Six,Things,Your,Life,Coach,Doe DIY Six Things Your Life Coach Doesn't Want You To Know

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It'simportant to start with the fact that the field of coaching isunregulated. This means that anyone, without any formal training, cancall themselves a life coach. And they can coach any way they please.So caveat emptor! The onus of choosing the coach who will serve youbest is on you.Inmy research, I've found that there are basically 2 kinds of lifecoaches, and the contrast is stark. There are coaches who say they'llhold you accountable and help you stay motivated until you achieveyour goals. They tout their excellent listening and questioningskills as their core talents. In my admittedly unscientific survey,about 99% of the coaches I have met in person and online fall intothis category. Inthe other camp are coaches with excellent listening and questioningskills who say they'll help you develop new ways of thinking andbehaving. These coaches have studied and developed specifictechniques that you can learn, then apply to any issue for the restof your life. The goal of this type of coaching is for you to masterthe skills, using them independently to attain your desires faster,more efficiently and more enjoyably.Inmy opinion, coachingthat goes on indefinitely, with you relying on the support of yourcoach to achieve goals (but not learning new skills) is codependency,not coaching. Intentionally or not, anyone who does this isn't acoach, they're a parasite. True life coaches have a set of strategiesyou can use to evolve yourself for the rest of your life. Beyondmerely achieving goals, coaching is about your growth as a humanbeing.Withthat said, I do believe that all coaches have a genuine desire toassist. However, mostcoaches' training (ifthey have any) is, well, the nicest words I can think ofare...incomplete and, in some instances, inappropriate. Withthat background in place, let's peek behind the curtain at thebiggest secrets in coaching. Secret#1: Promising You Instant Results is ImpossibleTheIndustrial and Information Ages have proliferated a plethora ofgadgets, pills, books and videos that promise instant results. Notsurprisingly, you’ve been programmed to expect that coaching willimmediately make your life better. Accordingly,many coaches feel strong pressure to fulfill this expectation byproducing some kind of dramatic “breakthrough” in every coachingsession. The idea is that if the coach asks you the right deepquestions, you'll have a brilliant flash of insight. There are twofallacies here. The first is in thinking that coaches “do”something to their clients. In fact, it'sup to the client totake the actions that will produce the results they're looking for.Second,coaching is a process, notan event. While you may seesome improvement in one session, life-altering, permanentimprovements take time, repeated focus, and learning new ways to dothings differently. Of course, major shifts can happen, but both youand your coach will put unnecessary pressure on yourselves by tryingto force you to make a huge change you don't need or aren't readyfor.Sure,questioning is a major part of coaching. But the role of questionsisn't to sledge hammer you into a dramatic breakthrough. Questionsare one tool used to guide you in your process of gainingincrementally deeper self-knowledge. The goal of coaching isn't torush to get it done, it's to help you learn as much as you can. Theprocesses of learning and making internal shifts in thinking is asunique as fingerprints and as unknowable as the depths of the ocean.It takes whatever time you need. Even with the biggest crystal ballin the world, nocoach can promise a specific result by a certain date.Anycoach who tells you that you'll achieve a certain level in 1,3, or 10coaching sessions is ignoring your individuality and yourresponsibility for your own growth. This is inconsistent with thebasic philosophy of coaching. Secret#2: PersonalityTests are Worthless for Choosing Your Career Thewidely accepted myth of personality is that, by adulthood, it’s setin stone. But in 100 years of intense study, psychologists can’teven agree on the definition of personality, much less the limits ofits development.Twopopular personality tests that life and career coaches use are theMyers-Briggs and the DISC. Their thinking is that you should choose acareer that matches your personality (shaky ground indeed). Thepurported benefit of this strategy is to narrow the overwhelmingfield of career choices. To alleviate your suffering, the coachsqueezes you into one of a handful of boxes, then hands you arelatively short list of careers that some undefined percentage ofthose with your personality type could be “successful” in. Nevermind that these tests have no scientific validity. Meaning, you couldtake the same test on two different days and get two very differentresults. On top of that, thesetests compare you to arbitrary norms (which are gender, ethnicity andculturally biased), ignoring your individuality and your context. Theicing on the cake is thatsince studies have shown that the