Coaching can be about work, as ‘executive coaching’, and it can be about living, a way to evolve who we are – our being.
As our relationship with our ‘Self’ expands, this supports better relationships with important others in our lives. How we do things can then begin to change, as we make choices for a better life – now – and every day! What we choose to do and think can bring us to live more in the present, and with more joy.
A great coach meets you where you are. They listen for your current way of seeing the things that are happening in different roles in your life, together with the challenges, demands and opportunities around you. Deep and generous listening reveals clues to discern themes for the work you and the coach might explore together. You set the agenda. You have control of both the accelerator and the brake.
Coaching can s-t-r-e-t-c-h you and challenge you, or support and encourage you, – and may do both! Coaching can put you back in the driver’s seat of your life. Coaching can ‘buff up’ the way you live. ‘
Who needs coaching?
Sometimes life is very full. A coach’s questions help clarify what is now no longer, or not currently – serving you best. With a coach to help you sort out your priorities, life can become simpler, and also more satisfying. When there are big changes or during times of transition we can benefit from someone who is on our side alone, – who is not a stakeholder in any part of our life.
A coach can discover and remind us of what it is which we most need and want to do. Sometimes there are things you want to do, yet somehow never get around to. A great coach can help you explore the small action steps which release energy for you to get started. You can overcome inertia, and begin to build momentum, so with little effort, you move towards changes of your choice and design.
What do you talk about with a coach?
Where you are ‘here and now’ may include some things you want to change. A coach helps you get to ‘there and then’ through your coaching conversations together. Strategies, new skills, or unused capacities may be necessary. A coach can help you to make plans and begin towards a new end point, or to commence a new journey with a different attitude or fresh perspective.
In gentle and powerful coaching conversations, new insights can be revealed and new ways of seeing, being, and doing are discussed and ‘tried on’. This can be fun, and surprising! Your coach celebrates your success and progress, and believes in you. A coach holds a vision for what is possible and reminds you of your dream.
Relationship with Self
The relationship with our self is the starting point with coaching. Women often need a coach to help them to begin to take care of themselves, as they so often do for others. If we do not make our self-care a priority, then we are not living at our best potential.
Establishing a firm foundation of extreme self care is anything but selfish, and essential for an ongoing capacity for contributing fully. Once we have a firm foundation of extreme self care, then we might explore with a coach our relationships with family, friends, and organisations: other systems where we function.
Raising our standards to take great care of ourselves, we can come from a place of less ‘need’ and respond with choice and compassion to daily opportunities. Coaching can be the foundation of a life of expanded personal potential, – for the benefit of all. As our personal happiness and healthy choices expand, ripples flow through our pools of influence!
Finding a coach may be the first step on an exciting journey, or a gentle return to relaxed and peaceful living.
Jeanette Isaacs-Young
Jeanette is a qualified as an Occupational Therapist that has ‘re-invented herself’ several times since working specifically in that field. At a choice point in 2004 she experienced the magic of life coaching. While being coached she recognised that this ‘coaching’ was in fact something she had often engaged in – that this was something she loved to do!
Related posts:
- John Raymond on life coaching
- Living Savvy Episode #14: Meet Jane – starting her life coaching journey
- Living Savvy Episode #15: Meet Janine – starting her life coaching journey
- Living Savvy Episode #2: Learn how life coaching can help you
- Living Savvy Episode #6: Meet Cat – starting her life coaching journey
