The other day, a long-standing Client shared that
he felt tempted to book a session with me and then felt reassured by a surge of confidence which he was able to absorb and initiated action in the situation. For me, this signified notable growth in his ability to dig-into the resources gained in the preceding months of coached conversations. In
his words, “…feeling confident about applying new ways of doing and thinking…”
What stayed with me were the words ‘I imagined how
our conversation will go and accordingly…’ This to me is the deepest
endorsement of the efficacy of a Coaching intervention and the intrinsic
accountability-led piece in the Coaching process. It gets communicated in many
different ways and in personalised expressions from Clients—all pointing
towards this transformative belief that the
resource is within us to work with, in the face of the challenges life throws
at us.
I've heard similar expressions, in different
nuances—“I like this new approach to find solutions hopeful and refreshing…”,
essentially meaning I feel hopeful that I can apply myself and work my way out
of challenges. Or when a Client said, “Nothing seems to unsettle me these
days…!”—I hear these as leaps of faith in capability, enhanced clarity around
life situations, knowledge of inner strength & of the values that are at
the core of it and the optimism derived from this resource
of inner knowing.
This also means that my role in this Client’s life
is growing redundant or requires less frequent intervention. Perhaps not so
lucrative for business but very fundamental to Why
we Coach!
What is also true is what preceded this Transformation – the
many months of committed, engaged, time-consuming, invested, wholehearted
enquiry-led sessions. Also many sessions that were tough, slow to trust,
non-revealing, challenging and not so rewarding on some days.
So this is the Truth: only
once we have been coached and have traversed the transformative
process from hopelessness to optimism, dependency to self reliance, from the
habit of externalizing to feeling empowered & owning our truth, will we
know that many-a-time in our life we can be our own Coach.
And this Truth that we
all can intuitively adopt a coaching approach to build a life that is
adaptable, meaningful and empowered is the inner credential we carry as
self-Coaches.
