Week 6

I was born in March so my parents constantly tell me that I have "the luck of the Irish". No, I wasn't born on St.Patricks day, but I'm only three days away. I used to be very lucky as a kid. One day in December my family and I went to my elementary school raffle. I won a few small items and a christmas tree (a real one). My sister didn't win anything and so I was forced to share my prizes, and I'm not sure what happened to the tree but my parents weren't particularly grateful for it (since it was two sizes too big for our home). That's the only time I remember being lucky. I'm sure I was lucky other times, but I try not to attribute my accomplishments to luck.

Throughout middle and high school there were raffles and plenty of opportunities to win things. I never won and a part of me didn't want to because I was embarrassed to stand up in front of everyone. But free is free and I'm sure I would have gotten up for my prize if I had the chance. But I didn't and I continued on being luckless in college. Then this past year, during my Junior year of college, I saw an opportunity to enter a writing contest. I had entered writing contests before but no one liked my short stories. I didn't like my short stories. I wanted to be a novelist and there aren't any competitions for young aspiring novel writers. But this contest was different. It was being advertising by an online tack store (which sells equestrian items) and the task was to write about my top ten reasons for owning a horse. All I had to do was write a list! Horses are one of my favorite topics and so I figured it would be easy...sort of. A part of me thought that I probably wouldn't win, but I knew I didn't have anything to lose. So months go by and I never hear anything. Then today (July 1st!) I finally got an e-mail saying that I got third out of seven hundred and fifty people!

It doesn't matter whether or not my lucky streak is back. The point is that I got a one hundred and nineteen dollar prize for submitting ten short paragraphs. There are so many times in life when people pass an opportunity up because they think they are just not good enough. I know because I do it all the time. I think that if you are a life coach you should definitely be stressing this point not only to yourself, but your clients. If you are having trouble getting clients is it because there are just no people who need life coaches? No. People search for life coaches on google every day. So the question is, are you trying hard enough and have you been passing up opportunities? Opportunities present themselves in different ways. It's all about if you are willing to take risks. However, in order to take risks and come out successfully you need knowledge. I didn't win third place because of luck. I got third place because I worked hard and put my English major to good use. It's up to you to look to your resources to educate yourself so you can educate others!