How Coaching worked…
I’m pleased with myself. I’m writing this just as my partner and baby girl are due back from an afternoon out. This may not sound such an achievement to some, but this very act sums up why life coaching with Simon has worked for me.
Let me explain; I’m a procrastinator and a perfectionist. An awful combination (back Mr Saboteur, back!); let me re-phrase that – a challenging and interesting mix. Before I started life coaching, I believed I needed acres and acres of time to complete a task and, if I couldn’t finish it and it wasn’t perfect, I wouldn’t start it. I won’t, I won’t, I won’t. And this caused me problems. It caused me problems because I have a desire to write, I have a half-renovated house and I have a nine month old baby. Let’s face it, I’m never going to have a spare acre of time. But yet here I am, writing this, with only ten minutes left until family life once again explodes through the door. How did that happen?
I started coaching nearly a year and a half ago. I have to be honest, I didn’t think it would work for me. I’ve had some therapy and believed coaching was ‘therapy-lite’ for people who couldn’t do the real deal. But I was wrong. While therapy digs into the archaeology, the buried foundations, of one’s life, coaching is concerned with the present. Don’t worry about why you do x,y or z, focus on how you're going to change that behaviour. In short, much to my surprise, I found coaching direct, vital and energising.
Week after week I have had my half hour session with Simon and each week I have brought a different problem or issue I want to address. Through this regular meeting up over the phone I have started to recognise that the problem may be different but my approach to it was pretty similar. My thinking is the limiting ingredient. This is until Simon started to challenge this thinking. And Simon challenges in such a positive way – by pointing out the positives and finally moving the light from under the bushel – that it’s hard to resist the change.
So, for example, coaching has given me the tools to turn my thinking about writing upside down. Why shouldn’t I write in short, sharp bursts? Why does it have to be perfect? What will happen if it’s not perfect? How will it feel to have completed this piece and sent it off half-baked, un-edited? I’ll tell in a few moment when that door opens.
In short, a life coach seems to me to be like having the best and loudest advocate standing on the side lines of your life, willing you to achieve all you’ve ever dreamed of and maybe even making space for a few more dreams. And what can’t be achieved when you and others believe you can do it?
There’s the door – they’re back – will I check this piece over? Will I re-edit and make it flow better? No reader, I apologise for any errors but life’s beckoning!
