The coach-inside-you can help
Time management problems, relationship difficulties, workplace conflicts – our life is full of challenges. When we can’t see the forest for the trees, a good coach can help us find our way out of a tight corner. But who said that this coach has to be another person? There are tools, that we can use to help ourselves. And we have tested some of them.
There is no man who doesn’t have difficulties in his life. We also have problems, for which we could not find the solution for many years, and they are very disturbing, making our daily life difficult.
But not everyone can afford to hire their own coach.
Self-coaching was invented for them.
Laura Komócsin’s Toolful Coach manual contains 150 useful
tools with specific examples and exercises.
1. Creative writing:
Let’s pick a problem before us or a mountain to climb.
Let’s find a calm, quiet place, and write down all your
thoughts related to the challenge.
Write for 15-20 minutes without break. It’s not a problem,
if confusing, strange, incoherent thoughts come to your mind. The advantage of
the handwriting is that it activates our emotional right hemisphere instead of
the logical, organising left one.
New ideas, insights, can emerge from our subconscious mind,
that would remain clandestine otherwise. This strange method can be useful if
we face an important decision, and we are not sure what to do, but it is also
an excellent tool to define our goals. We can write down what the ideal day or
year looks like for us, and what we need to do to attain it.
What was my experience? I picked a crisis in my private
life. While I was writing, ideas surfaced continously about what could cause
the problem. I recalled situations, when everything worked well, and I arrived
to interesting conclusions, that led to the solution, too. In only a quarter of
an hour I could see the situation clearer. I understood the connections better
than before. It was a liberating feeling; I could be completely honest, as I
wrote only for myself.
2. Coat-of-arms:
Anyone’s life can be summarised in a coat-of-arms; we do not
need to be able to draw. Let’s pick a paper and split it into two. On one half
draw your current coat-of arms, on the other half draw what your crest will look like in five years’ time.
Include everything that characterises your life – be it a symbolic or a real
drawing. This tool helps to see clearly where we are, and what we want to
achieve.
What did I experience? Even though I do not like drawing, it
was worth a try. I had to think through what fills my life currently, how it is
divided between work and private life. In my future coat-of-arms, I eliminated
less important areas, and gave more room to my family.
3. Wheel of Life or Wheel of Business:
Draw a circle, and divide it into eight parts with
intersecting lines. Write outside the
circle and label each spoke of the wheel with one important area of your life,
for example family, health, hobby, income… Inside the circle draw a scale on
the lines from 1 to 10. Identify, where you are currently on the scale for the
different areas. Then also highight your target value for the close future. At
the end connect the dots. There will be two cobweb-like images showing, which
are the areas where you have the largest gaps between your current and aspired
satisfaction level. Focus on these ones first.
What did I experience? The biggest strength of the image is
that it is very spectcular. You look at it, and it is obvious which are the
neglected areas that need immediate action. I decided right away that I would
spend more time with my husband.
4. Role Model
When we are overwhelmed by
problems, and we think that we have already tried out all the possible
options, it might come in handy to think ourselves in someone else’s skin. How would someone else solve our problem,
someone we look up to ? This might be our partner, a colleague, or a
professional role model.
What did I experience? I have a friend who can manage his
time very well – this is a recurring problem for me. I thought through what he
would do, and I had lots of new ideas. I might not be able to do everything as
he does,but by following his example, I can create my own customised solutions.
5. What if…
When we have a difficult decision to make, the so-called
Tetra Lemma method can come handy. Let’s
think through all the different options to solve it, and consider, what would
happen in six months or a year, if we should take them?
What did I experience?
Nowadays I have to meet expectation in different roles, and I asked
myself whether I can meet all of them with the same energy level. I thought
through what would happen if I stopped one of my jobs, if I kept them all but
expected fewer tasks in each, and what the result would be if I didn’t change
anything. Taking into account the
consequences, I decided to choose the second option for now, but I will revisit
the different options in half a year.
Coaching or therapy?
If we have a problem, and we want to ask for help, it is not
always clear if we need a coach or a psychologist. There are some overlaps, but
they use different principle and different approaches. The therapy often deals
with deep grievances and trauma; and processing the past is an important part
of it. Coaching can be useful for
current problems and challenges, and it focuses on the future, the solution.
The coach helps us discover in ourselves the skills and resources that are
necessary to achive our goal and they support and motivate us to achieve it.
Therapy can last for years, while a coaching process generally includes 5‒10
sessions. It is important that neither the psychologist, nor the coach give
advice. They only help us to draw our own conclusions and find our own
solution.
Author: Aliz Zádrovich
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