clients anymore, but when I do, normally it's more advanced. The clients that I'm working with privately at the moment are more about emotional, inner work, that is probably the best way to put it. I do energy healing, et cetera, and so I was just doing that with a client and it made me connect back to where I was when I started my business. I guess time's going on now, it's been like five, six years but it was only 2012 when I left my job, when I took that massive leap from my job, not understanding how hard it would be to grow a health coaching business by myself. And I was reflecting on the journey that I've taken, as reflecting on some of the struggles that I was helping her with this morning on an emotional, energetic front.
And I just thought, I probably haven't even told you that much about my journey, you know? So I'm going to reflect on a few things. I just jotted down a few notes based on her session that I just supported her through. I thought might be fun to share with you my own story. And the first thing I was thinking about is I definitely didn't know that I was born to start a health coaching business.
I definitely did not know that I would go on to be the business coach that I am today, and I didn't know any of this until I experienced my own health crisis and I don't know if anyone can relate. Sometimes we think we're meant to know our purpose. We need to know for sure that I'm meant to do this or not. I'm not sure if any of you have had a small wake up call in your life. But that I had mine back in around 2010 my own health crisis. Until that time, I thought, "What do you put on earth for?" I used to think I wanted to be an award-winning online advertising professional. That's what I did. That's all I knew. And I accomplished that. I won international awards for my work.
I was "successful" in that realm, but I also ended up really sick. So sick in fact that I was pretty much bedridden by the time that I left work.
When doctors told me that I'd never recover from the level of adrenal fatigue that I experienced, I kind of split into two directions. And one way I kind of hit rock bottom. And another way I was just like, "Alright, no more mucking around, this is the time to take action."
So I quit my online advertising career and looked at my energy, holistic healing, nutrition to put my life back together. And I knew that there were these things I've been learning and dabbling in, but never fully committed to. And it, unfortunately, took for me to hit rock bottom, to be willing to commit. Coming into the world of committing to my own health and health coaching transformed not only my own health by committing to my health, but also ended up transforming my entire life.
With my own success of turning my health around, then and only then that I discovered this new passion and I wanted to help others do the same. So I became a health coach.
This is the part where we'll probably connect. Did you have some kind of health issue going on that kind of gave you a bit of a wake up call? Did you have some kind of health going on or health issues that forced you to have to actually wake up as such and see why things weren't working in your life? I find even just working with clients, how you found the world of health, you became inspired to help others and started to dream the possibilities of making a living from this passion.
Because at that point, it sparked the truth in you. It woke you up. I didn't know what my purpose or my belief was when I was in advertising. If you'd forced me, I guess I could've made up that answer, but it was only when I was forced to look at my own health. And it was only when I was forced and chose to take action. Then the spark was turned on, who can relate? Who knows that through their own health journey or maybe it's that of a family member or a child or something like that's what led you to health coaching? Can anyone relate? Do you have a similar journey? Because I do see this a lot.
During my first year as a health coach, one of the things I remember so strongly was just how alone I felt. One of the hardest things was trying to work everything out on myself, trying to forge my own way.
I had no one to learn from. There's the pressure to have to work it out myself. The pressure from my husband, we were talking about it the other day, to work it out and start making money.
Honestly back in those days, I remember the sense one day feeling like, like it was like 10 years old again, like all of my identity of who I was as the successful advertising person was completely stripped. I felt helpless because I had no idea how to get clients. And I had no idea where to turn. So I kept playing the lie for a long time and pretended that if I got my website, blog, and social media game right if I just hope and pray, the clients are gonna come soon. I kept telling a lie to myself, knowing that I didn't feel confident, that I didn't have a plan and I had no one to talk to about it.
The only person I really had to talk to at that stage was my husband. And if anything, there was pressure coming from him too because I'd left my job. Not what I recommend, by the way. I highly recommend you build your business on the side of a current job if you have one. If you don't, cool. But let's be honest, it's easier if you do the two in tandem.
So why do I want to share this? Back then, I would've done anything to get my hand on the knowledge that I have today.
And I think I didn't understand what was missing at the beginning. I was trying to model what I saw other people doing and had no concept of what I was copying. There was a lot of free information out there but I just got more lost, more overwhelmed and actually spiralled down my self-confidence because I was just dabbling in stuff, trying to make it work. I had no plan, no system and deep down, I knew that.
There weren't many other health coaches around when I started health coaching in 2012. When many people were talked to, and even to this day, like the client has just told me too, she doesn't have anyone around her at all. That's why she works with me. I guess that for me too, is why I started investing in coaching.
