Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Traveling South v Heading North


Sometimes all we need is for someone to point us in the right direction…

I was talking to a friend the other day and he asked me what was it about coaching that I enjoyed so much. In answering, I told him about Rick, one of my first clients.

On our first coaching call, Rick told me that everywhere he worked he always started out receiving superb 360 reviews and accolades for his IT genius and skill sets. “Management tells me the sky is the limit and promotions are going to come quickly. But after a while … I don’t know what happens … people change their minds about me. I start getting warnings about my attitudes. I end up leaving before there is anything negative in my permanent files. And then the process begins all over again. I hate this. So does my wife.”

In our second session, I asked Rick to cite his top three values. When he started saying he needed time to think, I told him he actually didn’t and to just tell me what comes to mind. Now. “Freedom, love, and adventure,” he replied.  A nano-second later, he said, “O, no…” He saw it immediately. “Is it possible to change my values?” 

If freedom is your highest value, then how are you going to respond to the increased responsibilities that come with promotions? Rick had been a master of self-sabotage. After a few more sessions, I was able to help him change his entire mindset so that all those past behaviors would no longer be an issue. Within a couple of months, he was promoted and his career was finally taking off.

This is what I love about coaching. My greatest passion in life is helping people to get to where they want to go, both as human beings and in their careers and callings.

Like Rick, the reason many of my clients first contact me is because they are facing a specific challenge or conflict at work or in their personal lives that they can’t get through on their own. What they want is another set of eyes and ears, another perspective, a clearer head, and a wiser approach. This is what I seek to provide.

Most people get stuck in the process of working through challenges and conflicts because their attention is restricted to the surface level. What I help my clients to see is that both the questions they ask and the answers they come up with come from beliefs, value-systems, and cultural influences, that exist on a subconscious level: a level they have never investigated. Before a successful strategy for breaking through their challenges can be mapped out, however, we first need to have an adequate understanding of who the person is, as well as who they wish to become.  Why? Because “Who” always proceeds “What.”

Like Rick, what if you possess beliefs and values on a subconscious level that are actually creating the challenges and conflicts you are facing? Imagine what it would be like to be fully congruent—where your values, beliefs, mindset, and behaviors, all line up in support of your vision for the person you intend to become and the work you know you are to accomplish.

What would your life look like, if you had someone to help you discard the blinders placed on you by others, so that you could see all of the possibilities, not only for solutions to your present challenges, but for personal transformation, as well?

From time to time, we all need someone to help us: a coach who will help us see what we are not seeing, hear what we are not hearing, feel those feelings that we have spent a lifetime avoiding, all so that we can finally get moving again toward whom we were called to become and doing what we were called to do.

If you are feeling stuck or frustrated by a situation in life, please connect with me.  I may be able to help.

As always, my first coaching call is free. You can contact me at MonteThird@gmail.com to schedule your appointment.

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2015

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