Facing challenges is inevitable. It might be a rare event, it might be daily struggle. The analogy of a baby’s birth, a difficult process for both mother and infant, is a necessary tussle; perhaps you are not able to reconcile the challenges in your life with childbirth, but you’ll still be able to get the basic idea – not all our difficulties are bad things. If you are able to find a lesson in an event that didn’t go your way, you are open to learning something new about yourself and that is an amazing thing, and not to be taken for granted.
“I have always done it this way” / “I have always eaten this way” / “it runs in my family” / “I can’t change it” / “I don’t have the time”….
Haven’t we used every excuse in the book? Through a healthy coaching environment, you’ll learn to recognise this as a story you are telling yourself and those around you in order to sustain your current reality, also known by its pet name, The Comfort Zone. It is a beautiful place, but sadly, nothing grows there.
Not everyone who enters into a coaching relationship is ready for change. You might be contemplative – not satisfied with the current status quo but not sure how to change direction, or even which direction to go. There’s no recipe for success in a coaching journey, and no prescribed way of doing things – just because you aren’t ready to change doesn’t mean you can’t set a goal and achieve it. Sometimes it’s enough to have an ally, someone who listens to you, who can see your point of view and who understands how you see the world. In this way, subtle shifts may open you to realisations of how you could live a more fulfilling, authentic, energetic life. You may realise through learning a gratitude practice that you already have enough. You may gain insight or awareness into a situation that you have felt powerless and feel better able to manipulate your way out of.
You might not be stuck – simply committed to certain behaviour patterns that served you in the past. Now those habits have become harmful and no longer beneficial. You can’t apply an old formula to this new level of your life. Working with a coach can help you recognise the formula and make the shift to get different results.