I'd quit my online advertising position. I wasn't making anything as a health coach yet and I didn't have any money to invest in coaching.
I've left my job. We were on one salary by this stage, trying to live a lifestyle that was used to two lucrative salaries back then. I hustled. I went out and got small jobs. I went out and did a contract advertising role for a week. It was horrible because I had to go back and I worked on the CODRAL® account, a brand here in Australia for cold or flu, and this could not have been more against my beliefs.
I had left advertising because I blamed advertising for being the devil for burning me out, which of course in hindsight wasn't true. It was my own behaviour. I blamed business and marketing for that. And I was so in-depth into my health coaching studies, into all the books, all the health stuff to turn my own health around. I was so anti pharmaceuticals. It was like a week from hell. For a whole week, I went and came up with advertising campaigns for CODRAL®.
Why would I do that when it's against my values? I'll tell you why — because I knew what I wanted and that is to create a business that worked. I did not want to go back to the corporate world. There was a certain truth that was not in alignment for me and was harming my health. Probably 80% true, but there was still a part of me that was overworking. That's my own habit. So I can't blame advertising for that.
I was willing to suck up things I didn't want to do because I had the goal in mind.
I paid for coaching. I paid for my mentorship and I went out and that, wasn't the only job that I got. I got odd jobs that felt below me and weren't paying me what I should as an advertising executive. I also got out, went out and got highly lucrative short-term contracts, but in soul-sucking things like the CODRAL® account.
And honestly, you gotta do what you got to do. If you sit there in the mindset of "I don't have money and I'm not gonna be able to do this", that is never going to change. That passion is never going to turn around if you're stuck in victim mode.
You have to believe and always had the question of "How can I...?", and when I started doing that, now I had some money to invest in coaching.
My mindset had shifted to "How can I do this?" Coaches opportunities started coming up. A mastermind came up as an opportunity. And as soon as I did those, then my business started going like that. Largely because of the decision-making that went on in my head.
So in 2012, I was just where many of you are right now, starting out as a health coach. I was tired. I was confused. It was messiness. I was stressed. I was struggling to get clients. I was comparing myself to other health coaches. I totally started questioning like:
"Maybe I should get back from my job."
"Maybe I'm not cut out to be an entrepreneur."
"Maybe I'm in over my head."
"Maybe this isn't the right time."
But one thing that I know for certain is that it was my choices in hindsight that got me to where I am today. And despite the emotions, despite the tears that were there at times, despite the emotional breakdowns that often happen that year, I chose to say yes. And I chose to always say, "How can I?" And I truly believe by choosing to believe in me, I chose to trust me.
I chose to back me because no one else is ever going to come back me and I chose to step into the "yes" frequency instead of the "no", or the fear frequency.
And I can trace back everything that's happened since then to that decision point that happened in 2012. There was another pattern though. This is what I started to talk about before. Another thing I did when I sat in my health coaching business was I worked my butt off. And I bet that many of you possibly do the same. I mean, tell me, did any of you do this? Maybe you're doing it on the weekends or nights. What I can guarantee you more than the business strategy is that working your butt off is only going to get you so far.
In fact, working your butt off, having a mentality of "I've got to work harder to succeed", thinking that hard work equals success is it's just not true. I wish I had known that. That's what burnt my dreams out. That's what gave me burnout. That was my pattern that came from my beliefs, family beliefs, community beliefs, society beliefs, that if we work hard enough, then we'll get somewhere.
The biggest mistake that health coaches have when they come into this world is they think they have to work their butt off — it doesn't work. Or at least it will only work for a very short time.
When I worked for someone else in the corporate world, I never had to face that truth in myself. There was always something or someone else to blame for why there was hard work or why my hard work wasn't getting the results we wanted. There was always a client to blame. There was always the boss who was making us work long hours. I thought I was burnt out. Then I was blaming the food. There was all the sweets or the pizza and the Coca-Cola — one of our clients. I got very addicted Diet Coke. I blamed anyone else for that, it had nothing to do with me.
When I worked for myself, because I left work to heal from my adrenal fatigue, I couldn't hide from the truth. I couldn't hide from the patterning that thought I had to work hard to people please, to make money, to get successful. That way doesn't work when you become an entrepreneur, this is what I learned when I got mentorship. It's different when you're working for yourself. You have to work on your wealth consciousness and beliefs around money.
