The Fear of Other People’s Judgment

For several months, after deciding on the new direction my professional path would take, I didn’t dare say out loud that I was going to become a coach. When people asked me about my career shift, I first said that I would fully enjoy the summer while finishing my yoga teacher training. Then I started saying that I would teach yoga, which inevitably raised a few eyebrows. “You have three kids, you’re a single parent, you own a home… and you’re going to teach yoga? That’s your big career plan?”

No one said it to me directly, but I could see it clearly in their doubtful expressions. Sometimes it was outright disapproval. So I would vaguely add that I was still exploring my options, that I was taking time for myself, that I was also interested in developing and offering my own writing courses. But I never mentioned anything about personal or professional coaching.

The Projection Reflex

I was afraid of other people’s judgment. I worried that, like I once did, they would associate coaching with something a bit woo-woo or guru-like self-help rhetoric. Or simply see it as a fallback career. Something anyone can do, a trend, a passing fad. I imagined people wondering why they would pay for services they believed they could get for free. That they would think they already have a sister, a mother, or a best friend who can listen and give advice without sending them an invoice afterward.

Looking back, I was getting this completely wrong. I assumed people didn’t really understand what coaching was. So how could they see its value? But what if they actually understood it perfectly, maybe even better than I did? What if they had already worked with a personal or professional coach at some point in their lives? What if they didn’t fully know what coaching involved, but still had a neutral or even positive view of it, unlike me?

Translation and Coaching: Different Professions, Same Struggle

At that point, I drew a nearly perfect parallel with my former profession. When I told people I was a translator, those who knew nothing about the field would always ask the same questions or make the same comments:
· How many languages do you speak?
· I’m bilingual too. I often get asked to translate documents at work.
· Do people really pay for that?

I tried not to roll my eyes in frustration.

First, you don’t need to speak more than two languages to translate. But even then, “speaking” is reductive. You need to know two languages. Second, being bilingual doesn’t mean you truly master the target language. To translate well, you first need to be an excellent writer. And excellent writers are, unfortunately, not that common, despite what our well-meaning high school teachers might have suggested. Any organization that wants to adapt its message to a specific audience—not simply transfer a text into another language—knows it needs a professional to do it right.

I couldn’t understand how people didn’t understand everything translation entails. I felt misunderstood, diminished, undervalued, as if translation were a minor task that almost anyone could perform, rather than a profession in its own right.

We Only Truly Understand What We Know

But it was my profession. I had been immersed in it for years, and I had hundreds of examples of words or phrases whose adaptation required far more skill and creativity, sometimes even brilliance, than outsiders might expect.

Conversely, when I spoke to people who did understand the profession, I was often met with admiration:
· You must be an excellent writer to begin with.
· Translation is so difficult! There are so many possibilities, and you have to choose the best one.
· It’s incredibly frustrating! So many terms and expressions have no perfect equivalent.

That’s when I knew they understood. And suddenly, I felt understood, validated, valued.

This is what allowed me to finally own it. To show up as a personal and professional coach. I came to understand that there will always be people who don’t get it. And there will always be bad coaches or impostors. Just as there are bad translators, and so-called translators who simply regurgitate whatever AI produces. What truly matters, in the end, is knowing that we have real skills, and that what we do genuinely matters.

So we have to dig a little deeper, while keeping an open mind. Replace judgment with curiosity, and resist the urge to generalize based on one or two negative impressions or experiences. Maybe you’ve felt that too.

That’s the commitment I’ve made to myself, going forward.

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What would happen if you gave a little less space to other people’s judgment and a little more to what truly calls you? If this resonates, and you feel the pull to explore it, I’d love to support you.