I had heard about the concept of ‘life coach’ a long time back in college. It sounded like one of those things you paid an obnoxious sum for to get to know things you probably already know about yourself. It seemed unnecessary and too self-absorbed an activity. How could an outsider know me better than myself? Cut to today, I’ve come a full 180 degree on that stance.
As life passes and gets more complex, somewhere along the journey your inner voice gets blurred. There are louder, rowdier voices scheming for attention, or, worse, you just get in the habit of ignoring your voice without realizing it. Sometimes the reasons for ignoring are denial, sometimes distraction, busyness, not enough introspection and or getting influenced by what society considers as normal.
Whatever be the reason, this leads to a disconnect between your core values and your actions. Coaching helps you hear your inner voice more clearly and identify actions that are not serving your values.
We also subconsciously pick up habits and patterns and ways of doing things that end up serving as barriers on the path to self-development and growth. Even if you think of yourself as the most flexible of people, you could be an unwitting prisoner of fixed patterns.
For example, I’ve been telling myself I want to build a daily practice of writing but I have been putting it off under the “don’t have enough time” excuse bucket.
I’ve been trying to make a practice of writing at night after my workday is over. That usually poses a lot of challenges as I am mentally and creatively exhausted by then and want to do something less intellectually demanding - like watching a TV show or reading or just relaxing.
This has been a longtime challenge. There have been times when I was successful in sitting down to write for a few days - but the pattern would quickly break as it was susceptible to my mood, energy levels and generally a lot more distractions.
When I brought this up during coaching, the question my coach posed was - “What if you were to write first thing in the morning, instead of last.” My immediate response was - ‘But, I need some time by myself in the morning, to leisurely get up, to introspect, drink water (I spend a surprising amount of time just sipping water) and do a bit of exercise.”
The second question he posed was “What would happen if you were not to do these activities first thing in the morning.”
That led to a flurry of thoughts and questions in my mind.
I asked myself, “Is it absolutely important for me to spend time on these activities first thing in the morning.” The answer was No. “Are these activities currently more important to me than building the habit of writing” “No.”
“Can some of these activities be shifted later during the day (like exercise)”. “Yes.”
I have always known that I am generally better at following a habit if it’s scheduled first thing in the morning compared to the evening. However, because I was too stuck in my fixed way of doing things, I never considered making any changes to my sacred morning routine.
We all have blind spots, biases and beliefs about ourselves which are probably not serving us. Coaching helps you see more clearly - helps you to somewhat remove the mud that’s blurring the water. Slowly through the sessions, you see your actions, intentions and motivations more clearly.
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