How my Life Coach helped me become less lonely

This is a personal story of one of the ways my life coach helped me. Like most other people, I've been going through some hard times due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

I was struggling during the pandemic because I love to practice martial arts and play basketball, and I couldn't play or spar with my friends anymore. Playing sports is an important way for me to maintain my friendships, so I was feeling very lonely. My life coach suggested that I give tennis a try, since I had enjoyed playing tennis in the past, and also because it's so socially distant - you're normally at least 10 feet apart!

After a few more minutes of chatting, we decided that not only should I start to play tennis, but I should start a regular weekly tennis meetup. The reason for that was because I would often get lonely and depressed about the whole Covid situation, and I wouldn't reach out to anyone while I was feeling like that. So having a regularly scheduled meetup would make it easier for me to get myself out of the house. And I had to create the meetup, since nothing like that was going on in my town - everything was closed!

I only had one friend who I knew liked tennis, but I reached out to several friends and acquaintances, and ended up putting together a small group of people who now get together to play tennis every Saturday. It's been so great because it's given me a chance to see a couple of acquaintances whose company I had really been missing during the pandemic.

(Side Note: Another thing my life coach helped me realize was that part of my loneliness came from missing the company of acquaintances during the pandemic - I had my small pod of close friends, but I really missed those moments of connection with acquaintances. Playing tennis allowed me an excuse to reach out to a few of these people and re-connect with them, thus making me less lonely).

So while a life coach can't single-handedly end the pandemic and the loneliness that social distancing creates, they can help you to solve the problems in your life. If you have a problem, and you ask your life coach about it, they can often help you brainstorm a solution - better than you could on your own. They may have other clients asking them about the same problem, so they've already given it some thought. They may be able to look at your problem from a different angle. Or it may just help to have two brains, instead of one brain, working together to come up with a solution.