Wednesday 22 December 2010

Are You a Yes Person?

Yesterday I watched Jim Carrey's film Yes Man... Click the video to see the trailer.




If you have any thoughts of experiences on it which you'd like to share with others, please do so in the discussion forum.

If someone got there first, just add tot he topic, otherwise, why not start one?



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Wednesday 15 December 2010

BIZARRE RITUALS & MONKEY BRAINS


Human beings can "do" logic - we know that two plus two equals four - but logic does not usually determine our behaviour. We eat the wrong things, resist exercise, keep dating the wrong people, and so on. I've likened this to being sat in the passenger seat of a car with a maniac behind the wheel. You can keep screaming at him "YOU'RE HEADING OFF A CLIFF!!!" - but he doesn't listen.

To a large extent this is the human condition. Why?

Well, it's because we have two "thinking engines" in our heads. One is the intellectual mind, of logic, deduction and reason. The other comes from our animal origins - I call it our "monkey brain". It is driven by instinct and emotions. It is not rational, but annoyingly - it usually wins any argument you might have with it. IT is behind the wheel, controlling our life. Much of what I do for my clients in coaching is in this area.

Today, though. I thought it might be fun to invite people to confess some of the bizarre rituals which they put themselves through. These evidence the work of our monkey brains, so if you're doubting you've got one, this is especially for you.

I'll start us of with a couple of my own, but I'm only fessing up to a couple - so I'll show you mine, but only if you show me yours!

See the confessions, and join the debate here.




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Monday 13 December 2010

Feel-Good Video - "Miss Independent" - Ne-Yo

Yeah. young an optimistic, but I like a dose of that now and then. Too often, growing up and then old means growing cynical and sad. FIGHT IT! Drink in this video, and the music, and when you ome out the other side - paste on a grin, and maybe see things a little differently for a while.

(Great track for salsa dancing by the way!)



Monday 6 December 2010

Silencing Your Inner Critic


Hello Ana,


So you want to stop criticising yourself, so you've recognised your "self talk" - what the voice in your head is saying. These voices are often our most severe critics, and they crush our self esteem, and trap us in small unhappy lives. I noticed your comment about not being able to afford coaching (there's a video about there here by the way), so I thought I'd outline some techniques you may find useful on your own. The process is usually the same for clients whose self-criticism is powerful, and here it is:

1. Over time, raise your awareness of your self-talk. Get to the point where you are consciously aware of what it is saying.

2. Extract the essence of the criticism. Is it about being UGLY? STUPID? DOOMED TO FAILURE?

3. With your intellectual mind, not your emotional mind, analyse that criticism for truth. Is it true? Is it a vast exaggeration? This step is very hard for clients to do on their own, because their own irrational thinking is the problem, and we're asking that same irrational mind to be rational, but if you can separate yourself from your pain, then you can make progress. In all cases I have ever worked with, the client's self-talk is grossly inaccurate, so if you're not reaching that conclusion, you're not doing it right :o)

4. Maintain your vigilance on your self-talk. Listen to it carefully, but now evoke the intellectual conclusions you drew in step 3, and de-value your critical thoughts. See the person speaking inside your head as a child who is hurt. They're not wicked, but they are WRONG. Don't hate them, but don't believe them either. Over time, you'll get good at this, but it is WORK that must be done well.

5. After a week or so in step 4, depending on how it goes, change again to try to end the thoughts you've been watching. Think of your mind as a camera - you can point it where you like - so take control of it. Or think of it as a computer program - it can only run when it has access to the computer processor - and that's you, so deny it access. Sounds simple, but it's not easy to do. Sometimes a stop phrase is helpful. Let's say your negative thinking is all around UGLY. You might develop a phrase which captures a time when you felt beautiful. Now think this phrase over the negative thinking to drown it out. You can take this further with a technique called anchoring which you can read about here: http://www.uklifecoaching.org/buildingconfidence.htm.

This is essentially a de-programming exercise; it's difficult to do because the old programming will be very tenacious, but it is certainly do-able. I run this process in parallel with another tactic designed to take clients out of their comfort zone a little - just into the stretch zone. This involves finding a playground - a place to be and to experiment with new behaviours.

All through this I'm usually helping my client with negative thinking, helping them to let go of persistent "truths" ("mistaken certainties"). I don't have time to explain that here, but you probably have enough to think about for now, anyway.

I hope you find that useful, Ana.

Wednesday 17 November 2010

Would You Lie to You??


Hello Glyn,


Your "no time" explanation is an example of a thing our minds do to us to trap us. We give ourselves reasons not to do a thing and thereby avoid doing it, which protects our ego from something (usually a fear - a False Expectation Appearing Real). But we often substitute a false reason for the real one in order to again, protect our ego. This process is not done consciously.

So in your case, it cannot literally be true that you do not have the time for coaching. We all have the same time - 24 hours per day - the only difference is what we choose to do with it - and really - every second of it is a real choice.

People sometimes get angry at this point, but try this on for size - imagine you dropped dead. Now every second that you feel is inevitably spent as it must be - would NOT be spent in that way. See how the sky remains up there? Winds blow, rain falls, the Earth spins on. Everything you do is non-essential. It is optional. The trick is to make conscious choices about what to do with your time.

What is this "no time" pseudo-reason for then? Well, it's protecting your ego. Something about coaching is worrying for some part of you. Perhaps you think it'll fail or - even worse - succeed. Where would you be if it worked? Maybe you'd be forced to see some things which part of you would rather keep buried.

This is challenging stuff, and it sometimes takes quite a while (years even) to accept that it's really going on. Once you see it, you'll see it at work in many aspects of your life. If that prospect sounds scary it needn't. You can choose to continue just as you are - you'll always be in charge, but it should be the conscious you - not the un-conscious you - that makes the decisions.

See if you can have fun finding and removing your blindfold.

Friday 29 October 2010

Bullied By Life Coaching


Hello Dominique,

I noticed your fear about being bullied with life coaching, so I wanted to send you a quickie to say that coaching is not about telling you what to do. Good coaches will even resist giving you ideas about what you might do.

The coach's job is not to direct their clients, but to find ways to help clients discover what you want and how to get it. You're always in control, but your coach adds the value (and ultimately makes the difference) by challenging your distorted beliefs and thinking, allowing you to see reality more accurately, and so to find better choices for your life.

Something brought you to my website, and so I guess you're looking for help. I hope my assurance above removes your objection because I promise you that it's not well-founded.

In fact, this itself is an example of how coaches work. I hope I've succeeded in removing a FEAR (False Expectation Appearing Real) from your mind, and if I've done that, then you are now freer to see the world (at least this part of it) more clearly.