Having done wealth consciousness work for six, seven years, now I spot it a mile away and it's not my job to save anyone. If you want to work on my program and work with me, let's do the work. Do you want to change those beliefs around money? Let's do it! I'm here for you. Let's do it together. But when I see the old patterning that I used to have about working harder, not having money to invest in yourself, I now see that those patterns are just things that we play in our heads like robots. We are just absolutely going around the same patterns and nothing's going to change.
And that's what I learnt when I left my corporate job, that those old patterns, came to me. All of a sudden, I couldn't blame my job. I couldn't blame the clients or the accounts or whatever. I had to look at myself. And it wasn't until I closed my laptop and stopped obsessing about all my business and trying to do the blog and trying to do the website and the BS things that I thought would bring me clients. I started working on my wealth consciousness of my money beliefs, which is one of the fundamental pieces in my UPswing Mastermind program today. It was only then that my business went from making $35,000 a year to $350,000 a year in 12 months.
Growing your own business is not easy. If you want easy, stay in a corporate job. It's not easy, but it's joyful.
Understanding, freeing myself from those old patterns that do trap us, imprison us, to almost slavery of what we believe to be true. And this is why I'm either in my coaching work or in UPswing Mastermind. This is why I don't just teach basic marketing. It's why this is high touch, advanced coaching because we will reprogram those patterns and you will free yourself.
When I dedicated myself to the wealth consciousness work, I stepped into a new frequency. I had fun. I connected with new people. I believed in myself again, this was the same process it took to heal from adrenal fatigue.
Ultimately, it's about stepping into our truth and our empowerment as women. And we all want that at a soul level.
It becomes a choice of, "Am I going to work towards that? Or am I going to be so attached, married to my old patterns?" And wonder why we're doing all the same things and not getting a different result. I didn't know how things were going to unfold. I just committed to the woman I did want to be and stayed focused and kept saying yes.
So the thing is, you know what you need to do to step into your truth and into your purpose. Just like I always knew deep down, my ego kept getting in the way. And I often listened to rubbish stories. I often let fear hold me back in 2012. I often let other people's, my husband's judgements. Even friends, I let those things hold me back for too long.
Every single day, all of us have the opportunity for a fresh start. We're always at the beginning of a new cycle, we're always able to choose.
We always, at any moment, have the opportunity to stop listening to the old rubbish stories and choose to lead into what we do want instead. You can choose to delete the next day, choose to let the next day, choose joy, choose happiness, choose pleasure. Will you have bad days? Of course! Will you fall off? Of course! And that's where, who you surround yourself with, other women on the journey are "lifelines", as referred by one of my mastermind friends this morning.
You are meant for greatness. You were meant to lead. You're meant to get this coaching work out there. And that's only going to work when you start backing yourself and start stretching into who you are and stepping out of the old paradigms.
None of us is immune to being human. None of you is any different to me. We all make mistakes. We all have questions. We all have bad days. We all have fears. We all have people who don't believe in us. We all have a lack of belief in ourselves. At times, we all have money stories. We all have stories about what could happen negatively. If we were successful, we all have fears of failing. What happens if I try and I felt we all have those things.
The only difference in those who succeed, when I look at my own path, when I look at the woman I've mentored over the years, is those who allow themselves to put the fears aside and say yes to what they do want.
It's the only way. And so this is where coaching comes in. The only way to do that is to be coached and mentored. I have multiple coaches around me at all times. You have to be willing to change, but you also have to feel safe to change. You have to have a support network around you who are going on the same journey. I think most of us are just afraid of that change into our greatness because we don't have others. We're changing into their greatness around us. And this is why I love coaching. The possibility, the truth of who you are is phenomenal.
What all of you are sitting on right now? Opportunities this year is phenomenal. For example, we just did a session with my client and some of the patterning that we just let go of for her. She was crying tears of joy at the end because when we let go of our stories and say yes to what we want to do, instead of letting all the fear run our lives, this is when we step into the purpose. This is when we let ourselves up from within and make a huge impact in the world of others.
So that's quite a bit of memory lane for me today — the reflections from coaching my client just now, I just wanted to share what was top of my mind. Year after year, I see people held back in the health coaching businesses purely from fear. And what I can tell you is if you're not willing to break that pattern of fear now, it is highly unlikely that you will be in three months, six months, nine months, 12 months and so on. If not now, when?
Love,
Amanda xx
PS. Ready to create a purposeful package in your coaching business - and learn how to charge in a way that gets clients booked in with ease? Click this link to get instant access to the FREE training >> https://training.amandajdaley.com/packages
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