I had a client recently who felt unmotivated in her life. First I used the 3 step coaching technique to begin the session to ask her who she really was and what it was she wanted for herself in her life and then how was she going to get it. She was able to tell me about herself and that she was unsatisfied where she was living and unmotivated in many aspects of her life. Once she was able to establish who she was and what she wanted, I wanted for us both to understand what was blocking her. I began to realise she was unhappy where she was living but didn’t want to make a move because she had a fear of making the wrong decision and fear of people perceiving her as a failure which was preventing her from moving forward in many aspects of her life. The second technique that was useful in this process was looking Cognitive distortion that I learned from the book “Life Coaching: A Cognitive Behavioural Approach”. I used questions to check the reality of her thought process. What we found out was that she had a negative perception of what people thought about her and this was holding her back. When we had established this I questioned her about her negative thoughts. The client began to realise she was held back and stuck in her position because of fear, and these fears came from her negative thought process. Using both techniques she was able to discover for herself exactly what she wanted and that her negative thought process that was holding her back. It then became obvious to her the steps she needed to take to move forward in her decision, “The How”. She was then motivated to make changes that felt right for her in order for her to feel happy by honouring what she needed and valued and began to let go of the unhealthy negative thoughts.
Living a life that allows us to honour our values allows us to feel fulfilled and alive in our life. When someone lives in a way that does not honour their own values, the person can feel stuck in their life. A lot of people live a life adhering to influences, values and instruction from people close to them and not living a life that honours their own values. Conforming to what others expect and want from you cannot bring fulfilment or satisfaction to your life, because they are someone else’s values and goals. In the words of Oscar Wilde:
“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation”.
The coaching relationship can motivate a client to move away from a position where they feel stuck, into a position of personal power and fulfilment. This can only be done when the person is true to themselves. The client holds all the answers to knowing what is important to them, it is the effective coaching relationship that provides the vehicle in which the client can explore possibilities in their life and find their true essence and values. Once a person begins to live in alignment with their values and being true to themselves, then they can feel the contentment and happiness that life can bring. It allows our clients to move away from the struggle and feeling of being stuck and in conflict with themselves that occurs when we are not living our own life but someone else’s.
The words of Steve Jobs reinforces the importance of coming back to who we are and what we want and it resonates with me in my life. I bring the meaning of this quote to my coaching relationships:
"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become".
A great tool I have used to encourage a client to look at their own personal values is the values matrix. This tool allows a client to prioritise their values and examine whether the way they are living their life is bringing them closer to honouring their values or further away. It also allows a client to realise if they are living their life by their values or someone else’s. If a person is not honouring values that they hold dear to them they can feel disconnected from themselves and dissatisfied. The coaching relationship serves to highlight this disconnect to the client and provides the powerful questions that will challenge them into creating actions that will allow them to live their life serving their own values.
A coaching relationship can allow a client to be freed from holding values that are not serving them, and allow them to move away from a place where they feel stuck and motivate them to take control and action to get what they really want. I held a value very close and dear to me around security. To me it was of key importance to always live in a way that will secure me financially. However it prevented me from opening up to the possibility of embarking on a new career because of my fear of earning less money. I began to realise I needed money to live but this value wasn’t serving me because it held me back from fulfilling a dream and passion and I felt stuck in the job I was in. When I looked closely I realised this was a value that was instilled in me from my upbringing and from fear of not having enough. This value wasn’t serving me in my life and I also became aware it wasn’t my value to hold on to. A coaching relationship allows a client to become aware of their values, which ones are theirs, which ones they need to honour and which ones they need to let go of to prevent them being held back in their life. When I let go of my need for security around money, the possibilities of my life, my career and my passions opened up and I feel so alive and motivated to and I am now on my life path with greater clarity and freedom.
We can feel stuck in our lives because of our belief systems that we hold and our beliefs that define who we are. We are stuck because our beliefs can be limiting. When we are unaware of these beliefs it can be difficult to move away from our limitations. The coaching relationship allows us to look inside ourselves and question ourselves and speak about who we are. The effectiveness of the coaching relationship brings to our conscious awareness how we define ourselves through beliefs. What I have learned is that we all have beliefs, and these beliefs are part of us today and we have built up these beliefs from our surrounding environment and upbringing. What I realise is that not all our beliefs are serving us in our life and can be holding us back from moving forward or keeping us in a position where we feel stuck. The question as a coach is how do we move ourselves and our client away from this position?
During my own personal coaching session I became aware of a belief I held. My coach heard me define myself with a belief and he feedback to me what I had said. I had a belief that was so deeply rooted I had never questioned it. It was something I have carried with me and held close to me as a defining aspect of who I am. “I am not intelligent”. During the coaching session when I was challenged on this I realised that everything I had done in my life actually proved the belief incorrect but I had held it so strongly as part of me and it was holding me back in my life. I realised I had been unable to move forward in my personal and professional life because of this belief. What I have learned is that the coaching relationship provides a space to open up to who we are, and hear for ourselves these defining beliefs and challenge these in order to change them and let them go so we can move forward in our lives with determination to achieve our biggest dreams. The coaching relationship motivates clients because they are freed from the constraints of their beliefs and they are allowed to open up to their full potential by harnessing their qualities and strengths and letting go of limiting beliefs.
