As I take more coaching classes with ICA, and have more coaching sessions (as a coachee) with my peer coach, I realize that going to school for coaching is a whole lot different than going to school for other things. I can take this education at my own pace, and it’s a uniquely personal process. Learning to be a coach involves constant self-work and a persistent desire to improve my own tools for interacting with the world. I come away from some classes with a new perspective on the way I approach roadblocks, while others leave me slightly teary, emotionally raw.

Last week I had one class that helped me think about things in a fresh way. We were discussing the importance of powerful questions in coaching. From what I can tell, the best coaches spend very little of the coaching session talking about their own perspectives on things. Rather, they ask intuitive questions that help the client discover what is best for her or him. It’s somewhat similar to Socratic method, but more personal.

Our teacher, Michael, is always full of fantastic questions, and he asked us the following series of questions, having us write down our answer to each before he went on to the next.

If you only had seven seconds left to live, what would you do?

If you only had seven minutes left to live, what would you do?

If you only had seven hours left to live, what would you do?

If you only had seven days left to live, what would you do?

If you only had seven weeks left to live, what would you do?

If you only had seven months left to live, what would you do?

If you only had seven years left to live, what would do do?

Looking back at what I wrote in response to these questions, my answers surprised me. It wasn’t that I wrote things that were uncharacteristic, but that they were so in line with who I want to be: someone who enjoys each moment, cherishes relationships and savors things slowly. With only minutes or seconds left to live, I would spend my time hugging, kissing, and cuddling. When the time I had increased, that really didn’t change much. The things I prioritized were simple and unimpressive. I would spend time with my family and friends. I would swim and cook with people (and for them). As the time increased even more, I would take my favorite people to beautiful places: I would hike with them in Washington State, drive down the West Coast, have bonfires and roast s’mores.

If I knew my time was limited, I wouldn’t be worrying about a deadline that’s happening next month. I wouldn’t be feeling anxious about whether my body was “perfect”. I would prioritize having fun with the people I love over anything related to personal achievement.

Clearly, seven questions aren’t going to change the way I live my life. Completing this exercise did, however, help me to become more clear about my priorities. In the past few days, it has helped me to make decisions about how I’m spending my time. While I realize the importance of planning for the future, this is a great reminder that I have no idea how long I’ll be around. I want to make these moments count.

What comes up for you when you complete this exercise? Anything surprising, or did you write down exactly what you thought you would?

I’m interested in how abstaining from things can be an opportunity to examine our relationship to them. A few weeks ago, I took a two-week Twitter hiatus because the way I related to Twitter had become (in my eyes) unhealthy. I knew, at the very least, it was worthy of analysis.

When I first joined Twitter last year, it was a novel phenomenon for me. I instantly reconnected with old friends and discovered tons of new, inspiring people. It was a fascinating way for me to get my writing out to people who wanted to read it. I had opportunities to meet people I never would have met if I hadn’t been spending time in that space.

Eventually, though, I realized that I’ll never be able to keep up with Twitter. I’ll never read everyone’s tweets and blog posts, no matter how hard I try. Twitter started to become a place where I thought I had to go for fear of missing out on things. And once I was there, I’d become overwhelmed by the enormity of the wondrous things everyone else was doing. It started to become a reason for me not to take action (somebody else already did it, better) and an excuse not to write (somebody already wrote that blog post, more eloquently). And so I stepped away from it for two weeks. I needed to remember that I am still whole without reading every blog post of every self-improment guru every day. I needed to accept that the opportunities that are right for me will come to me, and I don’t need to be ever-present on Twitter out of fear of missing one or two.

I’m back on Twitter now, slowly easing back in. I’m not reading everyone’s tweets, and I know that will never happen. There are two main lessons I’m taking away from my two-week experiment:

Comparison is useless. It’s great to have other people out there living wonderful lives, inspiring me with what they’ve made possible for themselves. But there is no point in comparing myself to them. Their circumstances, personalities, and histories are entirely different from mine, and I’m glad that’s the case. No matter how much I think I might want to be like them, I’m ultimately glad I have my own history, my own struggle, and my own future.

I am whole. I know what needs to be done next and how to live my life. No amount of personal development reading is going to tell me that. With or without Twitter, books, television, or any other media, the tools I need most are the ones I already have, by virtue of being myself.

Have you ever taken a hiatus from something as a way to learn more about the way you interact with it? What did you learn?