Be your own life coach
- Kate Sanders
(RD-June 2002)
Laugh your way back to
a happy working and personal life with our professional guide to success.
As her boss murmured his apologies and handed her the envelope, Nicky Hambleton-Jones experienced a familiar sinking feeling. It was the second time she’d been made redundant in a year. What’s wrong with me? she wondered. Why can’t I hold down a job?
Nicky, 30, had little confidence in applying for other jobs as a banking consultant. Then a friend suggested she see a “life coach” – a professional who helps you achieve ambitions in your work and personal life.
Life coach Suzy Greaves encouraged Nicky to take things day by day. “For the first week I sobbed my heart out,” Nicky recalls. “But by the end I was facing up to my future.” She realized she didn’t want a career in banking. Suzy helped develop a vision of a business based on her passion for fashion and design.
“Many people know where they want to be, but don’t know why
they can’t get there,” explains Suzy. “Identifying that block is the first
step. The question Nicky had to ask
herself was: “What am I afraid of?”
In Nicky’s case, she was frightened of failure – and ultimately of not being able to pay the bills. The solution was a part time job to provide cash in the short term, while seeking a loan to fund the new business. Suzy set Nicky tasks each week: for example, a commitment to see three banks and three recruitment agencies. These small steps made the rather daunting change seem manageable.
Today, Nicky has a successful business called Tramp2Vamp, a style consultancy that helps women look and feel their best. And she’s never been happier.
Life coaching is well established in
Bu what if you can’t afford one? You can still benefit from the techniques they use. Here are the main steps:
Write a
life history
Begin by jotting down the story of your life so far – your key experiences, turning points, successes, aspirations and what means most to you. It may help to narrow it down to your top three greatest achievements, disappointments, and most important lessons. “It’s a way of realizing what you have achieved and what you really want in life – your true self,” says British life coach Carole Gaskell.
Now you can focus on activities that feed this vision – whether its saving money for an African safari, writing a resume to apply for a promotion or taking a night class in pottery. Suzy Greaves advises: “Be specific. If you want more money, how much more? If you want love, is it 24-hour adoration you’re after or simply a cuddle on the sofa on Friday nights?”
Learn to
like yourself
Fiona Harrold, life coach and author of Be Your Own Life Coach, believes that being your own best friend is the most powerful thing you can do to boost your confidence. “Sometimes people say the most insulting things about themselves, without realizing how undermining it is.”
Think of someone you know, whom you like, respect and want the best for. Now look in the mirror and have the same relationship with the person you see. Do you talk to yourself as you would to a treasured friend? Do you say how well you are doing? Do you enjoy your own company?
Recruitment consultant Jane Powell, 36, hadn’t been romantically involved for 10 years but knew that she wanted marriage and children.
She went to see Carole Gaskell, who asked Jane to look at the successes in her life – a good job, close friendships, different interests – and to ask friends what they liked about her. The response overwhelmed Jane, who stopped thinking of herself as a failure for not finding a man.
“I began to live for myself, not just hankering after a
relationship,” she says. Three months
later, she met Adam, a 36-year old book editor, at a comedy club and he asked
her out. “Before, I wouldn’t have
bothered, thinking that he wasn’t my type and always expecting the worst. But now I was secure and open to meeting new
people.” Jane and Adam soon got married.
Take
responsibility
Life coaches hold clients accountable for changing their lives. “It can be tempting to blame other people or circumstances for what is happening to you, but this is disempowering,” says Gaskell. “What we think, say and do can have a dramatic impact on our own lives and those around us. While you can’t determine others’ behavior or influence all events, you can choose how you react to them. When you accept that you create your own world, your life really can open up.”
Another life coach, Penelope Dablin, tells clients a story about two brothers. One of them served ten years for armed robbery. When asked why he’d done it, he said that his father had been an alcoholic and had spent years in and out of prison, so how could he be any different?
The second brother, who had a happy family and good job, said that his father’s alcoholism and life of crime had made him determined to do the opposite.
Free up
space
Make sure you respond to the demands in your life by creating space and thinking time for yourself. This can be hard, particularly if you have a full time job and/or a family, but life coaches stress that time to reflect is essential for our quality of life.
