By: Adrian Chow
The 180th Pacific Coast Scout Group had the privilege of hosting Rebecca Beaton, a life design coach, at our May monthly meeting. She spoke of her experiences as a coach and the events leading up to her current job that she loves. After graduating with a major in environmental geography major, she pursued her passion to change the world by working for an environmental non-profit organization. She loved what she was doing for a while, but soon found herself constantly drained and unhappy because the people around her didn’t seem to want to change their ways. Rebecca took some time off and stumbled upon a seminar on life coaching. She fell in love with it and decided to pursue it as a career. She has started her own business and loves her job to this day.
What does a life coach do? Actually, it’s quite similar to what our Scout Group’s mentors do with us! Rebecca explained that she helps her clients find clarity in what they want to do and helps them set action items to achieve their goals. She said that it is very important for us to create a clear vision, to discover our natural abilities, and to set clear values that guide us when we make difficult life decisions.
Rebecca attributes her success to how she always stayed true to her passions. There was an excited buzz in the room and a lot of nodding heads when Rebecca talked about “passion”, because passion is one of our crew’s core values.
Many of us found that we could relate to Rebecca’s story and the challenges she faced. I used to be in the Faculty of Commerce at UBC. I entered the program thinking it would be a great place for me, but soon began to have doubts. Getting out of bed to get ready for school seemed like a chore, and I often struggled to stay interested in the material. One semester, I took an elective in Political Science, a field that I have been interested in since Grade 4. The topics that we were covering were so engaging that I rushed home to do the readings, and never had a problem motivating myself to study. Much like Rebecca, I took a step back to rethink what I was really passionate about, and what would make me happy. It was certainly a difficult decision, but I ultimately decided to transfer out of Commerce into Political Science. I am now very happy to be working towards a degree that I am passionate about!
Thank you for your wise words, Rebecca!