The fastest way
to discover the life
you were born for
is to experiment with
your Human Design.
Human Design gives us a framework and decision-making tools to experiment with. Experience gains us a personal perspective that changes the way we see everything. Everyone is asked to experiment with it for themselves. Try things and see what resonates, what works. Here are my personal perspectives on what to look for in a Human Design Life Coach.
If you’ve ever played sports, you’ve had a coach. I was lucky enough to have a coach when I was into triathlon competitions as a teenager. He and my training partners helped me qualify for and complete an Ironman Triathlon World Championship at age 19. I know I could never have accomplished that so young without their guidance, and no way I could have done that alone.
Ironman Triathlon World Championship Finish line via Ironman.com
In the long run, finding the right mentors helps you not only succeed, it can also save you time and money by avoiding mistakes and staying focused on what's important for success.
Certified Living Your Design Guides like myself are able to take you through the Living Your Design Program, designed to help coach you to - you guessed it, live your design. Some guides are a better match for you than others. Nothing personal, just mechanics.
I see an abundance of life coaches selling their services to people and the general market seems saturated. But when it comes to people guiding you to be in alignment with your Human Design, using one of the most accurate systems of self-knowledge on the planet - there are precious few of us. All professional Human Design Guides can be found here.
Before you decide on a particular Human Design Guide, the following considerations might help you. But it all comes down to your decision-making Strategy and process of personal Authority.
1. Empowering Presence
In my experience, people can be brought up or down by hanging out with others holding either a positive or a negative attitude. Having an empowering attitude comes with experience and perspective.
You'll recognize if you resonate to the right coach for you by seeing how you feel when you talk with them. An experienced guide knows a sense of lightness about it yet recognizes the depth needed to empower change. A great guide can assist you in looking at problems as opportunities for growth - everyone of them with a unique perspective. For example, some like me (I have the 1-8) are expressive, creative role models of being personally self-empowered. A great role model heads in her unique direction without a concern of what others are doing or whether or not anyone else is following. She just goes where she goes and sets a public example, empowering others by her living example. Helpful coaches are able to recognize your role in the big picture and ask questions that empower you to see it too.
Your ideal coach is patient, but also committed to your growth - empowered by your recognition of their skills, having persistence and determination to help you succeed.
2. Experiential Knowledge
My Unconscious Core Essence. Rave I-Ching image via MyBodygraph.com
Your Human Design Guide should walk their talk. An important thing to look for is his or her experience. Do they have personal knowledge of the experiences you are dealing with or contemplating?
Would you consider someone who has paid their dues when it comes to life experience and can share from that place of knowing? Does this person share what they have both failed and succeeded at, and what they learned from it?
This kind of experiential wisdom can help you avoid making mistakes or when you do make the ones they warn you about, your chance of success increases immensely because you'll better recognize what happened and how you can avoid that same mistake in the future.
Check their testimonials - are they posted on their own website or are they recommended on social media, like Facebook, Google or Yelp reviews and LinkedIn Recommendations? What are former students saying about him or her? Is what’s being said detailed and personal? Does it feel authentic and in alignment with what you hope to experience?
3. Depth of Expertise in their Field
Most people would agree that successful people can have a broad range of knowledge and experience but tend to dive deep to specialize in a specific area of study. When contemplating a professional Human Design Guide:
- Does your potential guide exhibit the commitment to dedicate themselves to their area of expertise?
- Do they continue to hone their skills, knowledge or interests?
- Do they teach or lecture, give talks or do events?
- Has he or she an active blog, or perhaps written an e-book, or started a YouTube channel or Podcast? Do other people recommend them and their program in discussion groups?
- Are they a dedicated professional or are they just moonlighting?
My Conscious Personality Core Essence. Rave I-Ching image via MyBodygraph.com
Note: Not that moonlighters can't be good guides for others. But it is a fact that someone who tries to be a Jack of All Trades without that particular channel (36-35) may not be the efficient, effective specialist of sharing the experience you're hoping for. Even as a full-time student/professional working in Human Design these last few years, there are many avenues left to explore and I refer out to my Human Design colleagues regularly. If the person you are contemplating inviting to guide you is a part-timer, is there a resonance you can't deny drawing you to them? Are they comfortable referring you on to someone who is certified for deeper level information when it's time for you to move on?
4. Ability to Share
Black = Logic (understanding) Circuit Red=Sensing (abstract/experiential) Circuit
A great Human Design life coach is willing to listen to and share either logical patterns they recognize are viable for a secure future or the remembrances of past experiences and the feelings they bring to help illustrate a point. Not just the good, but the bad too, to give you the whole picture. If you get the feeling your coach is holding back the bad and oversharing the good, question them if you need real emotional support. Most of us learn very well from actual experience; we learn best from real-life stories of those who are willing to be vulnerable and transparent, even when it's painful.
5. Professionalism
A good professional life coach knows how to customize their approach to your specific design and how you best learn and absorb information. No one fits into a one-size-fits-all approach, and this is graphically depicted in your Human Design Chart. As Living Your Design Guides we are taught to take someone through the important basics they need to know. Your Human Design Guide should be willing to customize your life coaching experience. Ask:
My Conscious Grounding and Balance. Rave I-Ching image via MyBodygraph.com
- Does your coach demonstrate caring about your concerns and help meet you where you're at?
