March 8

Alumni Spotlight – Karen Garratt

What is my purpose? 
What am I meant to do?
Is there a career for me that will allow me to express my passions? 

These are the questions that I had been asking myself my whole life. I have loved singing since I was a young child, but didn’t want to go to school for music because I was afraid I would, “end up a music teacher” if I didn’t “make it”. 

I started and stopped college a few times. I worked as a waitress, then a bartender, then a hairdresser. All the while, music was a hobby of mine, but I never had the drive or motivation to dedicate myself to it fully. I would feel like I could make a living at it for short periods of time, and then I would get off track and put my energy and focus on less fulfilling pursuits. As a result, I felt like a failure, a quitter, and like I would never fulfill my purpose or live the successful life of passion I dreamed of. 

At the same time, I was also passionate about personal growth and development. I loved reading inspiring books, and attending spiritual retreats and personal growth seminars. I became a self-help junkie after my first husband died of a drug overdose in 2005. We were married when I was 18 and his death, 2 weeks before my 21st birthday, was the catalyst for me to realign with my spirituality. The day he died, I made a vow to myself to make a positive impact with my life.  

When my husband died, a major part of my healing was songwriting. I wrote beautiful songs of heartache and loss, and as tragic as they were, they allowed me to sit in the pain I was experiencing and process my grief. I played and performed those songs for years until around 2014 when I realized they just weren’t me anymore. The problem was I believed things like, “I only write sad songs”, “Happy songs are cheesy”, and “I can only write when I’m depressed”. Because of these beliefs, I really wasn’t songwriting very much because I wasn’t sad anymore.

In 2015, I attended my first Abraham-Hicks seminar. I remember sitting in a conference room at a hotel in San Francisco, when it hit me; I don’t have to write sad songs. I can create whatever I want. I can write happy songs and they don’t have to be cheesy! It totally clicked. I went home that day and wrote my first inspirational song. After that, the songs came flooding out of me. I wrote about following your dreams, the law of attraction, and the divine nature of who we are. My goal was to write songs that raised the vibration of myself and of the listener. 

I decided to create an album of my songs. I raised 10k on a crowdfunding website. I claimed my nickname, Cricket, as my stage name and in 2016 I released my first solo album called, The Calling. It had 11 songs and I created a fun music video for my song, Life on Purpose. After I released my album, I played gigs in my local community, in person and on the radio, and I was asked to play regularly at local Centers for Spiritual Living and Unity churches as a guest musician. It was so exciting to experience such a transformation with my music and to sing songs that uplifted my listeners and myself. 

In 2017, after birthing what felt like my first child (The Calling), I gave birth to my son. I still played a gig every month or so, but my main focus was being a mom. When my son turned 1, I started asking again, what’s next? What am I meant to do?

This was about the time I started hearing about Life Coaching. I would hear about it from my clients in the salon, on podcasts, at my spiritual center. It wasn’t until I was reading, You Are a Badass by Jenn Sincero, that it really clicked. What she shared in her book wasn’t anything new to me, but I loved her humorous approach to the spiritual concepts I had loved for years. When she mentioned in the book that she was a life coach, a lightbulb went off. “Maybe that’s what I should do.” I felt a nudge on my heart that said, “This could be IT!”. 

I hired a coach and the more I learned about what coaches do, I felt a strong desire to become a coach myself. I realized I could be the coach that I wish I had when I felt so lost about my purpose for so many years.

I attended my first class with Life Purpose Institute in July of 2019. I remember sitting in the classroom for my 5 day intensive. As Leah Grant shared her extensive knowledge, I sat in amazement, realizing, with all of my being, that THIS IS IT. THIS is what I’m meant to do. THIS is how I can turn my passions into a career. I don’t have to just sing about following your dreams, I can give people the tools to make their dreams their reality.

After I completed my basic Life Coaching Certification through LPI, I knew I wanted to learn more. I signed up for the Advanced program and started the 20-week course taught by Diane Long, in January 2020. It was during the start of the pandemic in May of 2020 when I jumped at the opportunity to learn more about the marketing side of being a first-time entrepreneur. I enrolled in LPI’s 6-week course, How to Build Your Online Business by Sharon Good and I hired her as my 1:1 coach. 

All this time, I was narrowing down my ideal clients. It became clear that I am passionate about helping creative women discover and clarify their purpose, overcome the blocks that are holding them back, support them in creating abundance with their passions and live a life of joyful purpose. Joyful Purpose Coaching was born.  By the Fall of 2020, I had created my first online course, a Facebook group for creatives, I was offering virtual workshops and talks, I was about to launch my first summit, The Confident Creative Academy, and I had a steady stream of new clients. I also became the musical director and “in-house” Life Purpose Coach of an amazing women’s spiritual community called, Soul Seekers Sisterhood, incorporating my music and coaching expertise into our meetings, workshops, and eventually, in-person retreats.

As I write this, I am about to start the Spiritual Coaching Certification course through LPI. I feel like I have been in the “spiritual closet” with my practice and I am excited to share my passion for spirituality with my clients and the world.

My career as a coach is only just beginning and I couldn’t be happier where it is leading. I love that coaching allows me to continue to express my passion for personal growth, my insatiable appetite as a seeker, and it allows me to help others do the same.  I believe that we all have a unique gift to share and the world will be more beautiful for it.

I know what has made me successful is my ability to follow the breadcrumbs that my intuition leaves for me. I have followed my heart and my joy and it has led me to the fulfilling career I have always dreamed of. I may not have always seen the full picture, but my continued taking action has built my confidence as a coach and a business woman.

The advice I would give to any new coach is to continue to get out of your comfort-zone, because the greatest version of yourself is waiting on the other side of your fear.

What I have learned is that discovering your life purpose isn’t a linear process. Although bartending and hairdressing weren’t my passions, I would not have discovered my purpose without the experiences that those careers gave me and the people I met as a result.

I believe that for each of us, our Life Purpose is ever-evolving and transforming. If we remain open to the process of its unfolding and our becoming, we can enjoy the ride and live an extraordinary life of joyful purpose.

Karen “Cricket” Garratt, CLC, CPC
Joyful Purpose Coaching
Life Purpose Coach and Inspirational Singer-Songwriter 

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