Friday, February 5, 2010

"Shouldn't I be Qualified?"

I am taking a new training course and at the very same time starting the wee baby steps of starting a 'practice' called Life Coaching. I have no comfort zone at all in either the course or the practice, but am enjoying myself more than I have in years, if ever!
This has brought up for me, again (!) the issue of 'being qualified.' I have believed, without question, that in order to get paid for what you do, you must have 'qualifications.' I assumed that everyone who has ever served me, taught me, employed me was 'qualified' to do so. As I matured, it became obvious that very many people were not qualified, yet held their positions/titles and were paid handsomely to do it.
I have done this only once before in my life - doing a job, before I was trained &/or qualified - and that was teaching music. I never had formal lessons as a child - I taught myself to play the guitar and learned to play piano on the pianos that my friends owned - we did not own a piano. I forced my children to take piano lessons, then discovered it was my 'dream' so I let them off the hook and enrolled myself in lessons. A friend asked me to 'teach' her daughter piano and I reluctantly said I would give it a try - 4 years later I have 8 Piano students and 8 guitar students! I got a 'semi-qualification' 2 years ago by completing my first and only piano exam. (I passed with honors!)
Now, I am practicing this 'new' thing with very little training and no qualification but I am discovering that I am learning it as I go. On the day I posed this question to myself: "Shouldn't I be Qualified?" I got immediate 'answers' from curious sources. My daily Facebook application "On this day, God wants you to know..." stated that God wants me to know that I learn by doing. The more I spend time on something, the more I 'learn' it. o.k.... cool.. and then later the same day, I read a passage that defined the word "Yariga" which in Japanese means "the joy that comes from doing."
I believe I got my answer! I will continue to do what I am doing...