Stepping Into Your Power: Lifestyle Coach and CEO Inara Dodhiya’s 5 Steps For Building Resilience in the Face of Adversity
A dynamic new powerhouse in the lifestyle coaching industry, Inara Dodhiya’s profile has quickly risen as a motivational speaker, author, and CEO of her own company, ID Solutions, at just 26 years old. While she has received acclaim for her work, her journey to leading individuals and organizations on their path to fulfillment has had no shortage of left turns and roadblocks. Here, she shares her tips for cultivating resilience by meeting challenges head-on with poise and determination, keeping an adaptable mindset, and, in spite of it all, trusting yourself to take the first step.
Reframe your thinking
Though challenges can be frustrating and difficult, derailing us from paths we thought were right for us and leaving us spinning in their wake, Dodhiya encourages us to rethink our idea of adversity from negative to generative. As one path changes, a new path, meant just for you, might just unfold.
Dodhiya faced similar hurdles in her first year at university — feeling disconnected from the coursework, she instead undertook a gap year to explore other careers and industries, hoping to come across a spark of passion to no avail. During this period of feeling lost, Dodhiya referred to herself as an ‘unknown’, embracing the label even though it “signifie[d] something along the lines of unfamiliarity or uncertainty, I would say it was more of my first step towards discovering myself.”
By transforming the meaning of ‘unknown’ and allowing herself to sit in its uncertainty, Dodhiya invites us to see setbacks as opportunities, ultimately viewing what was initially a moment of misdirection as a “transformative phase of self-discovery.”
Lean into possibility
Being receptive to change is crucial in staying adaptable and laying the foundational blocks of resilience. However, oftentimes when we look to external sources for help and support, we inadvertently dismiss the unlocked potential of a transformative change within ourselves.
This is where Dodhiya’s interior-focused coaching philosophy can help realize this shift. To leave no stone unturned, Dodhiya uses the FACE model in coaching sessions, wherein she and a client start with a “step-by-step outline exploring all aspects of a topic: from the introduction to the topic, exploring what the pain point is, exploring how that’s affecting yourself, and how it’s affecting people around you.”
She also introduces systems, spheres of your life that include the personal, professional, acquaintances, as well as “indirect systems”, and, together with the client, assesses each system’s impact and possible repercussions. In helping the client approach their systems with a fresh perspective, Dodhiya says this is often when clients usually have “a-ha moments” on defining and removing their barriers.
For Dodhiya, it is critical to guide clients to the understanding that they themselves hold the answers: “I’m just helping them dig deeper, helping them look at different perspectives that they wouldn’t normally consider.”
Trust and persevere in your journey amidst all the noise
When pursuing an unconventional career path, it can be a struggle to tune out all the noises of possible detractors in your head. Dodhiya notes that perseverance in the face of doubt and difficulty is key to personal growth and resilience, and played a vital role in her own journey to success.
Dodhiya says this meant giving herself the grace to “choose my own timeline and develop my own path”: instead of listening to societal expectations and timelines, she trusted in herself, ensured that her chosen career aligned with her personal goals, then worked tirelessly and diligently to kickstart her company.
Now on the other side of success, Dodhiya later experienced a full circle moment when helping a young client navigate the familiar anxiety of shifting from one career path to another. Similarly to Dodhiya’s own journey as a student, the client was coming to terms with the fact that she needed to take a step back and rearrange her life.
However, perseverance paid off: “She took her time, she was patient with herself. And she ended up finding a job that resonated more with her needs, and provided her with the peace that she was looking for,” Dodhiya shares. “That was very touching for me because it resonated with the experiences that I’ve been through.”
Cultivate your inner life
While we are told to “fill our cup”, we often brush it aside, pursuing one area in our life at the cost of our emotional and mental energy. In tandem with pursuing professional goals, Dodhiya advocates for the equal nourishment of your personal life and passions away from the workplace. Imbalances in one aspect of your life can leave you feeling drained and unfulfilled, negatively seeping into other areas. Building resilience through emotionally investing in yourself, Dodhiya notes, will help take you from faltering to flourishing.
This can look like anything from quality time with loved ones, leisure time and activities, or meditation — even setting aside time for reflection each day can make a big impact, Dodhiya says, and helps you stay grounded and recharged, ready to tackle whatever comes your way. For Dodhiya, a longtime love for empowerment led her to pursue charitable pursuits, from larger-scale involvements such as serving on national boards of non-profit organizations, to educational efforts like teaching English to young students in Palestine. These passions strengthen her purpose, in turn allowing her to fill her cup.
Foster community over competition
If you throw a stone on Instagram, chances are you’ll hit a post celebrating a milestone. In today’s social media-saturated landscapes, accolades and achievements are carefully curated and posted endlessly on our feeds — though we feel genuinely happy for others, it can be all too easy to fall victim to comparison.
Dodhiya knows the feeling. Though she felt more aligned with her professional goals in choosing a non-traditional route, she initially worried about the external perceptions of others in her cohort, many of whom had already finished the traditional paths that Dodhiya had left them on when seeking to craft her own narrative. To her surprise, many of them shared that they were unsure of their next steps.
“You’re seeing everyone following the [traditional] path, but you don’t know what’s going on in the background,” she shares. “I think social media makes it very difficult for a lot of us to understand [what’s happening] behind the scenes.” And instead of meeting her with disdain like she expected, “they were so proud of me for taking a step back to figure things out.”
As a motivational speaker discussing resilience, Dodhiya dispels the notion of scarcity mindset, instead underscoring the transformative power of community. Contrary to popular belief that the fierce whetstone of competition will sharpen us into resilience, it is actually the dynamic threads of community that keep us bound. When we choose to lean into the celebration and empowerment of those around us, we draw each other into powerful circles of warmth and community — and together, we can weather any storm.
To book your keynote speaking engagements, help instill the power of resilience at your organization, or take the first step in your own transformative journey with Inara Dodhiya, visit ID Solutions.
