Elise was lost. She couldn’t find her way through the tangled pathways she’d started down, turned around, gone back, and then tried another. They all began to look alike, or look wrong, or appear too difficult to attempt. It was growing darker as she felt herself become more stressed over which way to turn.
Elise was not lost in a dark, dank forest. She was lost in her own thinking and mind management of life choices, future goals, and current desires. There were immediate fires to be put out at work. There were issues at home, her mother’s failing health, her children’s lives, and her own feelings of missing something.
She felt unfocused, overwhelmed, and unfulfilled in her own life.
People ask me who it is that works with a coach. There is a perception out there that coaching is like counseling/therapy, where you tell your “problems” to someone who then helps you “fix” them. Wrong! Coaching is not therapy.
A coach helps you discover what makes you feel alive! Coaches believe that the client has her own best answers within her. A coach doesn’t come to you with a trunk full of answers to try on for the best fit. Rather, she brings light to the subject, as she walks through the darkness with the client, helping her find what she is looking for.
The client focuses on what she wants, where she wants to go next, and how she wants to feel. Can you imagine looking at a map of choices as to which way to go, and only reviewing where you’ve been? Coaching is about movement and improvement. It’s about feeling alive and well. More feelings that come from coaching include relief, flow, lightness, playfulness, calm, peace, pleasure, and restored self-confidence.
Most clients can’t articulate exactly what they want. This would be like asking someone lost in the jungle which way they’d like to take to get out. They don’t know what they don’t know. The idea is to help the client find their best answer through a process of questions that lead to untangling the many thoughts in which they lose themselves.
We do know how we’d like to feel, and how we no longer want to feel! With a focus on what is possible, thoughts become more positive. Good, hopeful, feelings follow. With hope comes a change in our perspective—the door that opens into where we want to be.
The results are transformative: More clarity, greater focus, and a sense of movement, peace, joy, or whatever it is that was missing! This is because the first question we ask in coaching is, “If this coaching were to have a huge impact on your life what would that look like?”
Reasons to seek assistance in making progress: Losing interest, feeling dull, or spinning your wheels without getting anywhere. Your thoughts create your feelings, which result in action, or the lack of it. Lack of clarity brings about feelings like frustration, discouragement, and crankiness. What kind of action comes out of these negative feelings?
A coaching relationship begins by discovering who you are at your best, how you like to learn, what’s important to you, your values, and what gets in your way. From there, your coach helps you identify what you most want out of life, how you’d like to feel about yourself, and then assists you in reaching your own best potential.
Replenish through coaching. If you feel lost or adrift in your life, or find yourself feeling empty, why postpone fulfillment? Invest in your future self through coaching. BeHumazing.com
Artist: Ta-coumba T. Aiken
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