Coaching as...Booster Rocket ...

Continuing our series...

6. Coaching as Booster Rocket. Our next interviewee, an aspiring business and life coach, has used coaching as an apprenticeship to jumpstart both his coaching skills and his practice. "I think of coaching as a booster rocket," he notes, "and also as a great, cosmic workout machine. It's the best way I know to put feet under your dreams. If you have something you want to do, that's gnawing at you, that you've been procrastinating about, or that you've been working at but are not being as successful at as you would like, then give coaching a try. It will stretch you and assist you to build muscle for the challenges and opportunities of life."

7. Coaching as Dancing Freely. All work and no play not only "makes Jack a dull boy," it also makes coaching ineffective. After several weeks of being focused on productivity and performance, we turned our attention in this interview to a project manager who needed to lighten up. "Not only was my profession intense," she remembers, "but so was my approach to self-improvement. I read all I could and worked really hard. Coaching enables me to let that go and to dance more freely in the direction of my dreams. Everything else is now secondary to loving myself and living without fear. It's as though I can finally hear the music, after years of feeling like I was trapped in a car with no radio. The music I hear now has a beat that makes me want to jump into the street, dancing all out, for everyone to see."

8. Coaching as Trusted Friend. Some coaches limit their work with clients to 90 days or less. Some  invite clients to work with their coaches for as long as they want, and to start and stop along the way. That's because coaching has many similarities to a trusting friendship, as experienced by a medical doctor who came to coaching with dreams of retirement in about a decade. "In running my own practice," he observed, "it's hard to find people to talk with on a peer-to-peer basis. I wanted to talk with someone about my plans, my practice, my anxieties, my finances, and even my marriage, but I wasn't sure where to turn. These are not things I normally talk about with anyone! Nevertheless, I contacted you for coaching with the hope that such a conversation would be possible. And, indeed, you became a trusted friend, outside my everyday world, with whom I could ventilate, develop my half-baked ideas, and discus my plans. Your book recommendations really enhanced my learning. Having now purchased and begun construction on our retirement property, we've moved from contemplating the future to taking action."

9. Coaching as Breath Work. Ironically, we sometimes have to slow down and even to stop in order to take that action. We have to jettison our baggage and break our negative thinking patterns in order to move forward on a different track. Coaching, like breath work, can introduce the mindful pause that releases our pain and opens the door to possibility. "I find it easy to be self-critical and to beat myself up," confided an electrical contractor, "and that creates quite a haze through which to live, work, see, and move. Coaching enabled me to clear the air and to develop a clean intention of my future self. From there, finding a new position in my current field, in a more desirable geographical location, fell right into place. It would not have happened without the intentioning work we did together."

10. Coaching as Couples Campfire. But what happens when the client is a married couple, each of whom have different intentions for the future? That's when it's time to sit before at least a metaphorical, if not a real, campfire, together with a competent coach, in order to sort things out and work things through. "I came to coaching first," remembers the husband and CEO of a small, family-owned business, "but it quickly became apparent that my wife -- who also served as our Sales Manager -- needed to join the conversation. We had different visions for the company and even for our relationship as a couple." "In reality," noted the wife, "there was lots of tension and we were hardly talking to each other. Coaching assisted us to become less critical and more caring. We listen more attentively and share more intimately. I ended up leaving the company and we are now working on a vision for retiring to the Caribbean."

Check back tomorrow for more interviews!

Coaching Inquiry:   Do you want to make some changes in your life? Does it sound like the process of coaching would assist you to shift from contemplating those changes to getting into action? Give me a call or email me:

Sheila Mikulin, M.A.
Life Vision Coaching, LLC
email: sheila@lifevisioncoachingllc.com
Phone  216 932 6012