But if I haven't, then this may evidence a kind of rigid thinking we call "mistaken certainty".

Human beings often try to protect their self images in the face of life's hammer blows in a variety of ways. One of those ways is to build a world-view which supports our self-image in some way. Sometimes, in order to bury an uncomfortable truth, it feels necessary to describe how things are in a certain way. That description is a distortion, but we prefer it to reality, because it hides something we don't like. This whole process is not done consciously, but it IS done.

Examples of common distortions I see often are:

  • "All women are treacherous - I'll have no truck with them" - this one usually buries "I was hurt terribly by a woman and I'm afraid of enduring that again". The cost of maintaining the distortion is a life without love.
  • "The rich get their money by abusing the poor" - which hides "I'm poor, and I feel like a failure". The price of this distortion is that its owner will not strive to be all they can be, and they'll hate the un-just world they live in all their lives.
  • "I was not meant to succeed" (AKA low self esteem) - which hides "Putting myself out there risks failure and humiliation and the confirmation that I really am not meant for success". The price of maintaining it is that your low self esteem feeds on it's own tail and deepened causing depression and other symptoms, which also paralysing the client from taking the opportunities which life offers.
I hope that makes sense, Dominique. It's big stuff.

Tuesday 19 October 2010

I Have No Vision For My Future


Hi Will,

A good place to start is to think about your current reality and invert it.

So - think about your life as it is today, and ask yourself what you don't like about it. Chances are you'll have a few items in that list, but let's work through one item. Let's say it's:
"I have no social life".
Now invert it to become:
"I have a socal life".
- not quite rocket science yet, but we have just made a negative into a positive, and at least, it turns our attention from the problem to a goal.

But the goal isn't well-defined, so the next step is to polish your goal. What kind of a social life do you want?

Now then. People often stall here; they don't want to play because their pessimism swings in with something like:
"oh I can see what comes next, but really - what's the point? It isn't going to happen anyway, I mean, I'm X Y and Z ("bad things"), and I've spent this long in abject failure mode, so I can't really buy into the notion of change".
To quote Descarte:
Cogito ergo sum or I think therefore I am

For my coaching purposes, I'm bending that to:
I believe, therefore I do
- and by that I mean that our beliefs drive our behaviour, and that behaviour defines our lives.

If you believe a thing is pointless, you won't do it - or you'll do it poorly. And it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. You did it poorly - it didn't work - it was pointless, and you were right all along. Hah!

The close personal support offered by coaching is what it usually takes to break out of that by constantly challenging beliefs and finding new better ways to think, to do, and to be. But if you're not ready for coaching, then try to press on and polish your goals yourself, setting the little voice in your head to one side.

Who do you want in your social life, where will it take place? How often? How many? fill in the details, and ignore "reality" because you'll be making a new one.

Do that for all the items on your inverted life list and then choose one to focus your work on first, and set about making it happen Again, you are your own worst enemy in this work, but you can probably bring about very worthwhile changes if you can keep the faith long enough to get some traction out there in the real world.

See if you can enjoy that process, then - when you have a great new vision for your life, set about turning that fantasy into reality.

Friday 15 October 2010

Being OK with Being Alone

Personally, I love solitude and I've had a lot of it in my life. When I don't get enough of it, I become agitated, resentful, and I yearn for it.

But many folks aren't that way; they don't like it. They may actually fear it - greatly. And the fear of being alone sometimes forms the walls of a trap - keeping them in a bad situation because the alternative - solitude - seems far worse. They may also apply pressure to others to keep solitude away and this can cause its own problems.

Like most fears - fear of solitude is based on an illustion, but you have to walk into the thing you fear in order to discover that.

If this has been an issue for you, then let the healing begin with this wonderful video about learning to be OK with being alone, by filmaker, Andrea Dorfman, and poet/singer/songwriter, Tanya Davis.

Perhaps you can dabble in aloneness, and unlock a few cages in the process.

Enjoy.



How Avoiding Uncomfortable Truths Traps Us

 Hello Andy,

So you want to change where you live, and you lack confidence and you're pessimistic. You may also be far too busy at work and highly stressed; these probably leave you with no time and no energy for planning and making big changes like this outside of work.

It's a trap. The question is - how are you going to get out of it?

I'll start by asking you why you don't like the place you live.

Sometimes, our semi-conscious minds tell us lies to support our egos. For example, if you have no social life, this semi-conscious mind of yours might tell you that that's because your home area is dominated by the "wrong class of people". That version of your world supports your ego by avoiding another explanation for the lack of a social life - that you're shy, or un-confident, and so on.

Another possibility is that - if you blame the area - then you don't have to do that scary stuff which seems necessary to build a social life - and since you are "too busy and stressed" to look at moving you're stuck in a dump.... but you're also SAFE SAFE SAFE - and absolved of blame.

That's all guess-work, of course, but I see this a lot, and I'm showing you how I do my work. You'll be filling in the blanks of course.

It's not always comfy, but seeing it and dealing with it is often the way forward.

I like this:
wherever you go - there you are
 - so if you're submerging real issues under false ones which move you away - you'll take the real ones with you - and when you get there - they'll be too.

Alternatively, perhaps we'd find real, solid reasons why the area doesn't suit you (a country man living in the city, for example). In that case, the pessimism and unwillingness to make stuff happen which you report, will work against you.

Here, our work would entail finding what's at the root of those issues and then dissolving it. That would free you up to see more clearly and to act in your own interest.

There might also be ways we could alleviate the poor fit to help you make the best of a bad job if that's how you wanted to play it.

It's challenging stuff (which is why you find yourself on my website looking for help, of course), but it's nothing we can't crack together.

Best Wishes,
Chris


Tuesday 5 October 2010

No Other Options?


Hi Josephine,

I noticed your comment about being trapped by geography.

Henry Ford said:
When you've tried everything - remember this: you haven't

In my experience there are always new options but our believes and fears prevent us seeing them. Most commonly, we want change, but we don't want to change anything - and this bends "there are no options I really like" into "there are no options".

There's usually a price to pay, but it's a short-term price for a longer-term gain. Often, the short-term price is ruled out through fear - and that's how the trap works.

Sometimes, hearing this irritates people - "How can HE know what he's talking about -he knows nothing about my situation!". Whilst it's true that I know little about your situation, I have coached a lot of people, so I know how we blind ourselves to our opportunities.

A few loosening techniques include:

- Imagine you died. Would your presence still be required where you are?

- Are those around you trapped? If not - what uniquely traps you?

- If someone pointed a gun at your head and said "Get out of this trap now - or I'll shoot you" - would you say "Well, then you'll have to shoot me, because there is no way out"?

