“A great coach tells you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear”~S. Kaleo
I remember bringing a situation to a coach thinking that I would completely stump her. I believed that my problem was so intense that she would have trouble finding a path for me to feel better. We were in line at Starbucks in Northern California, and I was giving her the facts of the situation and how it all made me feel so crappy. Within 2 minutes she revealed to me that what I thought was causing my upset was not the situation but rather my thoughts about it. I kept repeating how awful the situation was, and she just patiently kept nodding and telling me it was awful because I thought it was awful. My brain seized. My ego was gripping on for dear life wanting to prove my beliefs about the situation true. Then, in an instant, I got it. The proverbial light bulb went off. The aha moment that was so profound, I still think about it 4 years later.
In that 2- minute casual session, my coach helped me reclaim my power. She showed me how I was giving away all my power to an external circumstance, and how I would always be victim to it if I continued to believe that IT was causing my pain and struggle. She taught me that if I wanted to be emotionally strong I had to commit to taking responsibility for ALL of my feelings. Why? Because I was the one creating all of my feelings. In an instant, the old beliefs fell away, and I felt lighter. I felt more in control and so many things in my life changed for the better. Responsibility means our ability to respond to any situation. We get to decide how we want to think, feel, and act in any given situation – even the ones that we believe are so challenging that they have to cause us stress and upset.
Coaching can change you and help you get unstuck
After that 2- minute coaching session, I became obsessed with learning all of the coaching tools that I could. I volunteered to be coached many times and have always hired my own 1:1 coach to help gain perspective and shift thinking patterns that I cannot see while inside my own brain that are holding me back.
I have coached hundreds of students and clients and seen so many light bulbs go off in short periods of time. To see this transformation in my clients has been so exciting and rewarding.
I want to point out that a coach is very different from a friend or family member.
Your friends and family will likely try to agree with you to make you feel better. A coach will remain completely neutral, hold the space for you to fight for you way of thinking, then show you exactly where you are giving up control and how to reclaim it.
Your friends and family will try to make it feel easy and not push you to look at anything you don’t want to. A good coach gets you uncomfortable in order to teach you how to feel that discomfort without running away.
Your coach will teach you how your mind created the problem by creating a story/ a belief that made it so.
Your coach will help you reclaim your power by giving it back to you like mine did in line at Starbucks. For me, this changed everything.
Mere advice from friends and family won’t change you.
Coaching will.
If you want to reclaim your power, schedule your very own sacred hour of coaching, it can change your life.
