Reflections on Coaching

This week I took 6 teleclasses at ICA, all different levels, from level 1 to level 4 and a group coaching class on Building your business.

The topics of the classes were: Creating Action, Accountability, the ICA competencies, Coaching Research Paper, Being a coach and the Business Building Group Coaching class.

Creating Action

This is one of the main things for me in Coaching, once a person starts taking action in the direction of the goals they want to achieve, they start to feel a sense of accomplishment and confidence towards reaching this goal. This will drive the moving forward toward the goal for the rest of the coaching sessions. I have experienced this in a great deal with my coach Debbie Hayes, she is an awesome coach. I really felt on a high speed train when I was being coached by her. I felt like I could do anything I wanted and I was actually achieving things, by taking actions towards my goal step by step.

This isn’t about just taking action though, first and foremost the internal motivation factor needs to be present. It is really key in coaching that the client is working towards a goal that he or she really wants to achieve for themselves. Once the internal motivation is there it is important to consider the hurdles that might come on the journey of that speeding train, and see what detours might be appropriate in those cases.

Some of these hurdles that people have experienced in their journeys towards their goals might be understimating the time  it takes to achieve their goals. Therefor setting realistic time frames that are doable are very important. For example, if you are pregnant, like me, you don’t always have the same energy levels throughout the week, so you need to be very aware of that and be realistic in your planning.

Sometimes the motivation might be slowed down somewhat and we might “forget” what are goals are exactly and why we wanted to achieve those. It is useful therefor to keep reminders for yourself, such as positive affirmations, a painting, a picture, a candle you burn for your goals, anything that will help you to remember your goals. Another great helper to remember your motivation is to visualize you achieving your goals and seeing and feeling what it is like to achieve those goals. Once your brain has these visualized and engrained in your brain, it will become easier to actually reach the end of your journey.

On the journey is it important to remember what your strengths are, a coach can help you become aware of these, as everyone has lots of strengths, however sometimes we hide them from ourselves, and we don’t see what others can see. A tool you can use to help you identify these strengths is a “Success Life Line” .

Create your Success Life Line

Instructions:

1. Draw a timeline on a piece of paper from your birthdate at one end of the paper to your current age at the other end of the paper.
2. Write down all the successes that happened in your life, for example My first steps, swimming diploma, got my high school diploma, my own room, Drivers license, first job, second job, important decisions you have made,  anything that comes to mind can be written on your timeline.
3. Once you have written all your successes in your Success time line, identify what strengths you used to achieve these successes. For example for my first steps, I must have had confidence, so write down confidence next to your first steps. I wonder what other strengths have you used for this first step? This way write down all the strengths you have used next to the successes you achieved in your life.

This Success Life Line will give you an overview of all the Strengths you have in you, even thought you might feel they are not visible now, or maybe they are! This is your Success Life Line. You can use these strengths again in the future so let’ see what other successes you would like to achieve!