A friend of mine is getting older - mid 50s now - and his life as a programmer is over. Here's what happens. His coding career was almost always freelance web dev. He was never awesome, but he could piece together the full stack. He wasn't awesome, because he never cared that much about it. He brought logic and grit to the puzzle rather than real interest the tools and the work.
As a single guy, over the years, he's spent a lot of time sorting through the thoughts that pass through his mind and working to decide which ideas make sense and which he can safely let go of. This has lead him down a more spiritual path of understanding outside of any organized religion. As such, he's curious and interested in not only his potential as a human, he enjoys the conversation which naturally leads to him being willing to apply the hard work he's done to the service of helping others if they're struggling or stuck.
This brings him to coaching.
In 2003, the new millenium and a new era of Internet saw a whole generation becoming replaced by the new kids on the block. The digital natives were clearly going to take all the jobs away from people who wouldn't get on the technology bandwagon. A group of boomers in their 40's and 50's saw the struggle of people their age and realized we were going to need some coaches to help us navigate the tumult. They started Coaches Training Institute in San Rafael, CA. It's still around today, stronger than ever. My buddy joined back then for a few courses but is rejoining now 18 years later to update his skills and go through their certification course. He's clear that leaving a career in freelance technology will be fine because he's going to move into supporting humans - and there are certainly plenty of those around.
I started today's writing to mention how the first coaching session I had with him to help him rack up some hours lead us to discussing my capacity for work. The context was rooted in my recent adoption of streaks and consistency in several efforts and how I'm going to apply them moving forward. The main takeaway was that consistency makes it easier to have a capacity for work. Then, when you need to be able to do something, you're capacity is high enough you don't feel the need to procrastinate. You can immediately get to work.
As a single guy, over the years, he's spent a lot of time sorting through the thoughts that pass through his mind and working to decide which ideas make sense and which he can safely let go of. This has lead him down a more spiritual path of understanding outside of any organized religion. As such, he's curious and interested in not only his potential as a human, he enjoys the conversation which naturally leads to him being willing to apply the hard work he's done to the service of helping others if they're struggling or stuck.
This brings him to coaching.
In 2003, the new millenium and a new era of Internet saw a whole generation becoming replaced by the new kids on the block. The digital natives were clearly going to take all the jobs away from people who wouldn't get on the technology bandwagon. A group of boomers in their 40's and 50's saw the struggle of people their age and realized we were going to need some coaches to help us navigate the tumult. They started Coaches Training Institute in San Rafael, CA. It's still around today, stronger than ever. My buddy joined back then for a few courses but is rejoining now 18 years later to update his skills and go through their certification course. He's clear that leaving a career in freelance technology will be fine because he's going to move into supporting humans - and there are certainly plenty of those around.
I started today's writing to mention how the first coaching session I had with him to help him rack up some hours lead us to discussing my capacity for work. The context was rooted in my recent adoption of streaks and consistency in several efforts and how I'm going to apply them moving forward. The main takeaway was that consistency makes it easier to have a capacity for work. Then, when you need to be able to do something, you're capacity is high enough you don't feel the need to procrastinate. You can immediately get to work.
People always say they can't do X or Y or Z because in their head they think that it means doing 8 hours of it a day when actually it's just getting started with something as small as 200 pointless words a day or 1 slowly walked mile a day or etc etc etc.
Once you get into the small you actually get to see what your capacity for work is. And it's a lot smaller than the eight hours a day your appetite tricked you into thinking you wanted.
But it's more than enough capacity to do what you want to do. Which is actually start. And not just start and quit but start and evolve and figure more things out.