I've always known about your work as a creative writer and critic. What prompted you to create this planner?
Life coaches have been around in one form or the other from the beginning of time. Essentially, they are people who help you to overcome a range of personal challenges. Over the last two decades, the profession of life coaching has become named and formalized. The field is not currently regulated by a centralized governing body, so the requirements to become a life coach are not universal. I completed my training through the Martha Beck Life Coach Program. The training involved lots of reading and discussion, workshop development, and lots and lots of coaching practice. Martha Beck writes for O Magazine and is author of a number of excellent books.
What is a life coach and what are the qualifications to become a life coach? Where did you study?
I trained to be a life coach a few years ago. I have always loved helping people see the world through more hopeful eyes and the training gave me an intellectual basis to understand the techniques I can use to accomplish this. I coach both private clients and do public workshops. I have some ideas about life coaching products I'd like to develop and this is the first--items that inspire and do some of the work I would do for you if we met regularly. The planner is not just one with dates. It involves a whole system of planning that I developed!
Is there a link between your literary work and the life coaching that you do?
Surprisingly, I think that there is. In literary analysis, we look for patterns--patterns in say narrative strategy or the representation of race. As a life coach, much of the work I do is also concerned with patterns, but this time in client behavior. As a coach, I help people recognize patterns that serve or do not serve them as they decide how to accomplish a goal.
What is one pattern that you have observed that is repeated both is fiction and in life that often frustrates a protagonist or a client from achieving his or her goal?
Great question! I'd say, believing that we have to suffer to get what we want is consistent in both fiction and real life. Fiction is, in fact, built on this model of suffering--most protagonists spend much of the novel struggling in the ugliest of ways to get what they want. As a teacher of fiction writing, I actually dedicate quite a bit of time to impressing on my students that no one cares about a character whose life is going wonderfully. But many of us live our real lives believing that "If you want good, you nose have to run!" The result is that nothing comes easy because we believe it can't.
How can I get a copy of The 2017 Boundless Galaxy Daily Planner?
The planner may be purchased on my website:http://www.andreaeshaw.com/shop . Also, if anyone wants a free planning guide to help set yearly goals, they can Email me at coachshawnevins [at] gmail.com
Andrea Shaw Nevins is a college professor and a life coach. She holds a Ph.D. in Caribbean Literature from the University of Miami and graduated from the Martha Beck Life Coach Training Program. Among other things, she maintains a blog at http://www.andreaeshaw.com/blog , hosts life coaching workshops, and provides individual coaching. She specializes in helping folks make transitions from a life that is “okay” to one that is “fabulous”!