- If X were in your situation - would they be trapped - or would they escape?
[Replace X with each of Superman, Joe Stalin, President Obama, your hero].

I hope that's more helpful than annoying, Josephine!

Tuesday 14 September 2010

Crib Sheet for a Happy Life



A dear friend sent me a link to this YouTube video today. The description says:
The illustrations and the captions are  from the book "Be Happy: A Little Book to Help You Live a Happy Life" (2007) by Monica Sheehan. The music is "Cuore di Sabbia" (Sand Heart) by Pasquale Catalano, from the soundtrack of the movie "Mine Vaganti" (2010) (Loose Cannons) directed by Ferzan Ozpetek
The message is wonderful in its insightful simplicity. You might want to take a copy and put it somewhere prominent for a time. Even better, put bits of it in your diary and act on them regularly. Diaries are as great way to stitch dreams into your realisty - to good intentions into good actions. Why not allocate each one to its own week; have a "selt goals" week, a "dance" week, and so on? Some area easier to translate into dated doables than others, and those that aren't could be turned into awareness raisers - like a PostIt note on your bathroom mirror.

Be creative, have fun, and (yes, it's in the list) don't beat yourself up.
Be happy
Show up
Follow your heart
Find a new perspective
Have a sense of wonder...
Find people you love...
Set goals
Help Others
Dance
Pamper yourself...
Face your fears...
Go to a museum
Exercise
Limit television
Get in touch with nature
Lighten up
Get a good night's sleep
Read books
Buy yourself flowers
Don't compare yourself with others
Don't beat yourself up
Be open to new ideas
Don't focus on negative thoughts...
...Focus on creating what you desire
Make time just to have fun
Keep the romance in your life
Make a gratitude list
Love your Mother Earth
Want what you have
Be true to yourself

Thursday 26 August 2010

The Finer Things in Life


I'm working with a young E-Coaching client who recently told me she wanted "the finer things in life". Since my response is generally useful, and does not compromise client confidentiality, I thought I would include some of it here, where it might help a wider readership.

I said:

This is some help, but again, not very specific. My idea of the finer things in life is likely to be very different from your idea, and so the phrase needs expansion. Do you mean fast cars, large houses, yachts, six-pack men, a high flying job, a Gucci watch, Lipo, or something else? When we're young, it's tempting to think that we're all the same, and answers to these questions are obvious - but they're not, and the devil's in the detail, as they say.

So, I invite you to give this serious thought. If you could wave the magic wand, what finer life would you lead? Try to forget reality or being realistic (It was Will Smith who said [something like] "Many a mediocre life has been made through being realistic"). So - if you could have it all, what all would it be?

If you take this seriously, it will take you quite some time, because you'll start reluctantly, think it's pointless because the world isn't going to give you those things, but you'll start jotting down the obvious things, then after a time, you'll being to get a deeper feel for things. You might say "Actually, that silver Mercedes would be NICE, but I can be miserable in one with no problem". Then you start to think about what makes you tick, what makes you sing, what fills your heart with joy, what makes your life worth living. So getting through the bling is the thing. Useful questions include:

1. Look back over your life to date, and ask what the Five Star moments have been. Might be sitting on the swings with Mum aged 6, or helping a younger sibling somehow, or being among special friends, or eating, cooking, swimming, running - I don't know but a part of you does. Don't be tempted to write down what people might expect you to, or what you think looks "right" - just say what's true - because it is.

2. On the flip-side of that, write down the big unhappy times.

3. Reflect on both of those and ask yourself WHY. Why was I happy? (by the way "I just was!" is not good enough - push through it).

There are some more ideas here: http://www.uklifecoaching.org/values.htm

This hard work will form the foundation for the life you choose to build for yourself, so build it well.

Friday 20 August 2010

Finding Courage to Take Risks


Hello V,

I noticed your comment about having courage to take risks.

Finding courage is about two things: strength of motivation and rational analysis of risk. You can begin to tackle the first one by placing a powerful reminder of your mission in your thinking space (see here http://www.uklifecoaching.org/leavetherut.htm) and by getting specific about your goals (http://www.uklifecoaching.org/goalsetting.htm) and perhaps by making a vision board (lots on Google about that).

You can begin to tackle the fear by writing down the nightmares your mind is whispering to you, then analysing them with your higher brain. Chances are they are not fully rational - they may even be laughable when you look at them straight on. Keep pushing the fear statement to its conclusion, so it your fear is "I'd lose my job" ask "and then what?" - to which you might say "Well, at my age I won't get another" - and then what? "I'll starve and die". When you do that you can see the steps and analyse the thinking.

I can virtually guarantee this process will give you a vastly different fear structure. If real fears remain you can do something else - ask yourself how you could offset or minimize that outcome When you stop running from fear and "sit in it" for a time, and shine the light of rational thinking on it, you see it more clearly and it's less scary.

This is all difficult to do alone, because you're using a broken tool (your thinking) to fix itself. A coach can supplement that by helping you to fight pessimism and stay positive, keeping you find time to act and to stay focused and productive, helping you problem-solve, managing stress, and more.

But, but you can certainly make progress alone.

Good Luck! If I can help, do let me know.

Monday 9 August 2010

Doing What You Do... Being Who You Are...



Hello Helen,


I noticed your comment: Doing the right things but never moving forwards - and thought I'd send you some thoughts on that.


One of the reason human beings - the smartest creatures on the planet - find living their lives difficult and changing them even more so - is that we cannot be confident in the quality of our thinking when it comes to our own lives. There are two main reasons:

  • we see things through the distortions of hidden beliefs 
  • our emotions, in trying to protect our self-image, create further distortions

- and so coaching is quite a bit about helping clients to see things more clearly.


In your case I would ask you to reflect on why you feel you're doing the right things, when they are not delivering the progress you're looking for in your life. Unless you haven't been doing them long enough, then they are - by definition - the wrong things. Don't be disheartened - there's no such thing as failure - only feedback - and it's valuable feedback if we can listen closely to it.


Let me show you how the two mechanisms above come into play here.


Let's say you want to start your own business - something a lot of my clients want. Often clients will say that first, they need a shiny new PC, or a qualification, or to wait until X or Y is done. Something comfortably expensive or far away. Why? Because they're managing fear. But they don't necessarily know it - they believe their own lpropoganda. They are really putting distance between themselves and the scary things they know they will need to do to get their business off the ground. That's how emotions distort our world-view.


Now consider someone who had a poor upbringing, and a father who resented wealth in others. Chances are, that person absorbed a good deal of their father's wealth-aversion - they may believe that wealthy people got there in unattractive ways. That's a belief, and they may not even realise they have it (a hidden belief) yet it will make it very difficult for them to see things clearly - and they may find themselves ruling out all kinds of wealth-giving strategies because of it.