People come to coaching because they want something to change in their life. When you come at a cross roads in your life and one or many aspects of your life is not what you expected or wanted, a person can feel unmotivated and stuck. People may want aspects of themselves or their lives to change but they may be unaware of what those changes need to be. The coaching relationship can act as a catalyst for change. The coaching relationship empowers a client to use their own inner resources to change. It allows the client to begin to understand and feel where the dissatisfaction lies and provides them with the best tools to do this.
The wheel of life is a powerful tool that allows a person to look at all the areas of their life that exist for them. The wheel captures what is happening in someone’s life and where their energy is focused. The coaching relationship serves to open up a client to become aware of what needs to change and where value can be added. The key to this tool is that a client can identify how satisfied they feel in each area and also how much time and energy is put into each area. This awareness gives them the power to make changes in aspects of their life that are not working for them.
The coaching relationship is effective in allowing the client to generate possibilities for change and moving the client out of a position where they feel stuck. What I believe is that it is important for the client is to ensure the motivation for the change is something they really want from their core, and not a means to cover up something that is lacking within them. I believe it is so important to challenge a client on what they want to make sure it really is what they want, and find out what is beneath the drive to change. A powerful coaching relationship will allow understanding and awareness of the client’s real motivation underneath their goals in order to ensure the changes are lasting and fulfilling.
In a coaching session with a client I used the Wheel of Life to allow the client to look at areas within her life and become aware of what changes she wanted to make. One area that was of great importance was in her job. She felt that the job she was currently in was making her feel unhappy and unmotivated and a change in job may help with this. She believed that a moving job would change this and give her the opportunity to bring about the excitement in her life that she was craving and have an impact on all areas of her life. This was great that now she could see what she wanted to change in her life but then I needed to understand her motivation for change.
In order for this client to get the most out of life I felt it was important to challenge and understand the client’s needs and what it is they want to get from attaining any changes they have defined though the coaching relationship. The underlying driving force of that change needs to be something they value themselves. If we are motivated to make a change in order to have something in our lives and it is not truly what we want, rather what we think we want then we will be left continually deflated. The coaching relationship is fundamental to this process, by questioning and listening on all 3 levels we can hear what the client is not saying! What we need to do for the client is to listen for what we don’t hear, we can look at body language and hear the tone of their voice. I wanted to understand her underlying need for change be sure the change will bring long lasting fulfilment and it is right for her.
I questioned her and “drilled down” to see what was beneath this need for change. I reflected her words back to her and asked questions to probe for a deeper understanding of her needs. She revealed that she had a fear for being perceived as lazy. Everything in her life was about action, challenge, excitement and change, and the underlying reason she stated when she became aware of this was her fear from childhood that if you were lazy you were no good. What was highlighted to me from this coaching session was her need for change was real, but because she was unaware of the reason for this then she would have continued creating change in order to escape her fear of being lazy and continued not finding fulfilment. The wheel of life established areas that she felt she wanted to change, using 3 level listening skills and drilling down to her needs beneath her de motivation in her job and need to change we established she had fears. The fears were not only preventing her from feeling happy and fulfilled in her job, they were holding her back in all areas of her life. She realised change was necessary in her life, but she realised firstly the change needed to come from within and beliefs and fears that she had instilled in her from childhood.
Change in our life is important in order for us to attain our dreams and meet our goals but we must always keep in mind what is within our power to change and what is not. It is important for a client to understand where their circle of control and their circle of influence lie for them in an area of their life they feel they want to change. A client can come to an understanding of what they want to change through the coaching relationship, it is equally as important to investigate with a client what it is that’s in their power to have an influence over and what they don’t. The reason this is important is because we can do open the client up to options and choices that exist for them while also ensuring they understand what is within their control. If we try to change things out of our control create frustration and keeps us stuck. A good tool that I have used with clients for establishing this is the GROW model. Once the client has established what needs to change, then I can open up the client to looking at feasible options, and checking for the reality of these options in order to ensure they are all within their control. This motivates the client because they can become clear on precisely what they can do to attain and what real options are available for them to attain this. The client is empowered and motivated by creating their own options and coming to their own realisation of how they are going to make changes.
I have come to realise through writing this essay that in order to have what you want from life and feel fulfilled, we need to be true to yourself. When we can strip away the layers that we use to cover ourselves up and protect ourselves and to get recognition and love from others, we come back to our true self. When we are able to look at what we need and feel from the core of our being we can come to our own awareness of what we value and in turn we can find our motivations to attain goals and live the life that we want. The coaching relationship allows us to clear away thoughts that don’t serve us and allow us to look at ourselves in a different light, a positive light where we can get the best from all our personal qualities and shine and live the best life for ourselves.
References
Neenan, P. and Drydan, W., 2002. Life Coaching: A Cognitive Behavioural Approach. Taylor and Francis e-Library
Wiworth, L. Kimsey-House, H. And Sandahl, P. Co-Active Coaching: New Skills for Coaching People Toward Success in Work and Life. 3rd Edition. Nicholas Brealey Publishing.
Fortang, L B. 2002. Living Your Best Life. Penguin Putman Inc.
King, P. 2011. Diploma in Executive and Personal Coaching. Kingstown College, unpublished.