I appreciate this poem from internet-famous poet, Atticus.
🖋 For this lesson, you're going to need to use your journal (paper or electronic.)
⏱ You're going to need a few days for this exercise. You'll need to write, contemplate, and walk with the ideas for a few days, so don't leave it to the last minute! You'll want to come to the Kaleidoscope session prepared with the work done.
🎯 When you are done with this exercise, please share your insights about it with me in the Badass Butterfly Spiritual Life Coaches Facebook group.
You might have heard me say before that your authority as a spiritual life coach doesn't come from your college degree nor from the certification that I will offer you at the end of this program. Your authority as a spiritual life coach comes first from God and your Spiritual Guidance Team. And then it comes from your own personal experience with the pain and trauma you have experienced in your life.
You have seen with the Treasury of Boasts exercise that you have accomplished many things over the course of your life. And you have seen that you have some powerful knowledge about pain, trauma, and emotional wounding. Now, it is important for you to start to make some decisions about what you're going to do with the wealth of your experience.
It's time to niche!
A niche is defined as, "a specialized segment of the market for a particular kind of product or service." In other words, your niche is your specialty.
At the bottom of this lesson, you'll find an article from Forbes magazine that speaks plainly about the importance of niching. The author, Roger David, writes, "A focused business concept has numerous benefits, including simple and streamlined operations and less direct competition, thus allowing you to be a big fish in a small pond. A clear focus means you can focus your audience-targeting strategy. Defining and excelling with a special skill set and knowledge in a particular industry allows you to identify, claim and build on your market expertise."
Please read Roger's article to get a deeper understanding of the importance of niching.
As a spiritual life coach, your niche (or specialty) is the pain or trauma you've experienced. Your job right now is to brainstorm the various pains and traumas you've experienced and then make a decision about your niche based on the passion you feel about the subject.
How you feel about that pain is immensely important because you are going to become a student and then a master of that pain. The pain or trauma you choose is going to become the foundation of your business. It's going to first be the thing you study, then it's going to become the thing you heal. This pain or trauma will be the thing you obsessively research as you build your program, and about which you'll be writing in your notebooks and journals. It's also the thing you'll be writing about in your blog posts and in social media. And, of course, you'll be making videos talking about it. This pain and/or trauma will become your specialty, your niche, and you should be expecting to spend the next two or three years learning more and more about it, as you develop your business and grow your tribe of followers.
My favorite example for niching is Lisa A. Romano. She's a woman who was codependent and suffered narcissistic abuse. She overcame them and now teaches men and women how to do the same. It's that simple. Now, the name Lisa A. Romano is synonymous with narcissism and codependency. If you look at her Youtube channel, you'll see evidence of her specialty immediately.
My goal is to help you get as crystal clear and specialized as our dear Lisa A. Romano.
So how are we going to do that?
♕ Well, the first thing I'm going to have you do is pull out your journal and a timer.
♕ Now, I want you to set that timer for 10 minutes and start writing!
During this time, I need you to brainstorm your pain. Just do a brain dump of all the pain, trauma, and emotional distress you have ever experienced in your life. I want you to do this free-write style, where you start writing, and you don't stop until the timer tells you to quit.
Just let the thoughts and ideas flow through you. This is not a time to be grammatically correct or precise. Just let the pain and trauma unfold through you. It might come chronologically, or not. It might be all based on your mom, or not. It might be about self-abuse, or not. My point is that I don't want you to try to direct this process. This is a Divine Feminine process that will let your Spirit Guides activate your inner healer.
♕ After you have written out your pain, the next step is to simply sit and feel what feels the most gripping, compelling, and real for you. Really sit and meditate on what you've experienced and see what pain or trauma is getting your attention the most.
♕ You can take a pen or highlighter and mark the things that feel significant. Please choose anywhere from one pain or trauma up to three. So narrow your list down to the top three.
♕ Then I want you to spend at least one day contemplating these three pains or traumas. Notice your relationship with them. Where did they come from? How did this thing happen to you? How are they showing up in your life today?
♕ After you've spent a day with contemplating them, grab your journal and start to write about your experiences with this trauma specifically. DIVE DEEP. Tell the story of your relationship with these traumas in detail.
♕ When you're done writing about your relationship with these traumas, you'll need to make a decision about which one to choose. Use your heart and your mind to help you decide. You can even ask yourself, "What do I want to be known for? What do I want to be famous for healing and transforming?"
Go ahead and make the decision about your pain point niche, and be prepared to talk about it in detail when you come to the next Kaleidoscope meeting.
🎉 Brava! 🎊 You are on your way to becoming an expert and helping people improve their lives in meaningful ways.
🎯 When you are done with this exercise, please share your insights about it with me in the Badass Butterfly Spiritual Life Coaches Facebook group.