Pessimism coupled with low self esteem is an almost universal kind of belief. "What was I THINKING - me? Rich? Pah!". This leads us to fail to commit hard enough or for long enough to get difficult things done, or to suppress our creative minds under a cloud of stress and angst. 


Of course, I'm looking through a keyhole in your case, but hopefully you can take those ideas and re-assess your strategy. It's tough because, by definition, you can't see what's hidden from you, but you may well be able to find a way forward.


Good Luck!




Friday 6 August 2010

Procrastinate? Maybe Later...




Hello David,

Regarding your comment about procrastination, I thought I'd send you some thoughts which you may find helpful.

Firstly, a paradigm shift:

It's human nature to lament what we don't like.
It's NOT natural, but far more useful,
to look at how to improve it.

I'm guessing you want to remove your procrastination, and so it's worth analysing why it happens.

Usually, a lack of willingness to invest effort in something is caused by a combination of a few factors:

  • You hate doing the thing you're avoiding
  • You don't know how to do that thing, or see yourself as being bad at it
  • Doing it violates a (possibly hidden) belief
  • You are afraid of some aspect of doing that thing - or of what happens when it's done
  • You don't buy in to the goals which doing that thing will deliver
So a useful first step is to analyse your thinking around your procrastination and to see how these factors relate to it and to eachother. Get really specific and fact-based. So, for example, don't say "I always procrastinate", because it's an over-simplification which loses valuable information. If you procrastinate about lots of things - just pick one to analyse. Choose the one which has the biggest negative impact on your life. Let's say you chose:

"I often avoid doing the monthly accounts"

Now you can look again at the checklist above, and ask yourself why. Do you hate doing them? Do you always struggle to do them well - or suspect you never get them completely right? Do you feel you should really have an underling to do them? Or do you hate "wasting your money on government spending fiascos"? Do you worry that when done, the account will prove you insolvent or a "failure" in some way? I hope you get the idea. When you complete this analysis, you'll know some really useful things about your procrastination, and that's a solid foundation on which to build your escape strategy.

But if you don't do this [or decide to do it ... later :o) ], then - well - you're still trapped in your procrastination mindset.

There are quite a few self help articles on my website which it may be worth your while exploring - or my book - which contains the best ones and more.



Friday 30 July 2010

Why Can't I Coach Myself?


Hello Jane,

Your question:

why can't I [coach] myself?

- is an interesting one.

I invite you to look in at your life and ask if things are the way you want, and if not - why not?

The chances are that you struggle to stay focussed on any one issue long enough to make change happen, you're distracted, your motivation goes up and down, you fight off pessimism and fear, and you may simply not have the tools to understand some situations or to develop solutions. Those are crippling factors which I can help you with.

The remaining huge issue is HIDDEN BELIEFS.

Most of us think our intellects decide our behaviour - but that's simply untrue.

Think about obesity. It's not hard for our intellects to decide how to fix it - you eat less and you exercise more. But that's not what obese folks do.

It's the same story for people who live in unhappy marriages, in dismal jobs, and miserable lives. What drives behaviour is BELIEFS and astonishingly - even though our beliefs drive our behaviour, we may not not about many of the beliefs we hold inside us. When we're not aware of them, we cannot remove them and their power over our actions. We square this circle - we avoid seeing the huge gap in our thinking - by inventing secondary reasons for our actions.

Here's a real-life illustration.

I worked with a very smart, successful lady in her forties. She came to me to "sort out her life", as she put it. Because she was proud and smart, and to protect her self-image, her mind would not allow her to see things straight on - instead she had constructed distorted versions of reality. I worked very carefully with her to gently help her see these layers of falseness. With a few layers gone, we both saw that she was lonely, and wanted a life partner. That in itself was a big step to take. She felt naked but she was seeing more clearly, but there were still more layers to remove.

She told me, honestly, that it was virtually impossible to meet Mr. Right in her area because it was a run-down area of a Northern city. She believed this, and this distorted belief allowed her to avoid looking for Mr Right - with all of the frightening images of embarrassment, exposure and abject failure which a search might uncover. She was safe. Not her fault. Hah! I'm still worthy! But - she was still alone with no plan to fix it.

I asked her if she liked driving. She did. I asked her what the population of her city was - she said she didn't know but eventually we agreed that it was in excess of 100,000 people. I asked her about the role of location on intellect and class, and on why she lived where she did. Perhaps you can see where this is going. Without me needing to say it directly, I helped this lady to see the lie she was telling herself. The idea that Mr. Right could not possibly live within 30 minutes of her front door was clearly preposterous.

Now she was seeing clearly. She was not only lonely, but she was afraid. That self-image didn't sit well her the successful, wealthy lady she was, which is why her mind chose not to see it. THIS is what we humans do. We hide from the truth and we don't know we're doing it. And THIS is why we often cannot help ourselves.

From then on it's just work, but still a coach can help with maintaining motivation, positivity, stamina, injecting some humour, reminding the client why she's putting herself through all this, and so on.

Well, I hope that helps you out, Jane.

Wednesday 21 July 2010

Psychoanalysis, Hypnosis, NLP & Cliques at Work

Hello Jan,

To answer your questions, psychoanalysis is a kind of therapy associated with Freud, NLP is an umbrella term coined by Dr. Bandler for a set of ideas he developed on how minds work and some useful techniques emerge from that understanding, hypnosis is a way to help people to focus their minds and access more of them.

Different coaches use different techniques and any one coach may use different techniques for different clients and client issues.

Psychoanalysis and counselling are generally about understanding yourself or past events in order to find relief from mental anguish, whereas coaching is more focused on the present and the future and is for people who are broadly mentally healthy, but who are fed up with what they have and want something different.

My kind of coaching is primarily CBT - Cognitive Behavioural Therapy - in other words, we use our intellects through a phone conversation, to explore client situations and emotions, and the insights arising give us strategies for making positive changes. Central to my coaching is the role of hidden beliefs in the shaping of human lives. I sometimes use NLP techniques and you can see articles in my website on things like re-framing and dichotomic (black and white) thinking, Swish moves, and so on. I also use a raft of techniques I have acquired, learned and refined in my years of coaching practice.

Now let's look at your CHANGE ONE THING item - not belonging to a cliquey group and being undervalued at work. I call it "the playground mentality". In the playground right and wrong are trumped by popular and unpopular, and it's a shame because those school years are some of the most formative of our lives. As adults we should not need to endure such nonsense and a healthy culture at work would eliminate it, but it often doesn't, and cowardly managers are at the root of that.