“You must believe that you have a right to this,” says Mary
Jo Radcliffe, a coach and counselor based in
Acquire
more energy
Start with the basics. Drink plenty of fluids (about two liters a day) and ensure that your diet is healthy. Work on your physical fitness and make sure you’re getting enough sleep. Learn how to relax and control stress through your breathing: try yoga, t’ai chi or simply practice breathing slowly and deeply.
Work out what gives you energy and what takes it away. Life coach Therese Hoyle says: “You can change your life in a month by plugging up the energy drains – anything from drinking too much coffee to sorting out bills.
Clutter in the home can be a common culprit. Life coaches recommend you have routines to clear your desk of papers and throw out old clothes, books or other possessions you no longer need. This is part of the deeper process of letting go, moving on and living in the present rather than the past.
John Adams,* 41, a project manager for a major tour operator, went to a life coach because he felt dissatisfied with his life and career. The coach helped him realize how many things were draining his energy – piles of filing, broken equipment around the house, an overgrown garden, a car in need of repair and a frustrating boss.
“I realized I focused on negative things, leaving no room for positive thoughts,” John says. “A lot of stress was removed once I started ticking items off the list.” John also started exercising more, which made him feel better about himself. His confidence was boosted and he had more time to focus on what he really wanted. He began applying for jobs and within months was offered a superb management position in his company.
Live in the
moment
If you want to be more efficient, practice focusing 100 percent on whatever you are doing. “Nothing saps energy like the constant feeling that you should be doing something else,” says Mary Jo Radcliffe. She recommends this exercise: Focus for a few minutes on a picture or an object, such as a flower. Concentrate all your senses on its tactile and visual qualities. Gradually build this up to work situations by deciding that for the next, say, 20 minutes, you will focus entirely on your current project, without checking any emails and answering only urgent calls.
Develop your attention span by using the same technique in conversation – train yourself to listen without interrupting, with the aim of fully understanding and connecting with the other person.
Look at
life holistically
We can’t be spiritual all the time – we have to live in the real world. And there’s nothing so de-energizing as not having enough money. Mary Jo Radcliffe had one client whose finances were in a mess. She believed she had a choice – stay in a job she disliked to pay her debts and buy a flat, or leave the job and write a novel. Mary Jo helped her realize it was not “either/or”: if she thought about her life holistically and was financially disciplined she could buy a flat and do her creative work.
Chris Burrow, who runs a coaching service for entrepreneurs and professionals, suggests these steps to clean up your financial act:
Get out of debt – as soon as possible – by making a financial plan, consolidating your debts, cutting up your credit cards, checking you’re on the lowest interest rates for outstanding loans and reducing your monthly expenditure by ten to 20 percent.
Be honest about your real income and spending patterns.
Save for the future – even if you are in debt, put up to ten percent of your income into long term savings.
Understand what holds you back financially – you may have developed bad money habits or just think your finances are unimportant. Unless you change this, you’ll find it very difficult to create future financial security.
But thinking holistically is not just about bringing your finances under control. Chris himself learned this the hard way.
“I used to work in financial services,” he explains. “But my business was not doing well – the harder I worked, the less money I made. A life coach helped me realize that my mistake was focusing solely on the business and forgetting about other parts of my life, such as my wife and five children.
“As a result I’d expanded the business so ambitiously that even working flat out I couldn’t keep it going.”
Bring more
fun into your life
“A lot of suffering arises from taking life too seriously,” says one writer on health and spirituality who uses the name “Barefoot Doctor.” Laughing, playfulness and relaxation are beneficial to the body as well as the mind, affecting how rapidly you age, your immune system and how your body responds to stress hormones.
Barefoot gives the example of a patient of his, a single woman in her late fifties. “Jean came to me for acupuncture to treat dizziness, but soon confided that she was also lonely depressed and lacking in confidence. I gave her the challenge of learning to tango. I wanted her to experience something exciting but in a safe, formalized atmosphere.
“She was nervous at first, but surprised herself by how much she enjoyed it. Her confidence and optimism soared, she made new friends and was literally swept off her feet by an attractive man. Her dizzy spells also disappeared. Learning to tango reawakened her passion for life.”
-- o --
The points: