Recently, a current client decided to continue on their own.
It feels right to them to do this. Over the past time with me, they have learned useful, effective tools, seen some patterns that they hadn’t seen before and now know far more about what they’d like to achieve next. They’ve had support and seen ways to lift themselves up when time got tough.
I’m not sure how this will work out. No reflection on the individual, but it’s so much harder to change a long-existing pattern on your own.
Imagine you live next door to a bakery. You want to lose some weight and that you love sweet things. To be successful on your own, here’s what you’d need to do:
- Every single time you feel the craving for something sweet, you don’t go buy a cake. For long enough – months at least – that the craving never occurs again or you can consistently, reliably and 100% of the time resist it. Also when you are out to dinner or doughnuts are brought into the office, or it’s someone’s birthday or a kid’s party.
Whatever thing in your life you want to change is similar – there’s temptation, lots of history of doing that thing and probably numerous unsuccessful times of trying to change it.
This is what is going on during that process:
- You are aware you have the temptation – perhaps more aware now than ever before
- You have long experience of going next door to buy a cake and returning home to enjoying it – that’s a well-trodden path in your mind and your life
- You now need to notice the signs of wanting a cake – preferably the very early signs, before it gets too powerful to resist
- You have to do this on your own, day after day
- You have to be able to do this outside your home too – in public, with friends and coworkers, to say no when you have always said yes before.
- You have to resist self-recrimination when you fall off the wagon, and navigate others’ opinions and criticism
- You have to analyse why you fell off the wagon and design ways to avoid that next time
- You have to be positive and optimistic that you can do it even after “failing”
- You have to cheer for yourself and reward yourself (without popping next door)
And all of this is perfectly possible. But the chances of doing this alone are nowhere near as high as having someone in your corner 24/7 to help you.
What if this thing isn’t as simple as visiting a bakery. Perhaps you want to be more confident, to speak up for yourself at work. To put yourself first at least some of the time without feeling selfish. To delegate and not pick that task back up again the moment it’s not done right.
To stop being the one who does everything and step into the CEO role in your business.
Those patterns have existed inside you for years, if not decades. It’s possible to spot them and reprogramme them on your own – but that’s an uphill journey, with a lot of trial, error and disappointment to navigate by yourself.
In many ways, the most significant shift you will ever make in coaching is the decision to be coached in the first place – or, in this case – to continue to be coached. At that moment, you accept that you will not be able to do it alone and find a way through self-judgement, I’m not good enough, I OUGHT to be able to do this etc.
That takes courage and humility, especially to say out loud to someone else.
It’s the hardest first step. Knowing when you are ready to go it alone is similar, but more deceptive, because it can feel like you are equipped now and this time you’ll do it.
Perhaps the biggest single gift that coaching brings is the opportunity to know yourself better. And it’s also the most valuable, because – when you can truly know yourself – you know what you can succeed at alone and what you can’t.
Incidentially, this has created a space in my calendar – more on that shortly.