Why bother with coaching? Some people use coaching to regain their health. Some use coaching to manage chronic conditions or overcome addictions. Some use coaching to improve their marriages. Some use coaching to initiate and sustain personal growth,learning and change. Some use coaching to fulfill their purpose on earth. I believe coaching is a tool that can enrich our lives, so that we may fully express our creative abilities. We are all here to live on earth and create circumstances that are unique to each of us. At times we seem to create masterpieces and sometimes we create disasters. Coaching uses both as methods of learning and expanding.
Coaching can help you see what’s really possible for you. It can cause you to see how small you’ve been thinking. You can play a wildly bigger game. This applies to most aspects of life. The most important is happiness. Being happy and thankful for being alive is very important. That is the primary goal for all of us. Next you may seek to achieve better physical, mental and emotional health, lose weight, control addictions, achieve goals, manage stress, get on top of pain, improve relationships with friends, partner and family and adopt a wellness/balanced lifestyle.
The question arises: Can I set my sights so high? Can I let myself attempt this? In other words, am I ready to release my old limitations? Can I stop worrying about the opinions of others? Am I up for leading a richer life in every way? At this point many people ignore these questions and go back to their old comfort zones.”Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t” goes the saying. My job is to assist you re-ignite, re-inspire and re-invigorate your drive towards your visions and dreams. Here are five steps to help you stop playing small and start really living…..
1 Mind your Mind:
Your thoughts manifest things. Thoughts can be powerful tools or devastating weapons depending on their nature. You are in charge of your thoughts. It can take time and lots of patience to set yourself free from years of negative thinking. You may have been trapped in negative thinking habits, but you can change them to positive thinking habits. Coaching is most effective at helping with the inspiration and motivation process. All I need is your permission,your agreement and then you have to pitch up for the sessions. Do you constantly berate yourself, doubt yourself, or obsess and worry about how you might fail or listen to the limited opinions of others? Set your intentions and sights on overcoming these negative predictions. Create daily habits to keep re-aligning yourself with positive energy like enthusiasm, gratitude, mindfulness, joy and being in the present moment. Never forget that ” where attention goes, energy flows”. Be the guardian of your mind. Persist to assist yourself. I will also back you up 100%.
2 Move Forward:
Stop waiting for confidence, self esteem, or inner peace to appear before you take action. Life does not work like that. Confidence and self esteem show up because and when you take action, not before. What action step or baby step can you take toward your dream goals today? Even if it is a mundane goal, just take that first step. Just DO IT! Go for it!
3 Success Surrounds You:
Do you complain about your life to anyone who will listen to you? Do you tell your sad story to get people to feel sorry for you? Most of us are tempted to indulge in self pity and self pity loves to bring everyone else on board. The opposite is to radiate success. Move from being victim to victor. At times those around you may hate that because they are entrenched in playing poor me victim games and you are attempting to break out of that mode. Misery loves company.
Stop tweeting or facebooking about how miserable you are. Don’t moan about your current challenges with your clients or partner. Refrain from whining to your friends about how hard it is to run your business. That is the sort of thing you process with your coach if you need to get it out of your system. Promise yourself today to break the bad habit of complaining to anyone you meet. Reserve venting to the appropriate time and place. The key point is that “Like attracts like. When you radiate success, then you draw success to you.” If you find yourself speechless because your habitual communication has been suspended because it tends to be complaining, stay in that uncomfortable sacred space. A breakthrough is probably around the corner. Apply what you have learnt from coaching. Make sure that you resonate with success. It will save the day!
4 Being Uncomfortable:
“If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got.” This famous saying applies to our so called ‘comfort zones’. Do you feel trapped? Have you failed repeatedly? Does it feel like you are going round in circles, a prisoner of circumstance? Are you merely existing instead of truely living? Are you getting used to feeling somewhat unwell? Do you feel unfulfilled? Do true happiness and inner peace elude you? These could be vital signs that you are locked into those most insidious of traps–the emotional, material, and spiritual wastelands of the so called Comfort Zones.
I’ve worked with hundreds of people as coach, mentor and counselor. Those who create breakthroughs are always the ones who are willing to leave behind their comfort zones. They let themselves get scared, yet they say yes to new opportunities. A book by Susan Jeffers is titled ‘Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway’. No matter how uncomfortable, successful people ask themselves what they want and how they can create it. People who live big have one thing in common. They learn to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. This is how you escape the comfort zone of minimal growth and zero creative expansion. Your lungs provide you with an example. In order to survive and breathe, you have to let go of the old breath. That is uncomfortable. For those with restricted breathing or asthma, it is difficult and seems to involve some risk, but the reward is great. The new breath fuels you to potentially do all sorts of exciting things. All you need is coaching that will engender insight and guidelines for you that will help to nudge you out of your nest of restrictive ‘security’ and enable you to experience the flight of freedom that will lead to true growth and fulfillment in your life.
5 Surround Yourself with Support:
I started coaching 15 years ago. I swear by this model of support, training, motivation and inspiration. I have studied coaching and worked with numerous coaching groups and mastermind support groups. Mindful or holistic coaching works wonders. At first it is daunting and strange and people confuse it with therapy. I combine it with energy psychology which includes EFT/tapping, visualization, NLP, CBT and a number of powerful techniques. These can be used to detoxify the sabotage programs that most of us carry around inside ourselves. My primary goal in life is mindful awareness, inner peace, love and joy. Achieving any of these as a goal is what successful living is all about. Starting from establishing a point of balance, we then move toward the goals in life that you seek to achieve. I believe in you. I know you are brilliant and I want you to succeed. The big secret of coaching is that we all need an encouraging believer in us. Someone who will never give up on you and someone to be accountable to. Accountability is crucial, so that you do not put off and postpone doing those amazing things that you are capable of.
Many people do not do this. Instead they take a ‘duct tape’ approach to their own support and nurturing. They patch things up, hoping they can continue to get away with their same old fearful behavior ducking out from taking meaningful action. Meanwhile they promise themselves that “some day the time will be right” and they will get some real support then. That never works. They stay at the same level where it is sort of comfortable. I so understand this mentality, having been a procrastinator deluxe for most of my life. Using this system I was able to stop putting things off and revel in getting most things done. Many people live and socialize in toxic environments. If this is you, then step out of your comfort zone and actively seek out positive people who want to create and attract their dreams. Also read their books, listen to their lectures and watch their DVDs.
Surround yourself with encouraging believers who are, like you, fully invested in their success and who want you to succeed. You can create and attract your dreams. Surround yourself with people who want to live big and soon you too will enjoy a more fulfilling life.