"What does your life look like 10 years from now if you don't try?"
When her kids started launching into adulthood, AnnMarie Preik lost her footing. Twenty years as an Occupational Therapist, a home bakery, a lifetime of raising and caregiving - and suddenly, no clear answer to "what's next." It took one question from her husband, asked on the back porch, to move her from stuck to certain.
AnnMarie Preik had spent two decades as an Occupational Therapist. She’d raised two kids, run an organic home bakery on the side, and become the person everyone came to for advice. But when her kids started launching into their own adult lives, something shifted.
“Everything was changing and it was like I lost my footing,” she remembers. She wasn’t in crisis – she was something quieter and harder to name. Lost. Unfulfilled. A little bored. She knew God had more for her. She just didn’t know what.
A Question on the Back Porch
AnnMarie did what she does best when facing a big decision – she talked to people. A coach. A mental health counselor. She weighed the pros and cons of both, trying to find where she actually fit.
But it was her husband who asked the question that broke things open. Sitting on the back porch, going back and forth for what felt like the hundredth time, he asked her one thing:
“What does your life look like 10 years from now if you don’t try?”
“It wouldn’t look any different,” she says. “I wouldn’t see growth or learning or development, and that didn’t sit right with me.”
The Listener Who Learned to Listen
AnnMarie thought she already knew how to listen – people had been telling her their problems for years. Coach training humbled her. Non-directive coaching wasn’t advice-giving dressed up in new language; it was something she’d never actually practiced.
Her breakthrough came in an unexpected place: a conversation with her mentor coach about parenting adult children. Suddenly she saw it – the letting go, the trusting, the resisting the urge to fix. “It was like a light bulb went off,” she says. “It was further confirmation that the Lord brought me to coaching in the right way and the right time in my life.”
A Sacred Kind of Space
Today, AnnMarie works with women in midlife – women standing exactly where she once stood. She’s built a solid client base, joined a networking group, and said yes to things outside her comfort zone almost daily.
One client wanted a deeper relationship with her grandchildren – something rooted in love and legacy. Through their work together, she found a way there.
“I am much more confident and settled in myself,” AnnMarie says. “I feel I am living out my purpose.”
If You’re Sitting Where She Sat
AnnMarie doesn’t pretend it’s been easy. “Building a coaching business is going to be harder than you thought,” she’d tell her past self, “but it is so worth it.”
Her advice for anyone hesitating? “Be diligent in prayer and seek wise counsel.” And her honest assessment of the risk: “There are no down sides to enrolling in your first class.”
We live in a world full of people searching for meaning in a dry well. AnnMarie found her calling – and now she’s showing others the well that never runs dry.
AnnMarie Preik, ACC, CPLC
Midlife & Marriage Life Coach | St. Augustine, FL
The Essentials of Coaching – 2024 Cohort
Connect to Thrive
Ready to Ask Yourself the Same Question?
AnnMarie's transformation started with one conversation and one honest question about where she'd be in ten years if she never tried. If something similar is stirring in you, we'd love to explore it together. Connect with one of our Academic Advisors for a no-pressure, prayerful conversation about whether coaching training is your next step.
"There are no down sides to enrolling in your first class. If you're sensing God might be calling you to coaching—be diligent in prayer and seek wise counsel to help you." — AnnMarie Preik
