Coaching should always be about helping you achieve your preset targets, right? Well, there are different types of coaching objectives – some are meant to help you grow to a predefined target, some are meant to help you move from a stuck position, some are meant to help you reprioritize your goals.
Sometimes a coach will ask you some simple questions, such as “Why do you want to achieve a particular goal?”. You may have never really contemplated that question before, and now when you have to have deep thought around it, you may realize that there is a lot of ground work to be done – the unexpected happens, the goal that you initially wanted will not really give you the fulfilment you need. You have to face yourself and redirect from an outside-in to an inside-out approach.
It is not uncommon to have an outside-in approach on life, actually most of us operate like this. I would argue to say that the outside-in approach doesn’t give you the juicy part of life – and that the inside-out is where interesting things start to happen.
So, a coach may pose questions that direct you to an inside-out approach, and you suddenly realize that there is a gap and some lack of congruency between what you thought you really wanted and what feels more aligned with you – this might make you sad for some time and could certainly feel like the worst thing is happening to you. All the energy you spent thinking and planning for that target is now being fundamentally questioned.
Well, is the redirection of all your energy the worst thing that could happen?
You would certainly be in a position where your energy and focus have a new target and you have renewed perspectives. You may find that you save a lot of energy in your renewed perspective and are able to achieve more with relative ease.
The same goes for businesses that suddenly drop certain product lines and suddenly become more profitable, staff morale goes up, resulting in higher retention rates, and many more other positive outcomes that were not anticipated.
What could have been seen as the worst thing could suddenly become the best thing. An effective coach should help you navigate to a place where the best outcomes for you are attainable, you may not really like some parts of the process, but in the end your perspective would have grown and hopefully aligned with your value system.
#coaching #valuesystems #highachievers #businesscoaching #topofmindthursdays