Life Unlimited

On my last coaching call, the discussion was focused on reframing.  This has to be my favourite tool for coaching.  In my experience, when I have used reframing with a client to help them see their situation from a perspective that they have not considered, it is very powerful.  This alone can give them the encouragement, confidence, and renewed commitment to a worthwhile goal.  I personally get a charge at seeing a client have that aha! moment where they have been able to get unstuck in their thinking about a challenge in their life, simply by seeing the situation from another viewpoint.  I have found that it’s effective to ask simple questions like “how could you see this differently”? Or, “what would happen if you saw your situation this way – what would you do that you are not doing now?”  It’s a process I find I must be committed to taking the client through and active listening is a big part of it.    There is usually other work to be done but reframing an experience or challenge can be the first step in overcoming any blocks to achieving a goal.

The last ICA class I participated in was about getting clients into action.  The conversation focused on using goal setting to propel a client to take the necessary steps to move them toward the results they are looking for in their life.  What struck me most, which I apply in my own coaching process, is the impact of helping the client get clear about their strengths prior to setting goals and action plans.  When my client is clear and I’m clear about what their strengths are, what has served them before in succeeding to change something in their lives, what their instinctive natural approach is to problem solving, this can inform the decisions about how to take action that will give them the best chance at achieving what they want.  The more wins they have, the more motivated they will  be to continue, and the more momentum they will build.  This has really reinforced the need to use this in my coaching.  I’ve seen it work and I’ve heard other coaches describe how effective it is to do this up front.  It helps set clients up for success, or at least to know themselves better, which can impact a number of areas of their lives, not just the issues they want addressed through coaching.   I use a couple of tools for this, and will continue to do so as part of my process. 

It has been a while since I have written here.  After the post I wrote about the death of a friend, I lost another close friend to cancer.  Maybe I should have written about that too, but the double tragedy was a difficult thing to deal with and I needed some personal down time.

Last week I was on a coaching call about truth telling, and I have to say it was one of the most interesting discussions I have had at an ICA class.  How often do we really think about what is the truth? Is it facts, evidence presented?   The “truth” of the matter is that even in the face of evidence, we all see a different truth in a situation depending on our perception, which in turn is affected by our experiences, values, judgements, feelings.  Even the comment I just made about “what is truth” is my perception.  You can see how easy it would be to fall far down the rabbit hole on this one.  Ultimately I think truth is about our truth.  The question then is, “what is my truth”?  When I interact with the world, am I doing it from a place of authenticity, or through a mask that I create to project something I may not be.  Am I being genuine when I engage people or do I say, do, or be what I think they want?  Does my life reflect who I really am or am I caught up in a facade that represents a me that others approve of?  These are my questions for truth, and as a coach, these are the kinds of things I look for when a client tells me they aren’t happy with their life.  The larger or heavier the mask, the less “truth” is honored in a person’s life.  How heavy is your mask?

In the last weeks I have noticed a certain pattern where I connect with people who I intend to help with something – advice, coaching – and they end up helping me.  One was during an ICA teleclass, one was in a coaching situation with a client and one in a casual discussion with a friend.  In each case it has been because the issue or challenge that they presented was something I am personally struggling with.  In the process I found that I listened not only to understand them, but also for clues to my own challenges.  I found that the questions I asked to help them uncover their solution or truth were also guiding me to my own.  The more I explore coaching, the more I find powerful ways of exploring how to either change areas of a person’s life that are not serving them, or to help someone stay the course once they have committed to doing something that will enhance their lives in significant ways.  Learning also sometimes comes in the most unexpected ways.

Everyone who has ever coached someone, offered advice, or otherwise tried to help a friend, family member or colleague has probably faced this dilema at least once  – trying to help someone who does not want to be helped.  In my case, the help was originally sought after and then the person backed down out of fear and now claims that the issue for which they needed my help doesn’t really exist and the situation was blown out of proportion. 

It is frustrating to be in a position where you know you can help someone overcome a difficulty or ease a suffering, or break through a barrier, and they make a decision for whatever reason to back away from the help that they need.

I have learned through my coaching journey that we need to respect the decisions of our clients even when we think they are on the wrong course,  that we can’t impose our values on others and sometimes we have to respect choices they make  that we know will hurt them.   Easier said than done when you are in the middle of it.

I am dealing with my particular situation by making sure I have done everything to make myself available to the client if they change their mind and by giving them the space to do what they want.  Part of me wants to jump in and “rescue” the person.   Under the circumstances it would likely blow up in my face.  I’m not an easy “detatcher” so this, I think, will be one of the hardest things for me as a coach.   

I have been on a few back to back coaching calls this week  – a couple on “Power Tools” and Advanced Coaching.  I have had some real food for thought from all of these and the messages and learnings seem to be connected. 