How you tackle it depends as much on who you are and how far you're prepared to go as anything else. Usually there's a ring-leader; someone who is louder and more scary. People give them space and respect in order to avoid being attacked. Other group members support this "leader" to gain points and a kind of security, and so the dictatorship is self-sustaining.
Here are some ideas you might consider:
  • Confront them
  • Analyse the ring leader intellectually, and see what insights you can find to help you
  • Leave the company
  • Transfer within the company
  • Involve your boss or HR
  • Build alternative alliances
  • Befriend them - show them a better way to succeed
  • Shine and take a pride in not being a part of the clique
  • Ignore them
The problem is many of these require internal resources you may not currently have, because of the way things are. I can't re-build those for you in an email of course, but it's part of what I do for some clients.

Tuesday 20 July 2010

Willpower is Doomed - but Who Need It?


For a website customer:

Carrying some extra pounds has become the national hobby, and it's getting worse.
It's not difficult to see why - sedentary lifestyles and cheaper convenience foods - but it's rather more difficult to solve it.

In a sense it's easy - eat less, eat better, exercise more - but of course, that's offensively simplistic, because finding the motivation to do those things for a sustained period - or permanently - can be very difficult - or even impossible.

If there's one thing I've learned most clearly in all my years of coaching, (and you'll see it a lot in my writing) it's that "trying harder" doesn't generally work long-term, so we need new tools in the box to tackle this. And one of those is the "structural change" - which I'll briefly share with you.

Rather than doing something you hate because it's good for you - like going to the gym - find something you love to do, which - as a side effect - happens to be great exercise. I like to dance salsa, for example, and work on my allotment. I go because I like to go - not because I need the exercise (which of course, I do).

These tactics are immune to the "sod this - I'm done" syndrome - you'll carry on from selfish glee - not from super-human willpower, which - it turns out - is in short supply.

So one challenge for you is to find ONE THING which you can do to exercise more. It needs to get your heart rate and breathing up for at least 20 minutes - ideally 3 times a week.
Think radically - think NEW - if Linda is going to get change, then Linda needs to - well - change - and that involves a shift of mindset which can feel un-settling or even plain wrong.

Coaching helps with that, but if you can manage it, adopting this simple strategy can bring about major positive changes in your life.

Remember, the difference between success and failure is often as tiny as the difference between knowing and doing (which, it turns out - is usually huge!), so...

Give this a go!

Monday 19 July 2010

I Always wanted to be Someone, but I Should Have Been More Specific



Often when clients tell me the one thing they'd like to change - they say something like:
I'd like to be living life to the full

- entirely normal, but coaches know that it's not useful to formulate goals that way. I'm reminded of my favourite quote:
I always wanted to be someone,
but I should have been more specific
Also - there's:
a plan without date is just a dream

and:
If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail
Same idea. Most of us have dreams which never materialise, and one big reason is our lack of specificity.

So the insight for you is to spell out what "living life to the full" means for you. It's very different for different people. I encourgae you to invest some time in doing that.

Here are the emotional obstacles you may find:

1. People don't take themselves seriously and so are reluctant to invest time or money in it
2. They may be pessimistic about how realistic their dreams are, and this will make them give up easily and lack confidence
3. They may be afraid of trying in case they fail - or in case they don't
4. Their lives are already full of stuff, leaving them drained and bewildered
5. They may lack the skills and the tools to make things happen

Filling those gaps for clients is what good professional coaches do.

I encourage you to take the first step, and get really specific about what you want from your life. There's a detailed article about that here.


Friday 16 July 2010

How Do You Eat an Elephant?



The answer is (all together now):

One Bite At A Time!

But what's that got to do with anything?

Well, sometimes people look at their lives and conclude that every aspect of it seems horrible. Being human, we tend to feel despondent and defeated, which of course, can make things worse.

So how do you set about changing that? Where do you start?

A key first step is to look at each element of your situation, and assess it for good and bad, and give it a score out of 10.

Areas might be:
  • health
  • family
  • social life
  • work
  • partner
  • environment
  • spiritual life
Then ask yourself:
"if I could fix ONE of these areas, thinking about how they relate to eachother, which one would bring the best positive change to my life?"
There are big benefits to this approach:
  1. It gets the miseries out of your worrying mind, and on to paper, where they can be scrutinised for accuracy, revised and improved over time.
  2. Once their "out there" you'll feel like you got relieved of a burden and the beginnings of control returning.
  3. By choosing one area - one bite at a time - it's more manageable - you can get enough traqction to make a difference.
If you're too emotionally low, with little energy and lots of pessimism, then you may struggle to take even these steps. In that case, coaching would really help you; our calls are filled with positive energy, a little humour when appropriate, no pressure and lots of creativity.

But if you can summon up enough energy to do this, then really good things can emerge.

Good Luck!

Monday 12 July 2010

Who Needs Perfection?



My ol' mum had a hard life, but, with a special strength of character, she learned to make the best of the little she had.

In the first house I can remember living in, the internal walls were not plastered - you could see the brickwork behind thick dark green paint. She couldn't afford to plaster, but she stuck layers of newspaper over the green paint, then painted it - poor man's plaster - not perfect, but better.

Some years later, we reached the dizzy heights of affluence with our first fridge. It was very rusty, but - mum's solution? She wallpapered it! Not perfect, certainly not permanent, and II can't really award any style points either, really - but it was better.

Decades on, when her grown-up children would come to visit her, we used to joke that we'd better keep moving - if you stood still long enough. mum might wallpaper you.

Unfortunately, in childhood, I acquired the opposite tendency - moving towards dichotomic or "black-and-white" thinking. If a thing wasn't perfect, it was useless. I cut off vast swathes of opportunity, thinking in that mode, and it took me a long time to get rid of that style of thinking.

In my earlier management career, and now as a consultant and coach, I see it in my clients. In the middle of a difficult, complex situation, people cast about for a solution, but they reject most or all because they can be faulted - they are not perfect. That's a shame because in real life, perfection is seldom an option. So the name of the game is making things better, not making things perfect.

So the tip is pretty straightforward (most good ideas are) but the secret it to go beyond nodding sagely, and apply it in your own life - often.

Don't sit waiting for perfect - if you see better, go for it.

This is almost universally applicable. You may not have met Mr Right, but why not risk a meal with Mr. Pretty Good? Maybe you can't find the ideal house in your area at a price you can afford, but is it worth upgrading anyway - to something that's better, sooner? Are you waiting to throw that dinner party until you've lost weight? Do it now. Embracing fully what's available is likely to be far more rewarding than sitting where you are lamenting what's not.

Go forth and compromise!

Friday 2 July 2010

How can I improve self confidence when I am ugly?

How can I improve self confidence when I am ugly? I am balding and fat?