- Can they guide you in a step by step fashion through the Human Design foundations if that's the best approach for you?
- Can they laser focus on getting you through the current crisis with solutions if that's what's needed?
- Can they coach you in a way that helps you discover your innate wisdom and power, which is unique to every individual?
5. The Network
A great life coach has developed relationships with fellow professionals and others who could benefit you. A great Human Design Guide knows when to refer their client out when they are ready for deeper levels of exploration, and who best to refer them to so that a likely match is made. Ask him or her if they're willing to refer you or make introductions for you. For those with 4th line Profiles especially, it is about who you know.
6. Authenticity and Accountability
A good Human Design Guide / Life Coach helps keep you authentic and accountable. From deep discussions to just touching base, it's important for both of you to know that you are progressing in awareness and ability to discern correct action for yourself. Many people come to Human Design HATING THE WRONG PERSON. They don't like themselves and think they aren't what they should be. If your guide doesn’t keep you focused on what's important (defined) in your design and how you're here to be you, that’s a big red flag.
My Unconscious Grounding & Balance. Rave I-Ching image via MyBodygraph.com
7. A Gifted Teacher
Great Human Design Guides love to help other people. They enjoy the act of teaching.
Teaching is something that all Human Design Professionals are trained to do, be it specifically defined in their chart or not. It's a skill that people can get better at over time. There's something truly magical about being someone who is designed to teach at the unconscious level. Here you see how I personally make my contribution in the world when recognized and invited to bring my power skills to the table.
We Each Are Here for our "Fractal" of People
It’s impossible for us humans to be everything to everyone - we are all designed to be specialists, and each of us are here for a particular group of people, what Ra called our "fractal". The most important thing is, according to Strategy and Authority, are they right for you?
My perspective is that "Truth" and knowledge is personal knowing melded with experience. Knowing cannot always be explained, and experience is subjective, individual - some of us live in completely different realities!
I do my best to be open to all kinds of possibilities and imaginatively explore the realms of life, guiding others who are drawn through my example, leading through creative self-expression.
My feeling is that everyone has the possibility of experiencing their own reality from a unique perspective and can only discover truth for themselves. So many nuances of individual imprinting, the potentials are incredible!
When we differentiate in experience we can have delightful meetings of perspective. With language, we can point at an individual truth with words but it seems to me that personal truths, our quiet, inner knowing (that has nothing to prove to anyone) are discovered ourselves over time with experience. We all change with time and grow to mature through discovery and learning.
When you study with someone who has been successful at guiding others through their designs, you increase your chances of successfully experimenting. Your Human Design Guide has already devoted the time to learning and experimenting themselves. To absorb all of the benefits you can out of him or her, there are certain qualities in them you can look for - not only generally speaking, but also there are ways we "resonate" to each other. All of us have qualities of connecting to each other in very specific ways which make it easier to "get" what the other has for us.
My 2016 Solar Return Chart
One interesting side-note if you are a coach or guide yourself is to look at your nodal environments for your human design and applicable life cycles. It's fun to see people with these as their themes show up in your life and watch how the movie changes based on the season of your life. For example, this year I got to experience a lot of new people in my life I was attuned to with variations of the 47, 22, 46 and 25th gates in their design. Particularly Cross of Rulership people.
I love that when one person teaches, two people learn.
As a 3rd line personality, I'm all about the experiential road of learning through trial and error. I'm very grateful to the hundreds of people I've encountered over the years who I have shared my feelings and experiences with, and who have shared their journey with me as I bang along making my mistakes on the path of growth.
Because I am an Advisor and Certified Human Design Guide, I can help you on the path to your highest level of potential and fulfillment quickly. Giving the Human Design Life a go without the help of someone who has had extensive training can be confusing, as there are many coaches out there who do not take the time to immerse themselves in this system and combine it with others. I remember my process of discovery lead me to do a lot of self-study on my own both before and after my first reading in 2012. Trying to study your chart alone can be challenging for some; things go much smoother with structured guidance.
Eventually, you begin to seek answers to the inevitable questions that arise in a deconditioning process like this. When you encounter something that threatens to shatter your belief systems about yourself and how the world functions, a helping hand, someone's example, or a sharing in a supportive class makes a world of difference.
I've attended Human Design America and the International Human Design School for the last four years with an amazing teacher on the Cross of Service. Darshana told us so many times to look beyond the words and contemplate the deeper meaning for ourselves. Much of my learning I owe to the experience of both one-on-one and group Living Your Design Awakening Programs that I was certified to teach two years ago, and in being a teacher's assistant at the BG5 Business Institute this year.
"When one teaches, two learn." Robert Heinlein
The independent and certified Human Design professionals and schools listed here do their very best to preserve and protect the original knowledge by teaching in alignment with the founder's structuring. This is so that each teacher is able to take that information and perform their own experiment with it, as I am doing myself. Would you like to ask me any questions you have about Human Design or being a professional guide?
