A STORY ON THE IMPORTANCE OF LIFE VISIONING INTO THE FUTURE AND WORKING BACK

Posted on October 01, 2013 by Catherine Heaton, One of Thousands of Business Coaches on Noomii.

When I was going to Concordia studying to be a Life Coach I heard of a woman who was 78 years old and still life coaching! It was a cold Saturday morning dead in the middle of winter! I said to myself “WOW when I grow up and start coaching I will aim to be coaching at that age also! This will be my goal! This will get me to resign from a beautiful career in teaching! My second career as my first had been in the Fashion industry. I was a bit hesitant! At that time I was a young age of 63! I had grown out of the school mode and needed a new passion.

Wow! Wow! Wow! What a celebration for my 84th birthday! My 2 children gather around myself and husband with their mates and children! We all go walking, running and dancing on the beach! The sun is warm and feels amazing on my body—-the waves lap at my feet! The water is warm and oozes of the upcoming summer! The sweet scent of a highly successful life coach, mother and grandmother invades the beach. The journey to this amazing place has been exhilarating. I am wearing a yellow sundrenched flowing silk dress. My large yellow straw hat provides protection for my face from the sun.
It has been joyful and peaceful spending much of the last 20 years on Hilton Head Island! Winters have been spent traveling in southern parts of the world, all the while coaching and physically training clients; summers have been split between Toronto and Montreal allowing me to spend precious time with my children and their families. My husband and I have been house sitting in Montreal and Toronto for the past 20 years. All have meshed well with the dull roar of the ever invading tides of time!
My business as a Life Coach has flourished, allowing me to live passionately the last 20 years in my space, floating as the lady in yellow silk, in and out of many people’s lives! I have become inspired and truly inspiring to all who I have coached throughout my last 20 years! As I have become awakened to a more enriching life, so too have my clients. My Life Coaching business has flourished for 20 years under the name of Catherine Heaton—-Sculptor of the Mind, Body and Soul!
As I look back at my Life Coaching career I see that I have become famous in the Fashion Marketing field of coaching—coaching not only the fashion business entrepreneur but coaching the whole person to a higher level of life learning that has allowed the individual to thrive in and own his/her life as it intertwines with the successfully blossoming fashion business. My favorite client has always been a Montreal designer who was with me from the start 20 years ago. He has grown and continues to exceed expectations in his life and business as his brand is now one of the most sought after fashion brands worldwide.
At 84 I now have 5 clients who remain devoted in their pursuit of life perfection! What has life perfection meant to me? Fashion, colours, travel, exercise and the conviction to age gracefully all the while learning, growing and developing into the passionately inspiring coach that I am! I have achieved my vision and am so very happy in my own skin. It has and continues to be an amazing life!
In my seventies I kept a business of life coaching and personal training! Yes, personal training! My body is amazing! Most of my personal training clients in my seventies were also my Life Coaching clients. At that point in time I was averaging 10—15 clients per month. These clients would come for inspiration and guidance in business, personal pursuits and physical training and ultimately a life vision.
At the age of 64 I went to 50% teaching, started building my website for coaching, found many clients and pushed the button to launch my dream career—-the career and ME who I have grown to be! The ME I was meant to be! The ME that has allowed me to build my cherished last 20 years! The ME who has inspired so many precious souls! The ME who turns so many heads as I strut down the street or the beach owning and I mean totally owning this beautiful mind, body and soul that I inhabit. I am able to mix the inner creative me with the outer fashionable me—-the rich, vibrant colours and the soft, silky textures harmonize with the inner beauty of a soul who has blossomed, mushroomed and erupted as a wise old volcano ever so relentless in her passion to grow!
The age of 63 saw me very confused in my journey—-I so wanted to leave my full time teaching post and concentrate on physical fitness activities for myself, my cancer patients who I train 2 days a week and to build up my physical training business. But alas I had allowed family members to deter me to the point where I felt that I would have to stay working full time into my seventies just to pay the regular humdrum bills —simply existing and NOT living!
I had taken many courses at the Argyle Institute on various types of psychology and often saw myself being a psychologist in my later life! Friends, students and family have often come to me for advice, mentoring and coaching. But a few years of university might eat into too much savings!
Today I am 63 and am cross country skiing down from Mount Roland to Piedmont in the mountains. I am extremely happy-the skiing is amazing, the ski is crystal clear blue, the birds of spring are chirping in the trees and the sun is warm on my face. I am gliding through the universe planning my 84th birthday! Wow—I actually own this dream—I now know that this dream of mine is not a dream anymore. The dream has morphed into reality. The dream is my LIFE VISION. This week I will send some invitations to my 84th birthday out to some important people!

Let me now truly embrace my age of 84! Through the strength of my conviction, the unwavering coaching of my mentor coach, and my drive to focus on a new path of learning at the young age of 63 I took a shift of thought—-my stage four Ovarian Cancer and my sister’s death at the same time, was put in my path by the universe to teach me a life lesson! I must go to the other side of the container. I must see my life as one of purpose, mission and clarity. I must not slide down the muddy path to merely exist in this world. I MUST BE! Creating, passionate, colourful, fun, soulful; carrying all my clients in my heart and depths of my belly as I walk and dance along the world paths of intrigue and interest.
My children and their children dance and frolic at the edge of the ocean. My grandchildren are intrigued by the dolphins who are playfully putting on a show at the ocean’s edge. I am reminded again of all the many clients who have graced my path in the last 20 years. They, like the dolphins, have swum to my doorstep dancing and swaying, first a bit timid and shy at the surface of their lives! Then diving deep into the black depths of the murky ocean’s floor and with all the conviction of the universe, taking a major leap into the sky of life.

I will not die until the music is totally and utterly out of me——I will dance at the seaside, I will dance at the mountain tops, and all places in between! I will dance with the joy and elation of one who jumped off the normal path of life into the joy and peace of serenity of wearing the lens of the SCULPTOR OF THE MIND, BODY AND SOUL!