WHY COACHING?

WHY COACHING?

By: Rick Wells, MA, MDiv, CC

Published On: June 20, 2014

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, then coaching may be a way of eliminating the unnecessary frustrations and impediments so you can progress toward a renewed vision for your life.

• Have you ever decided to do something but never actually got around to doing it?
• Have you ever run into a roadblock or dead end on your journey through life?
• Have you ever been frustrated, believing you were capable of more but somehow not achieving your full potential?
• Have you ever had a vision, set a goal or made a resolution that never became a reality?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, then coaching may be a way of eliminating the unnecessary frustrations and impediments so you can progress toward a renewed vision for your life.

So often people begin new ventures with great intentions only to realize that having a goal and making plans how to achieve that goal are very different things. Goals, by definition, are things that we want to achieve. That much most of us seem to understand but what most overlook is that fact that there are actually two parts to a goal, the “what” and the “how”. We may think we know what we want but often we get stuck on the how, perhaps by not knowing what to do or by not knowing how to do it. However, more likely we get stuck because we limit the options available to us and we overlook the fact that we are stuck in a limiting lifestyle. This is where a coach helps you develop a plan that will push through your self-limiting boundaries.

Whether we admit it or not, we all limit ourselves to some extent as a way of coping or protecting ourselves. Sometimes the limitations are defence mechanisms we have adopted as a result of incidents or threats that we experienced many years ago, and even though the threats may no longer be real, our coping mechanisms remain subliminal limiting characteristics ingrained within our psyche.

For example, a child who was told repeatedly that he would never amount to anything in life, may grow up fearful of taking risks and trying new things; the abusive threat is defended against by living as safely as possible so as to avoid potential failure. Sadly, the protective behaviour rather than proving the abuser to be wrong, leads the victim to become somewhat of a self-fulfilled prophecy and classic underachiever. Never believing himself capable of great things, he develops a pattern or habit of not allowing himself the freedom to try new and different ventures.

Being creatures of habit is a double-edged sword, on the one hand our healthy habits can help us become very disciplined but on the other hand our inappropriate habits can also limit our potential. Old limiting habits die slowly because by nature we gravitate toward the familiar, particularly in times of stress, but with some thoughtful coaching, new avenues of opportunity can be opened to us.

There is much more to coaching but hopefully these few thoughts will stimulate you to ask whether or not you have inadvertently set limitations that have kept you from realizing your potential and full enjoyment of life?

I have a friend whose mentor gave him these simple words to inspire him to live to his full potential: “Make sure that when you die, you having nothing left to do.”

If you still have things you would like to do and just don’t seem to know how you will do it, then perhaps a good coach will be able to help and encourage you on your way.