I am at a halfway point in a contract I took as a way of easing myself out of my comfort zone (full time corporate job) to building a coaching practice and life that I want.   If I am going to help others find their bliss, I think it is important to follow mine!   I have lately really struggled with letting go of this contract, even though I know I have no choice.  Funny thing.  The job has been the best I have ever had and a part of me wants to stay.  I was on a coaching call last night about “UAC’s  – Underlying Automatic Commitments” which basically are the unconscious or conscious behavior or thinking we repeat that get in the way of getting what we want.  We keep these commitments because on some level, we are being rewarded for it.  My resistance is coming from wanting to stay in a comfort zone where I am getting paid regularly, where I am successful without taking much risk, and from the discomfort of not knowing what lays ahead  for me.  I learned that I needed to revisit the reason I took this job in the first place,  why I want to be a coach, why I think I would be good at it.  I realized that these are not things you can just affirm once with yourself and then get on with it.  Every time the gremlin jumps on my back, I need to have this conversation with myself.  This is also powerful for working with a client, to help them examine what thinking, behavior, beliefs they may be holding on to that cause them to repeatedly delay or sabatoge their goals.  I also experienced feelings coming up about my work in HR and found a pattern repeating itself about how I feel about my work and how I perceive other feel about it.  All of this served to renew my comittment to my coaching journey.  I’m scared as hell, and yet I will keep ploughing through.  Another thing that helped this week was hearing from other ICA students and one workshop leader about their own journey.  I am not alone in this.   Everyone struggles with self doubt and fear when they are taking a risk, stepping out of their comfort zone to do something different than they know.  One coach told me that sometimes it’s good to be bad at something.  It means you are pushing your edges.   So I will keep pushing mine and hope I don’t fall over!  

On Monday I called in to a coaching class on Power Tools – my favorite!  We got into an interesting discussion, as usual, about taking action vs delaying action and when it is good to take action or move a client into action and how to overcome delay tactics.  We also talked about how it is sometimes important and valuable to not take action, to be still with ourselves so that we can listen to our inner voice in order to take purposeful action and not “spin our wheels” or become action junkies.  This also lead to a discussion about how we get into the trap of doing all the things we think we should do or have to do, rather than focusing on what we want.  There are so many things out there that we tell ourselves we should do, and then we resist doing them because it feels like an obligation.  I thought about this later on in the evening and what came up for me was how I had been feeling about writing and acting.  I started doing both a few years ago – more acting than writing – as a creative outlet and to pursue a creative dream.  I enjoyed it at first, and then started to feel like I needed to do more in order to make up for all the lost time that I hadn’t done it.  It then began to feel like a burden and the next thing I knew I was cancelling auditions and I stopped journalling and writing.  I’ve been telling myself that maybe I lost interest as I am pursuing other goals but what has really been happening is that I started thinking about writing and acting as something I have to do, should do, because it is my dream and I shouldn’t give up.  Subconsciously I was resisting the thing I wanted because I was telling myself it was something I had to do.  I am now going to revisit this and reconnect with why I want to act and write and be mindful of the thoughts that lead me to feeling like I should do it.  As always, personal learnings about yourself are very powerful tools for bringing into coaching and I have definitely learned a valuable tool for helping clients examine areas of their lives where they are stuck because they tell themselves they have to do something.

No, it isn’t what you think.  Well maybe.  Lots of great speakers and networking opportunities.  Some interesting information and one defining moment.  The conference was actually organized by a good friend of mine who is launching her career as a speaker.  What better way than to dive in and organize your own conference and surround yourself with other well known speakers.  It worked!  She was amazing.  I was really proud of her and what she had done, and I was inspired by the risks she took to put it together.  One of the things she did was to invite 25 women from shelters around Toronto to participate in the conference.  I had an opportunity to meet a number of these women throughout the day and I was really struck by their resilience.  Some felt a little uncomfortable as it was the first time they had participated in such an event.  When the conference was over, I could not stop thinking about the women I had met from the shelter.  I felt drawn to them.  Have you ever had a knowing in your gut about what you wanted or what you knew you needed to do?  I have been pursuing a goal of becoming a coach and have been thinking about the people I would be coaching.   My focus has been on the corporate world, with some individual life and career coaching mixed in, because these are areas I know about.  I wasn’t prepared for the feeling that came up in me after I met these women.  It was like I had this knowing that I wanted to help them and I knew right away that some of my coaching time was going to be devoted to helping women in shelters get back on their feet and start their lives over.  I get excited about it even as I write this.  This is what it feels like to know what you are supposed to do.   

I attended 2 classes Wednesday on Coaching Model and Coaching Process.  Took a risk in both and shared my coaching model and got some really good feedback, so thanks to everyone who was on the call and shared their thoughts.  I was also asked to share info on the Kolbe Profile.  I have also blogrolled the website: www.kolbe.com  for anyone interested in the Kolbe Profile tool.  I am also a licenced facilitator for Kolbe and can run a session for you or interpret your results if you want to check it out as a tool.   Developing my coaching model really helped bring into focus what it is that I want to do for my clients and what they want from me.  It helped me frame what value I bring to the coaching relationship and I hope that my model will reflect this.  It also helped me understand my own process, and much of what is in it comes from the learnings at ICA and my own experiences of coaching.  I also know that my model will evolve over time as I work with it.  It was also beneficial to research other models and see what is out there and learn about different approaches to coaching.  It also boosted my confidence a little to have thought through a model and create it.  I feel like I am closer to my goal for having created it.