I am fat and bald and I can't get a girl, whats more I am a nice guy so my chances go right out the windown cause i hear chicks like the vad boy, they like guys who treat them like $hit. My mum didnt raise me to be like that to women.
 
My Answer:
Bald is IN! You don't say how fat you are, but (a) you can fix it and (b) it needn't be a big turn-off. Remember that women are different animals to men; they are not looking for perfect complexions, delicate features and good symmetry. The whole "UGLY" thing is a self-fulfilling prophecy; if you think you're ugly, you'll behave in reclusive ways (no eye contact, hanging back, being sombre) which will make women ignore you. This will re-enforce your notion that you're ugly - but it's your behaviour, not your appearance which is probably to blame.

I've written a lot more about that on my website - see the source below.

Good Luck!
Chris

Source(s):

 
 

Thursday 1 July 2010

Getting it Wrong


 One of the things I learned in my corporate life was that you can't manage what you can't measure, and so measuring (or "metrics") are an important management tool, especially where providing a service is concerned.

That's why I always send out a survey when I've delivered a service. If you've been reading my newsletters for a while, you'll get a survey. If you've been coached my me, you'll get a survey, and so on.

We all enjoy hearing the nice things about us, but really, they're an indication to keep doing what you're doing. The really powerful feedback is the negative stuff, because it tells you how you can change for the better. If you can get over the personal left hook (or even not see it in those terms) then this stuff is gold dust.

Here's a recent survey return from a lady I coached. She has given me her permission to use it.
Hi Chris,

I'm fine, thanks...

Please see [my survey] responses below in blue.

1. How do you rate this service - marks out of 10 - 10 being excellent?

7

2. How could I improve this service for you?
Each occasion felt a bit rushed.  Not necessarily because of anything said.  Somehow, having just 45 minutes to do the work needed, means that there's immediate pressure to achieve results.    Suggest offering a whole hour - that extra 15 minutes could make an important psychological difference.  Maybe reduce the content of newsletters (I do appreciate them, but don't always read everything) and pass the time saved on to clients.

3. What other services would you use if I made them available (indicate price where appropriate)?

I know coaching effectively relies on the coachee being focused and pro active in thier own sessions (leading sessions in their own way as they are paying for your services), however, I wonder if everyone who wants coaching is completely ready from the start.  For myself (looking back) - it could have been helpful to feel relaxed enough to explore & address those feelings of urgency a bit more.  Since this (counselling) is a job which requires a different, but just as technical, skill - price would need to be about the same.

4. What other comments do you have?

I am not sure that my 3 sessions have been as effective as expected.  Certainly, doing the work on values was very useful, but apart from that, I don't feel that I have a much clearer view of where I want to be looking for a different path.  I left our sessions with a some direction - to scan different career/new job paths and to get back in touch if I felt I needed to.  So far, I have not had the ureka moment I had hoped for, and don't feel I can justify the cost of more coaching.  I'm wondering if coaching was the right thing for me at the time I embarked on it.

Hope that's helpful....Elisabeth

Regards

Elisabeth
Here's the dialogue which followed:

Hi Elizabeth,

Thanks for your time in completing the survey. I'd like to respond to give you my take on things and demonstrate that I'm paying attention, to show you what I've done to make things better and sometimes to invite further dialogue.

On the hurrying issue, I was very aware of this and I recall that we spoke about it. It crops up now and then, and usually a comment or two from me will fix it. But I currently have a client who I am struggling with in the same way. He won't get the hint. On the one hand, I want to give you what you want from the sessions, but I also want to give you value for money and in this connection, I note your later comment about not really getting much, which I'll come back to.

I've given this a lot of thought. I have added a note to the coaching agreement as follows:

12. A NOTE ABOUT TALKING: Your session is for you. You’ve paid for it, and you can use it as you choose. If you want to vent about your situation or roam freely through ideas then you’re welcome to, and it’s sometimes very useful. People often feel they are helping when they give me a complete background – a total brain dump. But please understand that when you do this, you have taken control of the session and disabled my coaching. If I try to interject to bring us back on track, people can take offence or feel rushed, which can and break rapport. You are paying more than a pound per minute; coaching works best when you listen to the questions and answer them with appropriate length. When you have answered the question – stop! If I need more I can ask for it.

On your suggestion of hour-long sessions. Firstly, I don't think it would solve the problem; people tend to overrun whatever boundaries they are given. Secondly, it would mean I could no longer schedule on-the-hour appointments - the chat about homework and next appointment would overflow to maybe 10 past the next hour. The main newsletters are all already written and in a database, so there is no ongoing effort for me in sending them out. I do voluntarily overrun sometimes - if I think we need to reach a point we haven't and there are no operational reasons to preclude the overrun.

I'm not sure I understand your second comment fully. I think you are proposing that I move into counselling mode if it becomes clear the client wants to speak reflectively at length. I am not a councillor, but perhaps the coaching agreement clause above might help. I can allude to it and tactfully and give the choice to the client.

On your third comment, I'm sorry you didn't find as much value as you had hoped. This is the cleft stick I'm in! I also wanted more progress for you, but I knew my "re-focusing" was seen as unwelcome hurrying, so I felt I had to let large chunks of our sessions go by whilst you spoke at length on things which I felt would not take us anywhere helpful.

Well, my solution (the agreement clause) is far from perfect. I'd welcome other ideas if you have them. IN the meantime I would be happy to give you a free session to try to get you some more progress if you like.

I would like to post this dialogue to my testimonials page, Elizabeth. (seems only fair - I post the good stuff!). Would you be OK with that? I'd change your name.

Best Wishes,
Chris
Chris,
 
What you say makes sense - and confirms my thought that I sought coaching too soon.
I was looking for that moment when everything would just slot into place and I would just know what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.
The truth is that my situation is still too 'crowded' with emotion and my life remains 'on hold' for the present.  In my case, coaching was difficult for me because I had a need to talk through stuff and (I sense) frustrating (in respect of your genuine desire to help me find my solutions) for you.
 
Counselling - the completely opposite discipline to life coaching - whilst also client led, is concerned wholly with giving time and space to explore feelings.  The first things one learns about counselling are to keep quiet and not lead the client on to a subject they are not ready to discuss.
This is what I now know I need.
 
Your new note for your coaching agreement expresses exactly what it needs to.  I might not have used the term 'brain dump', and favoured something more like 'off loading'.
 
I'm a great believer in offering feedback when it is requested (and sometimes when it is not !), so I am glad if this helps others come to a decision about their readiness to have coaching.  Accordingly, I'm very happy for you to use this on your testimonials page - and don't mind if you use my real name (it is quite common after all) - unless it's your company's policy not to.
 
