To perform at the highest level, we need accountability partners. Being accountable to a coach can immensely take someone to a life they find admirable and memorable.
We are all products of teachers. Why should we stop being students? If you analyse the lives of top performers you will find a teacher, a mentor, a trainer or a coach. The best of the best have one or more coaches in their lives, businesses or professions.
Tony Stoltzfus (Author of Coaching Questions) said “Coaching is an ongoing intentional conversation that empowers a person or group to fully live out their calling."
Coaching and Mentoring International (CMI) also notes that "coaching is a human development process that involves structured, focused interaction and the use of appropriate strategies, tools, and techniques to promote desirable and sustainable change."
What distinguishes coaches in the area of personal development?
Personal is critical that it can’t be left to the vagaries of chance and luck. Personal development coaches help to develop very distinct and clear goals.
We all have goals. However, some of those goals are quite hazy. Saying I need a car isn’t something serious. Saying I need a job too isn’t to be taken seriously.
In a way, we are doubtful of ourselves or our capabilities. We all have some level of impostor syndrome that needs curing. Some may use all sorts of defence mechanisms to deny this. Coaches help in goal clarification.
A good coach can help in navigating through the landmines of fear, doubt and paralysis. Goal clarity through challenging assumptions and beliefs boosts being action-oriented, results-oriented, purposeful and intentional.
A distinctly clear goal is paramount for catalysing decision-making and action. Remember that the most prevalent disease among humankind is procrastination.
Clarity empowers an individual to focus on something that is valued. Clarity is focusing on the right things. Coaches help us develop the requisite skills that can propel us to accomplish our goals. We are paid because of the skills we have.
Mental barriers can bar outstanding performance. Coaches understand that we all have varying degrees of internal obstacles that can hinder the scoring of goals.
Excelling is more of a mental game than resources. Can you believe that around 1970 South Korea had a number of slums until there was a form of mind modification that instilled in people the mindset that it is possible? Fear of failure, self-limiting, anxiety and fear are some of the mental blocks that can damage one’s aspirations.
To perform at the highest level, we need accountability partners. Being accountable to a coach can immensely take someone to a life they find admirable and memorable. Coaches keep you honest especially when it comes to performance audit.
What about when you don’t score? How do we manage failure as a cornerstone of exceptionalism? If failure isn’t managed with help it can lead to giving up.
What are some of the arsenals that are used by coaches so that clients flourish? They use thought-provoking questions, the power of visualisation, SMART goals, SWOT analysis, wheel of life, journaling, mind mapping, strengthsfinder and time management weapons. My personal favourite is asking for thought provocatively.
Having a coach will continuously improve certain areas of life that we aren’t performing optimally. The chief problems are lack of knowledge or the abundance of ego. Have at least one coach in something.
