The life coaching mindset starts out in self-consciousness and ends in self-awareness. Getting from one state to the other takes some time and isn’t ever complete.
Most people who learn life coaching start out self-conscious. While we are usually comfortable having conversations with people, a life coaching conversation has a different technique. A lucky few get it naturally and the rest of us learn it over time. Self-management is how we do that.
Get curious
What you work for is self-awareness. Your presence is requested. Acknowledge your nerves, and your stage fright and consciously allow it to relax. Then the next step is to become curious about the person you’re talking to. What are they like? What is their perspective? The spotlight you felt begins to fade away.
This sounds like awareness of the other person in the conversation and not self-awareness. The two things happen at the same time. You acknowledge how you are feeling in the moment and then turn that awareness to the other person.
And then ask
Empowering yourself and others to be self-aware starts with powerful questions.
For example, you are asked to avoid “why” questions like “why did you do that?” Asking “why” isn’t really bad, but there are more skillful questions. “Why” could have a dozen answers that would be interesting but not helpful. Most often the only answer to “why” is a shrug.
More powerful would be to ask a “what” question. “What” is more concrete. “What happened? … What happened after that? … What was that like?”
And then listen
W.A.I.T. stands for “Why Am I Talking?” Be aware of how much you are talking and how much they are talking. I mean actual minutes of air time. In a regular conversation, people bounce ideas and anecdotes back and forth.
In a coaching conversation, the coach should do very little talking. Even tolerate some silence without rushing to fill with another question. This bit of self-management allows good questions to come to you and ideas to come to the other person. You start noticing when you need to hush up and let the other person think.
Being present and being curious makes you a good listener in regular conversations and even a better conversationalist!
Your job (if you choose to accept it) is to be present and to be curious. Certainly, those things are vital to being a good life coach but they also grow a good life.
And then let it grow
When you learn life coaching you get coached dozens of times (maybe hundreds!). You learn to explore your own values and goals. That leads to a more peaceful and happy life. You learn a lot. You’ve got it going on! And you want to pass it on.
We know how great personal growth is and we want everybody to be well and happy. (I know there are some people we wish were well and happy way, way over there. But generally…that’s the goal.)
Therefore when someone has a problem we want to jump in and help them fix it. We say “helpful” things with the warmest of hearts. But often it lands like this:
“Here’s the solution. Now get over it.”
I heard recently that telling people the answers to their problems is “cheating.” The word startled me at first.
Then I remembered that each person is naturally creative, resourceful, and whole. As a person becomes more self-aware, their own natural creativity starts to lead them to where they need to go.
Coaching a “learning experience”
Part of self-management is learning to evaluate yourself. After a conversation, think about how you did. Did you let them lead? Did you acknowledge them? Did you stay curious? What would you do differently next time?
What did you learn? Yep. You learn stuff from the other person and you learn from your own mistakes. The world is full of surprises!
Being kind to your own mind does not come naturally to most people, me definitely included. When you mess something up that conflicts with your values it feels bad, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. It distracts from the questions. The powerful questions. What was that like? It was like that. Ouch, ouch, ouch! Okay, so what did you learn?
What do you do when you stub your toe? It hurts. A lot. You wait for the pain to subside (because you know it will in a sec). Then you ask: What did I learn? I learned the coffee table needs to be six inches to the left.
When you learn that thing, you’re done. When the toe stops hurting and the coffee table is moved over, all receipts are paid in full and life moves on to the next thing.
When you mess something up, make a mistake big or small, it often hurts way more than a stubbed toe. That pain will revisit again and again until you acknowledge the mistake and fix what you can fix. The healing comes when all the receipts are paid as much as you can and life moves on to the next thing.
Kind to your mind
Being kind to your mind also means accepting when you do something well. Let it land. Take it in and accept it like a little gift from the universe.
For some reason, it’s easier to say “good job” a child or a friend or even someone you aren’t that close to. But it’s weird to think about saying it to yourself. It’s easy to praise others, but yourself? Not so much.
And stay curious
The things that make you the happiest, align the closest to your values. Life coaching helps you find those values and begin to live according to them. When that happens coaching becomes a way of looking at the world. Coaching becomes a frame of mind. “Be present” and “be curious” become habits.
The more self-aware you become the more empowered you are. The more personal power you have, the more choices you have and the freer you are regardless of your circumstances.
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