How to Feel Safe and Stable While Staying Flexible Especially in times of change, it’s…
Coaching? That is how you can help change along the way
Declutter
We all have issues that concern us and sometimes we are stuck, unable to make progress on our own. When faced with a major decision or challenge, we need feedback or a different perspective to unravel the seemingly insoluble knot of interests, needs, expectations, etc.
It is mainly about acknowledging that we have come to a point where help is needed. Asking for it is not weakness.
For Tina as for many other successful career people like her who have already made it to the top, it was difficult to admit that she had reached a point where she needed to reassess her priorities. But everyone gets stuck somewhere at some point and doesn’t really know how to proceed.
And then it is time to consider who could support and how. Sometimes it’s enough to talk to someone like a good colleague, a trusted person, the supervisor, or a mentor: honest feedback, good advice, a few valuable tips and we’re back on track. In other cases, a coaching can be a more suitable help to reach clarity and to achieve different goals.
Who can help?
Coaching can be crucial in change processes. There are many coaching methods, all valid, the main thing is that they lead you closer to your goal. It is important therefore to choose the right support for you and your situation.
So first ask yourself who can give you the support you need and how.
- Does the coach have the knowledge and experience to help you find your answer? What do you want to achieve, what should change and how should the coaching contribute to achieving this goal?
- What can you achieve with this method, with this coach, that you have not been able to do on your own yet?
- How does this coaching differ from others? Can you work along with this person? Is there trust Does the chemistry work?
- How does the coaching lead you to act on your intentions so that you really change something?
A good base of trust and an appealing working method will make your choice for the right coaching easier.
A coach certainly does not solve your problems and is also not a therapist. Rather, a coach supports you in a change process so that you can see new possibilities and open new doors. Questions, experiences or a changed perspective are often the first step towards positive changes.
Especially for managers like Tina who don’t want to show any weaknesses, coaching offers the great advantage that the exchange takes place with a neutral sparring partner, outside her usual environment.
Tina, for example, is at a point where she’s hitting walls at work and is experiencing a career stop. In order to know where she stands, to move forward, she need first to understand how she got this far and which behavior of might be the root cause of it all.
Change starts with you
Changing her situation and finding orientation, requires her willingness to deal with hersself. That’s not always pleasant. Because the economic crisis, the unmotivated team, the new supervisor, changed conditions or whatever she brought up, are partly just an excuse she was hiding behind – Fact is, she no longer feels well in her own skin, she is frustrated, exhausted and tired of putting extra hours with no outcome: she has to change something and start by herself first.
Coaching has nothing to do with weakness. Accepting the “fight” means nothing other than confronting the daily challenges in the best possible way. Tina has realized that she can improve her situation much quicker with the support of an external coach.
During coaching, she could let go: we set her body and mind in motion with movements and analogies from martial arts. The Budo-coaching (martial-arts based coaching) supports her in discovering, developing and implementing feasible solutions that she works out by herself.
Through targeted martial arts exercises, Tina got in touch with her body and her mind, beginning to deal with those emotions, thoughts and behavioural patterns that she had ignored for a long time and without feeling that she is being exposed. It just happens. And she feels lighter.
Ready for a different course
➡️ She understood that she had to use her energy differently.
We need energy to create and to change things; too much “fire” or yang can burn out – so we need to pay equal attention to the yin and recognize when it’s time to relax or let go.
➡️ Coaching is a good opportunity to reflect on your own goals, to regroup and to get feedback from others.
That is why coaching also encourages you to try something out. Coaching is a motivating framing for change. It points to solutions that you cannot see clearly yet.
➡️ She has stopped getting angry about circumstances that are outside hers sphere of influence; at the same time, she has recognized the things that she can influence and change. In herself and in the way she leads.
➡️ She has experienced that when she moves her body, she is mentally stronger and more creative. Now she is sitting at her desk and ideas are bubbling out of her on how to organize her team differently so that tasks are distributed more evenly and efficiently. She is more conscious about her time and how to organize her schedule, in such a way that she finds rest and time to balance her energy.
➡️ She realized that she doesn’t have to shoulder everything alone: her team is there and happy to help and do more!
The next appointment will be for a team coaching. Breeding ground for development is now there.
If you are also going through change, be patient with yourself:
- Everything takes time
- Other people are not the answer to your happiness – you are in charge
- Grow and never stop working on yourself
- Change is inevitable
- Your mistakes do not define you; they help you grow
- You are strong and capable of more than you think
Need help? Get in touch. We would be happy to support you along the way.