As for your kind offer of a free session - thank you very much, but can we take a rain check on it ? 
 
Can we agree, that if I haven't contacted you by the end of this year - we can assume that I won't need it or have procrastinated so often that my time will be 'up' ?  Either way, you can then be 'released' from your commitment to offer of a free session.
 
Every experience can be looked at in a positive way, and I continue my life's journey with some good stuff from being coached.
 
Best regards
 
Elisabeth
So, this is a good illustration of how negative feedback is a really great thing - it's one of the dominant mechanisms for making things better - which is also known as growth. I also wanted to give you more insights into what really happens in coaching.

I invite you to ask for feedback often, and to take what you hear as the truth, and as the gold dust it really is.

Tuesday 15 June 2010

Sometimes, Before you Fly, you Have to Jump



I wrote this to a client this morning. I thought I;d BLOG it (I've changed the names) to give you some insight into how my clients are changing their lives. It's not easy sometimes, but it's ALWAYS possible.

Hi James,

You've managed to do a big and difficult thing. All the more difficult because a large factor in your decision was your own life journey and what you want from it. "Selfish" has become a dirty word in our society, but that's just wrong. In a world where we all live once then die, NOT to be selfish is to deny control, responsibility, and potential - to turn your back on what might be.

You're right - Julie's improvement is a response to your actions. In life, we tend to settle into stable states (stable in the engineering sense - it doesn't imply "good"), and it often tales quite large forces to de-stabilise the other components enough to get change. After the change, a new stable state develops (there may be some cascade changes along the way). That's another formulation of my favourite "Keep doing what you've always done, and you'll keep getting what you've always got", which I keep coming back to as a fundamental truth for us all.

You did something very different, and it took a lot of courage.

What happens now will be interesting and could very well be wonderful in ways that surprise all concerned. I hope so. I know you'll be watching closely, trying to steer a good course between the icebergs.

Take Care, do feel free to write from time to time if it's useful to you.

Cheers,
Chris

Friday 11 June 2010

More About Coaching



Life's challenges can be formidable - and that's fundamentally because of our minds.

The human mind is really a collision of two brains. Briefly, our higher brain is able to think rationally whilst our lower brain mediates intuition and is the seat of our emotions. When you understand that these two often conflict, and that the lower brain is generally in charge, then much of the human condition becomes more clear.

Let me show you:
  • You know you could do a bigger ,better job,. But you fear the devil you don't know, you're risk averse, and you have this irrational feeling that you're a fraud waiting to be found out.
  • You want to find your life partner, and you know they're unlikely to knock on your door on bended knee out of the blue. But you find the prospect of doing what's necessary to cross their path out there in the world daunting, and you're telling yourself convenient lies (I live in the wrong area/they're all weirdoes) to justified continued inaction.
  • You desperately want to be an author, but the prospect of sitting down and doing all that writing is desperately grim!
  • You meet almost any difficult situation by emphasising how miserable it is to anyone who'll listen, but the prospect of analysing it rationally, then designing and implementing a plan to fix it seems oddly inappropriate.
  • Diets, gym memberships, and shiny new things look like answers, but they seldom are, and we're content to fail to learn this lesson over the course of a lifetime, as our crammed garages will testify.
  • And wherever you go in the world - there you are - the same set of parts, doing the same set of things, whilst wishing things were different.
Am I depressing you?

I don't mean to, but I was never a happy clappy life kind of coach. I believe it's important to see things as they really are. That reality is the solid foundation on which we can build your new future. If we tried to build on anything else, it would collapse before very long.

My clients are not fearless cliff-jumpers with perfect teeth, iron wills, and washboard stomachs, they're people like you and me. And my job as your coach is to help you succeed - given who you really are - not who you can pretend to be for short optimistic interludes.

Only then do we start to get traction. Only then can you look forward to permanent positive change.

How do we do that?

Well, it depends on who you are, where you are, and where you want to go. Over the years, building on my training, I've grown a large box of techniques (or "low tricks" as I sometimes refer to them) to facilitate real-world/real-people change. But here is a flavour of what I'll be bringing to the table when I help you change your life:
I gained distinctions in theory and practice of coaching from Europe's largest training organisation - The Coaching Academy. I've also taught leadership coaching for them. I completely understand the coaching process and it's application in the real world.

I've had a real job! I was a manager in blue-chip multi-nationals for 17 years, where I learned a lot about people and personal effectiveness, people in teams, the growing of healthy corporate cultures, leadership, and the management of projects large and small, change management, building and maintaining strategies, budgets and so on. I use this expertise to help my executive clients and those who aspire to executive status.

I spent about four years as a freelance lecturer at my local college and I've been a private tutor to young people. They taught me a lot about helping people who may be stressed and feeling down on themselves to think more clearly and motivate themselves to do well.

Since qualifying in January of 2004, I've grown my coaching practice. I've coaching many hundreds of clients and learned a huge amount along the way. I DO THIS A LOT! This uniquely privileged perspective alone, is a huge asset which I can bring to bear on our work together in the service of your goals.

I'm an old bloke - well 50. I've lived a bit, so I know how it really goes - some of it just plain ugly. Life can be very difficult. I won't be trotting out any platitudes or candy coating. But I may well be showing you how my own broken life has been mended with the techniques we'll be using. Nothing too heavy - you'll be my guide!

Our sessions will be relaxed, friendly, and usually fun. I need to in a resourceful state, and that means as free of stress and fear as possible. I use humour quite a lot to accomplish this; by re-framing your challenges I can loosen the grip of stress and fear, by sharing my personal experiences, I can show you you're not alone and you're not any worse than others.

Together we use our intellects to analyse your situation and how you'd like to change it. We'll develop a strategy which, usually, you'll implement between sessions. I'm here to help you, but you're in charge. I'll need to work within the parameters you set. We might haggle!

Our sessions will explore how things went, and why. I'll be listening carefully for your hidden beliefs and fears. If it's appropriate I'll help you to see them more clearly, to analyse them with your higher brain, and to dissolve them in a solution of reason, freeing you up to make further progress.

Mostly, I'm a CBT coach - I use our intellects to understand your behaviour and the lower brain stuff that drives it, and we'll develop strategies based on that understanding. I may also use reflective exercises, some NLP techniques, mind-mapping, meditation, force field analysis, and other bits and pieces.
Well, I hope I've given you an insight into how I can help you.

More to Learn

You can find a great deal more, including self-help articles, free newsletters online quizzes and more at my website (http://www.uklifecoaching.org/index.htm).
There's also my real-lie coaching BLOG (http://real-life-coaching.blogspot.com/)
my working life BLOG (http://success-at-work.blogspot.com/)
my Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Chris-Wesley-Coaching-Consulting/8967250732)
and my Twitter feed (http://twitter.com/Chris_Wesley).


Friday 4 June 2010

Carpe Diem



Recently, I've been doing a lot of "carping" (zeizing) my "diems" (days) as the sunny weather has shown up for what might be a fleeting moment, and this has lead me to make new connections in my thinking and my philosophy of life.

I do a lot of work with people on time management, and we look at priorities, and try to align how we spend time with what we want to get done. This is another kind of seizing the day - in that we seize it by the throat and meld it to our own wills. That certainly has its place in fending off the default drudge which would otherwise confiscate every waking moment.

I also work a lot with people who "SHOULD all over themselves" - they are stuck in what ought to be and not in what actually IS.

This distortion serves to divert attention from the "make things better" paradigm to the "lament why things are all wrong" paradigm".

Are these strategies in opposition? Well - yes and no. Choosing the right strategy comes down to being awake and alert. Most of us spend much of the time semi-conscious - our auto-pilot is saving us the bother of living through the drudge of working, eating, driving, and so on (more on that here), but this severely limits our opportunities for choice-making in the here-and-now.

In a place where we may get ten decent sunny days in a year, making the most of one of them can be more important than what you were planning to do today. (You DID have a plan, right? Of course you do, and I'm sure it's carefully aligned with your life goals too).

In a world where health is fragile and life is fleeting, where friends are important, where the life plan our society imprints on us is dubious at best, where crystal balls don't work, being awake, being flexible and keeping a keen eye on what's important seems smart.

So the "solid strategy" view might not be the best one in all cases. Think instead of a sea. Sometimes calm, but often not - waves, tides, winds, storms, passing ships, the odd man-eating shark, some sun, the odd sandy beach.

What I'm saying is - try for this.

See what really is,
See what you really want,
Be open, agile, creative & determined to
Stitch the two together

In other words, Carpe Diem!
 

Wednesday 26 May 2010

How Do I Build My Self Confidence?


I wrote this answer to a Yahoo question from a young person suffering with low self confidence, and it was chosen as the Best Answer - so I thought some of my readers here might benefit from it too.
The reason why most of these answers won't help you much, is that they involve what you'll consider to be lying. It's no good telling yourself you're not ugly, when you're pretty darn sure that you are, and the mirror seems to agree with you.

And it's no good hearing that no one cares, because YOU care, and you can't accept that THEY don't.


So what's to do then?


I encourage you to look very carefully at the people you consider to be not ugly. Look at their facial features - are they perfect? Think about your overall impression of them - do they come across as confident? Chances are that many of the people who you think look OK are in fact far from perfect, and that their good looks are actually down to careful grooming and a confident manner - standing straight, smiling, making eye contact etc.


When you look in the mirror, chances are you don't see those things becuase you don't do those things. So I would encourage you to start doing them today.


Confidence is a chicken-and-egg thing. You'll be confident when people seem to like you, but they won't start seeming to like you until you are confident.


To break this cycle demands a rational understanding of what's going on, a focussed attention to your thinking and to events in the world, and above all (the killer) taking risks - which needs courage - the last thing you feel like showing when you feel so down on yourself.


But it can be done.


There is a lot of free stuff on my website which can help you.


Good Luck,

Chris

Tuesday 25 May 2010

Who Needs UGLY?


How do you see yourself? How do you imagine others see you? Are you happy when you think about that? If not, then you probably have a self-image issue.

It's possible that your appearance really is an issue, but it's far more likely that it's your feelings which are the issue causing the problems. And you can't fix those with a diet, surgery or grooming. Feelings are seldom entirely rational; they resist rational thinking. We have to use other techniques.

There is a lot of free material about those on my website self help area, but in the meantime, dare to have faith - be fully you - and here's little Yoshi.



Tuesday 4 May 2010

Trapping YourSelf with FEAR

The really big obstacles in our lives are often put there by ourselves, and they are all driven by FEAR, which it's useful to think of as the achronym:

False
Expectations
Appearing
Real

Deciding to opt for coaching can be a stressful decision as my postbag often shows. The stress is all about fear (expectation which isn't real). Resistance surfaces in many forms, and is usually based on a false premise which I am happy to illuminate.

Anna wrote to me this morning:
It makes a lot of sense when i read [your newsletters], but it also makes you feel that you have to rely on others to decide which road you take. as if you cannot or are unable to think for yourself, or maybe i am just used to doing things the hard way ;-)
 This is quite a common concern. People think that coaching means entering into a dependent relationship, which in turn raises the concerns that (a) they see it as an admission of weakness and (b) they may struggle to leave it.

Both of these concerns are ill-founded, as I was happy to explain to Anna:
Hello Anna.
I noted your comments about your reluctance to rely on others. I can understand that, but it can be a kind of trap.
In most aspects of life - we learn from others and integrate their strengths into our own lives. People exist in inter-dependent relationships. We spend our lives (hopefully) learning and growing. These are not symptoms of dependency but of growth, and are to be nurtured.


If we keep on doing what we've always done, then we'll keep on getting what we've always got.


Sometimes it's very hard to change alone. Good coaches do not give people answers and create dependencies, rather they give new techniques and perspectives to allow people to grow independently. The best coaching relationships are short ones!


I wish you well on your journey Anna


Best Wishes,
Chris
If you are thinking of coaching but aren't entirely sure, the easiest way to explore is to book an initial phone consultation.

Monday 29 March 2010

How Are Your New Year Resolutions Shaping Up?

So, it's the end of March, spring is here and you're a quarter of the way through 2010.
Now now's a good time to stand back and take stock.

How are those new year resolutions going? Is 2010 the year of change you wanted?
Are you looking forward to the summer with a sleeker, sprightly body?
Are the things you want beginning to show up, and the things you don't receding?

Permanent change in your life is easy when it's thrust upon you.
Divorce, serious illness, redundancy, death - these things happen, and when they do - your life is permanently changed. Easy.

The problem arises when we have a choice. Permanent change is really tough to make through force of will, which is why we usually fail, becoming cynical, sad and defeated in the process.

To push through the obstacles to success requires a whole bunch of stuff which most of us aren't taught and are conditioned to doubt. I'm knocking on a bit now - 51 in August; I spent nearly 20 years in management, learning a lot about people - why and how they succeed or fail, and what to do about it. Then I became a life coach and spent six years helping people succeed in their private lives. The motifs keep arising again and again - and the solutions we've found are universally applicable. Now they're in a book of easy articles for you to dip into whenever you like - or to read from cover to cover. Those articles cover all of the main points in coaching. If you'd like to secure your copy today, for £7.50 (download) or £9.99 (paperback) just click the book cover.