Final Paper
Audio Version (FR only for now)
✨ When Purpose Becomes Vocation: How Coaching Helped Me Embody My Life’s Mission.
By Johannie Therrien, Professional Coach, Syma Coaching Graduate
Talking about your life mission is often more intimidating than it seems. Behind those words lies a personal, deep, and sometimes confusing quest. For me, this path began long before I had the words to describe it. It was during my coaching training that everything clicked when I was asked a seemingly simple question: “What is your life mission?”
The Starting Point: A Mental Mission, Not Yet Embodied
Three weeks before that class moment, we were invited to explore our mission. I dove in headfirst: videos, articles, online quizzes. That’s when I discovered the Ikigai Venn Diagram, a Japanese-inspired diagram that combines four key questions to find a common purpose — a goal.
It gave me my first direction. I ended up with this formulation: “I help people better organize and structure their lives.” Clear, rational… but something didn’t feel right.
The Feedback That Changed Everything
When I shared it aloud, my trainer asked me what that mission said about me:
— Trainer: “Your mission seems focused on others. Where are *you* in all of this?”
I don’t remember the exact words, but it went something like that.
I rushed to say I’d think of something more meaningful, when another trainer added:
— Trainer: “What if you aimed for something more… FELT?”
That word hit me hard. Felt. I realized I had written that mission with my brain — not my gut.
Coaching as a Space of Revelation
From that moment on, I turned my practice sessions into labs of consciousness. I explored my blocks, limiting beliefs, and perfectionist patterns. Through the kind listening of my fellow coaches, I was able to:
- Recognize my need for control
- Identify my attachment to being the ‘good student’
- Acknowledge my obsession with being flawless
- Observe my resistance to silence — that very space where truth is born
Letting Go — A Necessary Passage
One day when my mother visited, I shared my latest draft of my life mission. She asked me to explain it. I couldn’t. So she said:
“If you can’t even explain it to me, maybe it’s not the right one.”
That’s when I understood. The more I looked for a fixed answer, the less I felt it. I had to stop overthinking and reconnect with the *living* experience of what makes me vibrate.
This realization embodied ICF Core Competency #4: Cultivates Trust and Safety. So I gave myself that safe space.
I learned to trust the silence, to slow down, and to listen to my emotions and body — instead of chasing mental clarity.
The Moment of Clarity: Feeling Instead of Formulating
It was in the silence of a meditation that my mission emerged — not as a thought, but as a deep vibration. A call from within.
And I realized something essential:
My mission doesn’t need to be fixed. It moves with me.
So I replaced the word 'life' with 'today'.
Because today, I am this woman:
“Who rises and supports victims and survivors of toxic relationships to reclaim their inner power and be free.”
This shift helped me take action, reformulate my mission based on my own transformation, and offer something meaningful to the world.
This process reflects ICF Core Competency #8: Facilitates Client Growth — helping the client build sustainable solutions from a space of trust. It’s not the coach who gives the answer; it’s the client who discovers it — sometimes in silence, as I did.
Contribution to the Coaching Profession
Though deeply personal, this experience offered me universal insights for our profession:
As coaches, we benefit from questioning our own posture before guiding others to clarify their mission.
A life mission isn’t declared — it’s embodied. It’s a continuous process of presence with oneself.
Active introspection, supported by the coach’s presence, is a powerful way to bring hidden answers to light.
Ultimately, this journey taught me that the heart of coaching is the *living* — and in the living, there’s doubt, trial and error, and recalibration. That’s the beauty of our craft.
And you?
Coach, future coach, or beautiful soul in search of meaning:
What is your mission today?
