I learned two things about myself today.

Yesterday I posted this question to Instagram:

Will I ever really be content or will I spend my whole life dissatisfied and chasing something because I need to fix myself?

No-one answered me, but that’s okay because I guess the question got stuck in my unconscious and my brain set to work on it overnight.

This morning I drew this diagram in my journal:

All my life, I’ve periodically become dissatisfied, whether it was frustrated, understimulated, or trapped, and I’ve responded to that discomfort by making some kind of change, big or small.

For example, after I graduated from university I worked at a software company for a year. It didn’t take me that long to realized I hated the work. I didn’t enjoy the day-to-day tasks, and I couldn’t connect to the purpose behind it. So I saved up some money, and in 1998 I did a four-month solo backpacking tour of Europe. It was transformative, literally; I unlocked new personality traits on that trip.

But I didn’t learn enough, because when I came back from the tour I soon got back into the same kind of work, and soon found myself with the same feelings of disconnection and ennui. I had good friends at the company, though, and the work was better suited to me (technical support rather than testing, so I mainly worked with people rather than software) so this time I stuck it out for four years before I noped out: In 2003 I had my first baby and left the workforce.

And so it went. When my children weren’t so demanding, I started volunteering, with the local city councillor, and with my kids’ school. When that didn’t fulfill me, I taught myself to copyedit and created a business. That was amazing, but after a few years I realized something was missing in copyediting, and shifted to coaching.

And so on, slumps followed by changes, like a pendulum.

I realized two important things this morning, when I broke this pattern down.

First, I’m in a better place now than when I started. (I mean, I hope so, since I started this cycle in high school!) But I’m even in a better place than I was in my early 20s.

In what I do, yes — I like my work better, and my day-to-day habits are better and more aligned with my joy and purpose. But moreso in who I am. I know myself much better, I know what’s important to me and what I need, and so I make better choices. I’m braver. I set better boundaries.

I have learned my strengths and what I have to offer, so I can make better and more significant change in the world.

That tells me that I’m not just spinning, reacting to discomfort without changing. I’m actually refining, getting closer to a better version of myself and a version of my life that’s congruent with who I want to be.

And second, I realized that I really enjoy those down-and-right arrows, the ones that lead from dissatisfaction to response.

I love the process of figuring out what’s not working and throwing myself into a challenge, a new adventure, in search of something more satisfying. It’s thrilling, like skiing a black diamond. (Truth is I have never skiied a black diamond; I’m extrapolating from tobogganing.)

Realizing that tells me that I will never leave this cycle altogether, and that’s awesome.

The fact is, I relish change and challenge. Satisfaction is dissatisfying to me. When I get too comfortable, it makes me uncomfortable.

It’s good to realize this about myself and know that I’m always going to be scanning the horizon for the next adventure, the next twist. This isn’t a bug, it’s a feature.

And finally, this completes the picture of why coaching feels so right for me. Coaching is exactly about accompanying people as they hurtle down that black diamond of discovering what’s not right in their life and changing it. How amazing!