Where do I go now?

I'm finishing up my coaching program and I know that this is what I want to do with my next career. I have learned so much about myself and am continuing to learn with each client.

How do we know we have achieved success in something? What are my conditions of satisfaction for success?

I believe that I have only noticed my achievements by looking back to written communication I authored, pictures, recordings, and anything else that captured the moment I was in at that time. I am inconsistent at best with writing in my journal or on this blog which goes back to that question. Part of that comes from the fact that I only want to write when I think I have something important to say. Some of my journals end up having multiple entries that are the same. What I deem important is variety, I guess. "If it doesn't have variety then it isn't worth mentioning."

How do I know how much I've learned or grown without writing down thoughts throughout the journey?

Some of the best trips that I've taken, I have written travel journals throughout the trip and it stays alive with me for years afterwards. I remember little details because of those entries. Pictures help, too. Although, I don't always remember the buildings names or where the scenery is actually located without writing it down.

I keep receiving feedback about being more consistent. I enjoy that variety so much that I forget or don't learn how to be consistent in my actions and words. It's served me well in many domains of my life. How can I be more consistent without being boring?

Emotions

I've been knee deep in my coaching certification and came across the following from one of my classmates:

When thinking changes your mind, that's philosophy.

When God changes your mind, that's faith.

When facts change your mind, that's science.

WHAT HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR MIND ABOUT? WHY?
http://edge.org/q2008/q08_index.html

I've changed my mind about emotions. I've always viewed emotion as a bad thing. Something that should be suppressed. Every time tears welled up, I hated it. I would always say to myself, "What are you doing? This is stupid. Why are you crying? But I wouldn't wait to even hear my answer to these questions. It could be from my upbringing; My father is German/Scottish descent. My mother is Scotch/Irish descent. Those cultures by nature do not show much emotion outwardly compared to other cultures--maybe it has something to do with the cold environment of those countries. Who knows?!
Through my journey this past year, I've changed my mind and now am on the journey to embrace my emotions (all of them) and learn from them instead of suppressing them. It doesn't serve anyone else and it doesn't serve me.
The question that I ask is, "Why does the American Society, that I'm familiar with, want us to suppress our emotions? It's almost like society says, emotions aren't rational, which is true, but they go further to say that only rational things are important.

If emotions are catalysts for action and we don't value emotions, then does that mean that we don't take action or we take action only if it's rational?

What impact does that have on the decisions that we make for action? What impact does that have on our gut feeling about things?