What is Coaching?

These days we hear a great deal about coaching. And what is it really?

We are certainly familiar with the idea of a sports or an acting coach – prepares/encourages an athlete or actor to perform at the top of his/her game/profession. This is the basic premise of other forms of coaching as well. Today there are coaches for all sorts of activities – career, business, relationships, communication, health, life, etc. These coaches encourage a person to set and achieve desired outcomes while identifying and seeing beyond their perceived  limitations.

A critical on-going activity for the coach is creating a safe and supportive environment within which the client can identify and achieve a desired outcome. Once a desired outcome is identified, the coach assists the client to:

• Identify limiting beliefs, conflicting values or thought processes that hold him/her back.
• Explore ways and means to address these obstacles and to see and experience the world differently.
• Align his/her internal resources (power of the mind) with his/her external resources (finances, networks,     communication skills, etc.) to reach this desired outcome. It is when we align our internal and external resources that we have the greatest potential to achieve our desires in life.
• Prepare a strategy or workplan to achieve the desired outcome.
• Stay the course. The coach reviews progress and serves as a sounding board as the client makes progress towards or modifies his/her desired outcome.

Distinguishing Between Coaching and Other Activities

To distinguish between coaching and other activities, consider the following generalizations – realize there are overlaps between all of them:

• Coaching is the process of assisting clients to identify and align their inner and outer resources by creating a safe and supportive environment, precision questioning and appropriately contexted feedback.
• Mentoring is the process of providing guidance and sharing of expertise/experiences. A mentor may or may not have received training in how to transfer his/her knowledge.
• Training is the process of informing and transferring information, knowledge and skills.
• Counseling/Therapy is the process of healing and addressing issues from the past that are having an impact in the present and potentially the future.
• Consulting is the process of providing advice and solutions based on expertise in the area.

Everyone of Us is a Coach

Whether you are a friend, son, daughter, parent, manager, co-worker, professional in the helping professions, …, you are coaching others on a regular basis. Sometimes your coaching is well-received, other times not. What’s missing? Could you be a better coach?

How You Give Your Power Away (Steve Pavlina)

One of the themes that repeatedly came up at the last Conscious Growth Workshop was the problem of giving your power away. Instead of focusing on your true desires, you erect false structures in front of your desires and then feed your power to those structures as a delay tactic.

Here are some typical scenarios of how people give away their power in different areas of their lives:

Relationships

Let’s say that your true desire is to be in love. You want a relationship with someone special. You want someone that you can smooch, cuddle, play with, and make love to. You want to be with someone who totally loves you just the way you are.

But instead of focusing your power on creating that, here’s what you do instead. You decide that before you can attract a new relationship, you need to get into better physical condition first. You have to “fix” your diet and hit the gym for a while. You need to lose some weight.

Or maybe you decide that in order to be more attractive, you need to get your career on track first. Maybe upgrade your finances a bit.

Or maybe you hold yourself stuck in a relationship that isn’t what you want, one that will never become what you truly, deeply desire. That relationship serves as a convenient block to keep your true desires out of reach.

The basic pattern is that you decide something else has to happen first before you can attract the relationship you truly desire. However, those extra steps you add to the process are not absolute prerequisites for your desire. You’re using them as excuses, creating unnecessary roadblocks to delay yourself from receiving what you want in the present moment. You push your goal into an imaginary future instead of allowing it to come to you right now.

Career

Suppose your true desire is to do work that fulfills and inspires you. And you want to do it in a way that’s practical, grounded, and financially sustainable. You want to make a positive difference in the world. You want to contribute and to feel good about it. You want to feel passionate and motivated while working. You want to express your creativity and enjoy positive, worthy challenges.

But instead of using your power to create that, you stick with unfulfilling work to make ends meet. You feed your power to your bills, as if those small pieces of paper somehow control your destiny for the near future (which includes ALL of your present reality). You use your bills as artificial barriers to delay you from experiencing what you actually desire. Do you realize how stupid that is?

Alternatively, you might feed your power to a vision of building a new business that you believe can make you a lot of money. Once you achieve a certain degree of financial abundance, you tell yourself, then you can use your wealth to finally have some breathing room to figure out your purpose, do what you love, and make a real contribution. Step 1: Become a worthy millionaire. Step 2: Do something more rewarding and fulfilling.

I often see very bright young people obsessing over grand plans for a career path they believe will make them rich. When they tell me their plans, I usually get nauseous. Most of the time their plans are heartless. Stupid MLM crap is common, not to mention lots of ideas for me-too Internet businesses that don’t really need to exist. The whole scheme is centered around trying to make as much money as possible, so they can eventually cash out and later do what they love and make a difference. They feed their power to these false plans as a delay tactic, so they can avoid summoning the courage to start making a difference right now. It’s a cowardly ploy, a classic case of giving one’s power away.

Social Life

Suppose your true desire is to be surrounded by friends and family that uplift, encourage, and support you. You want to be around like-minded people who are smart, fun, and happy. You want to hang out with people who empower you.

But instead using your power to create that, you feed it into your existing disempowering relationships. You obsess over what others think about you, people who really don’t encourage you to be your best self anyway. You worry about what your Mom thinks about you. By clinging to disempowering relationships of any kind, including blood relationships, you block yourself from receiving what you truly desire. Seriously… who the hell cares what your Mom thinks anyway? Let her live her own life. You go live yours.

Alternatively, you may feed your power into relationships with your TV or your computer instead of real face-to-face connections with human beings.

Again, the pattern is giving your power away to something you don’t even want as opposed to channeling all of your power into what you desire. When you feed your desires, you simultaneously starve your non-desires. If your Mom keeps sending you critical emails that bring you down, simply flag her email address as a spammer and be done with her. Then go out and recruit fresh social connections with people who are willing to support and encourage you along the paths you wish to explore. Be loyal to those who are supportive of your desires, not to those who do the opposite.

Stop Creating False Prerequisites

The idea of feeding your power to your desires is incredibly simple. All you need to do is decide what you want and then focus your thoughts, feelings, and actions on those desires. Identify your desires and then run straight at them. Be totally shameless about it. Intellectually this is not a difficult concept to understand, is it?

Please take note that moving directly towards your desires is not remotely the same as erecting all sorts of silly prerequisites in the way of your desires.

Sure some goals involve multiple steps, but let’s get real for a moment. Are your plans clogged with steps that are not absolute prerequisites for getting what you ultimately desire?

Losing weight and getting in shape are not prerequisites for attracting a deeply loving relationship with someone you’re incredibly attracted to. This is not even close to being true. If you need proof, simply go outside and look around for a bit. This line of thinking is nothing but a silly limiting belief. If you want to attract a wonderful relationship, you can begin feeding your power to that right now in this very moment. There is no need to block it. Nothing else needs to happen first.

Making millions of dollars is not a prerequisite for doing what you love and fulfilling your life purpose. Nor is having all your bills paid. Nor is being debt-free. You can start doing what you love today. Nothing else needs to happen first. Imagine if Gandhi or Mother Teresa or Jesus said, “I really need to find a way to make millions of dollars. If I only had enough money, I’m sure I could get something going here.” Maybe you should follow their lead and stop trying to use money as a substitute for real power and courage.

Improving all your broken, disempowering relationships is not a prerequisite for attracting an amazing social life. Your social skills don’t need to be upgraded either. You can simply let go of the dysfunctional relationships and immediately begin feeding your power to create the social life you desire. Nothing else needs to happen first.

I repeat: Nothing else needs to happen first!

By Roger Ellerton Phd.