Would You Like To Live By Default, or Design Your Life?
Designing your life isn’t exactly brain surgery or rocket science. Part of the challenge is that we often seem to get in our own way. I’m sure that you have noticed how much easier it is to help someone else sort through all of their sticky issues than it is to sort through all of your own sticky issues. The reason for that is a simple matter of perspective.
There’s an old adage I use that goes like this:
“Perspective adds wisdom in any given situation.”
That’s a great little adage that someone way back when penned. When you say this, most people will nod in agreement, “Yea, yes... that’s true.” But getting perspective on yourself, by yourself, is like trying to observe your eyes “seeing.” About as close as you can get is to look at your eyes in a mirror.
If you don’t have a strategy or a plan for your goals and ideas, they “might” happen, after all, ANYTHING can happen. But then you are waiting for other people to “get it together” before you take action. The “wait and see” motis-operanti” is what I call, “living by default.” There’s nothing inherently “wrong” with this, and you’re not a “bad person” if you do that. However, you may be waiting around a very long time for your ship to come in, or opportunity to “knock at your door.” Just remember that when “opportunity knocks,” it’s usually wearing WORK CLOTHS! In other words, you’re going to have to roll up your sleeves and get to work.
It’s also a good thing to remember that if your have something really big that you want to do or achieve, no one is going to care about it as much as you do. Even if you hire people to help you do the tasks needed to achieve your goal, they’ll only be there as long as you are paying them. It’s a rare thing for people to give you their time and sweat equity just because they like you.
Well, here’s the good news. Personal Coaching is an outstanding tool for self-perspective and the creation of plans to solve problems and achieve goals.
In my training to be a personal coach I have noticed that most coaches are very much alike. We all tend to be introspective, patient, empathetic, compassionate, calm, thoughtful, resourceful, positive, upbeat people who thrive when seeing others do and be all they can do and be. We tend to be “possibility thinkers” combined with a healthy dose of down to earth reality.
People who hire personal coaches often have the same experience. After they get into the flow of the coaching, they are amazed at how it is that just by “talking” to someone, doors seem to magically open for them and they make progress that exceeds their wildest imagining. People who have coaches tend to be very focused and clear about what they want and what they’re doing. The net result is like finding a rigged slot machine or a short cut towards their ideal destination.
Would you like to find a short cut towards your dream life or a rigged slot machine? Here’s how!
Are You Looking For A Short Cut?
Wouldn’t it be great if you could find a short cut to your dreams? Remember when you were a kid riding home in a car late at night from a family outing? Your eyes get droopy and BAM! Before you know it, you're home. “Did we take a shortcut home Dad?” I used to ask. “Sure we did son.” I’d hear from the front seat.
Having a personal coach is like finding a short cut to your dreams because a good coach can assist you in finding the shortest distance between where you currently are and where you’d like to be. In the process, you can save huge amounts of time and money figuring out what works and what doesn’t work.
Even if you are not into sports, I’m sure that you have noticed that the world’s best athletes all have coaches and wouldn’t compete without one. We’ve all heard that life is a series of events with the present moment as the main event. Do you want to get in the ring and slug it out all on your own, or would you like to have your coach in the corner. Where would Rocky have been without his coach, Mickey?
Coaches Aren’t Just For People Who Play Sports.
Let’s look at the sports metaphor. Every great athlete has a coach. What’s amazing about sports coaches is that as players, most, but not all, were only okay players. However, they possess an extraordinary understanding of “how” the game is played. They know the game inside and out. They also have the ability to see what a player needs to do in order to perform at their best. The best sports coaches aren’t just tactical-physical technicians. They understand how to support and guide players emotionally and spiritually as well.
Personal Life Coaches are very skilled listeners. They not only listen to the words that are being spoken in a coaching session, they are listening for and tuning into the subtle underlying messages within a coaching conversation. By asking pertinent questions, a personal coach can cause a shift to occur in the thinking of the person being coached.
What separates a coaching session, as opposed to a chit-chat session with a friend or relative, is that the coach has nothing to prove and therefore does not engage in one-upsmanship or simply being polite, waiting for the other person to stop talking so that they can get the microphone and tell you what’s on their mind. When this happens in a conversation there’s actually very little listening going on between the two people.
Coaches listen intensely and since the conversation is for your benefit, they’re not on the other side thinking of what they want to say when you’re finished with your statement. Coaches just take in the conversation and after a period of time, will ask questions that are directly related to what’s up with you at the time. It is an amazing process that gives cause for new possibilities to be brought out as a result of a skillful listener and questions that open up the thinking mind to new possibilities.
Back to the sports metaphor for a moment. An Olympic athlete wouldn’t dream of competing in the Olympics without a coach. We tend to see coaches most of the time with baseball players, football players, fighters, or gymnastic athletes. Obviously, the coaches aren’t able to slide into home base, catch a Hail Mary throw, slug it out in the ring, or perform on the parallel bars the way young athletes do. But they know what to look for, how to suggest, and how to guide the players.
Personal coaches are the same. A personal coach may not know all of the fine details of your profession, but because they are new to the topic and have a broader perspective, they can see trends, possibilities, and patterns that the coachee often misses because they are too close to their own situation.
Who Uses The Services of a Personal Coach?
People from all walks of life and all stratus of the social-economic playing field hire the services of a coach - business owners, entrapeneurs, corporate executives, managers, freelancers, students, artists, construction workers, retirees, doctors, lawyers, stay-at-home moms, and more. Coaches come from every background imaginable and are very resourceful people. In other words, they often know someone, who knows someone, that might have an answer for you if they don’t had a direct answer for you. They are very adept at pointing you towards the next step in your journey of creating the life of your dreams.
By using astute observations, supporting, guiding, suggesting, and encouraging, a good coach can help you to leap frog your way towards your ideal. In the process they can save you hundreds of hours and months of your life’s time and possibly thousands of dollars as well.
So What’s Your BIG DREAM?
Is there something that you have always wanted to do, but were never able to get traction on to move you towards your goal? Most of us have some kind of big dream that has never come true. It could be running for public office, writing a book, singing in coffeehouses, racing a sports car, traveling the world... WHATEVER! If you have a big dream or goal, hiring the services of a personal coach is time and money that is highly leveraged. In other words, for a few hours a month and few hundred dollars, you can be on the fast track towards seeing your dreams become a reality.
A Personal Coach can assist you in the creation of a set of blueprints for creating a life that you would love. Stop for a moment and reflect on the fact that except for the things that occur in nature (trees, animals, weather, etc.) everything else that you see was once an idea in someone’s mind. They took their ideas, formulated them, had conversations, formed plans, and carried out the steps necessary to bring their ideas into reality. Anyone can do this... including YOU.
Your ideas are just as valid as anyone else's ideas. Bringing your ideas into reality is where the challenge lies. A trained Personal Coach can assist you in making your dreams come true.
PS - If you have never seen the movie, "Rocky" go rent it today. Here a great little dialog exchenge between Rock and his coach, Mickey while Rocky is in the middle of a fight:
Mickey - "Well, your nose is broke!"
Rocky - "How does it look?"
Mickey - "Ahh... it's an improvement!"
