Happy National Chocolate Cake Day! I made this image when I was teaching women’s self-defense with my friend Eric. Our goal in our marketing was to attract the women least likely to ever step foot in a dojo, and then in our class give them a really fun experience. It is said that “the most difficult thing you can do in the martial arts is to step on the mat for the first time,” so we wanted to give them a really fun first time. At the end of every class we helped students find a martial art school near them that we thought would match their personality and their fighting instincts. So in our marketing I thought an unconventional image like this that connects self-care with self-defense would attract our target audience.

My personal motto is, “Self-defense is life enhancement, the things that we do to keep ourselves safer also make our lives better on a daily basis.” And this early Image with Words of mine makes that connection.

Let’s take a look at Boundary Setting and Enforcement, these are often taught as self-defense skills but they are also life skills. You need to have Time Boundaries as part of your self-care. You need to set aside time for yourself to do things that you enjoy (like maybe eating chocolate cake), and you need to be able to say “no” to requests that will exhaust you mentally and/or physically. When you get used to saying “no” in everyday life, it becomes easier to say it in situations that might go bad. Plus, when you have Healthy Boundaries that you are willing to Enforce, you look like a Hard Target which is its own level of self-protection.

This is just one intersection of life coaching and self-defense: really good self-defense skills are very life coachy, and really good life coaching makes you stronger and therefore safer.

BTW, I baked this chocolate cake. I’m on the Keto Diet and I make really good food, including Keto chocolate cake, and I share recipes with my clients upon request.

I’m looking for one more probono client to help me test drive my new life coaching program. To schedule a free consultation phone call to see if we're a good match for working together, please go to my Consultation Call Calendar page.