Myers-Briggs does not predict jobsuccess well, using it for this purpose isexpressly discouraged in its manual.But inexplicably, lots of coaches make gobs of money doing just that.That just seems unethical, or at least antithetical to the spirit ofcoaching. TheDISC is based on the faulty logic that you possess one of fourpersonality types, which can be teased out by forcing you to chooseone of four options for each question on the test. What if you don'tagree with any of the choices? If you choose enough options thatdon't reflect what you truly think, the results are less thanworthless. They can be destructively misguiding. Thebest coaches will tell you that your personality traits are simplypatterns of behavior you’ve developed (and gotten comfortable with)over your lifetime. As a pattern of behavior, any trait can beconsciously changed any time you like, if you have the tools.Accordingly, their conversation about your career won't use thestrategy of matching a job in Column A to a trait in Column B. Secret#3: TakingAction For The Sake Of Action Undermines Your Real PowerToachieve the results they tout, coaches preach action. Lots of it.They think that if you do more, you’ll get more, faster. They'llsell you fancy spreadsheets and planners to track your actions, too.Butin all of this act-act-act,you can lose sight of your motivation:whyyou want what you want. It’s by staying focused on why you wantsomething—thebenefits of having it—thatyou’ll find the juice to keep pursuing ituntil you get it. AsI stated in my previous post, most coaches describe their role asholding you accountable to take big actions before the next coachingcall. Their strategy is that you'll be motivated by the desires toavoid the humiliation of having nothing to report, and this schemedoes work. Avoiding humiliation is a strong motivator, but it pullsyou away from your greatest source of power: your passion. Soaccountability is the default strategy for coaches who don't have anytools to address the real issue: how to deal with the negativethoughts that block you from freely pursuing your passion.Thebest coaches don't rely on your human drive to avoid pain(humiliation, guilt, etc). Instead, they fan the flames of yourmotivation to seek whatever you're passionate about. Secret#4: SuccessIsn't A Destination, And You Can't Possess ItCoachestalk a lot about achieving success, as if success were a thing youcould possess. Well, if it were, then success would also be adestination. Once you achieve it, you'll be able to sit back andcoast for the rest of your life. Whenyou're driven to succeed, you allow yourself to feel good only afteryou've completely achieved that desire. Butin this scenario,the good feeling eventually fades, which prompts you to go afteranother goal so you can feel good again. However,there’s a huge difference between beingsuccessful andhavinga fulfilling life.Success is adistant external goal you might achieve someday. Every day until thenis about work, effort, sacrifice and pain. Deferred gratification.Onthe other hand, when you choose a fulfilling life, every step youtake in the direction of every desire becomes an act of fulfillment.Youexperience fulfillment as an internal choice that creates a perpetualstate of being: you feel fulfilled every day.Secret#5: SuccessDoesn't RequireDiscipline.Even If You Think You Need It, YouHave Plenty Of ItCoachesinsist that it takes discipline and commitment to be successful. Butyou already possess all the discipline, commitment and courage youneed to get anything you want. You just don't know it, you certainlycan't feel it and you don't need it, anyway. In their defense, mostcoaches are unaware of this, too. Here'sthe proof: If you've ever worked a job you didn't like for more than10 minutes, you have discipline. My bet is that you've worked foryears at jobs you found boring or otherwise uninspiring, did favorsfor others you didn't want to do, and performed admirable householdchores to boot. That takes HUGE discipline! Sogive yourself some credit. Just because you struggle to lose 10pounds doesn't mean you're a wimpy, undisciplined loser. It justmeans you don't know how to focus yet.Aftercoaching 600 people, I've seen that you don’t need to developstrong skills of commitment, courage or discipline to enjoy afulfilling life. All you need is passion. Yousee, passion isn't just a feeling, it's a tour de force. When youengage your passion, tons of energy, discipline, courage andcommitment (more on this next) come along for the ride. What's trueis that it's your nature to think about, talk about and pursue theobject of your passion until you get it. When you think about it,discipline and commitment are just synonyms for the desire to stayfocused on what you want until you get it. Butdiscipline is a heavy word. Baggage-laden with guilt, frustration,disappointment and failure. Coaches are useful for easing the weightof that baggage only if they emphasize the pursuit of passion as thebasis and driver of every goal.Secret#6: CommitmentDoesn't Create Limitations You “Just Have To Live With” There'sa pervasive belief in our culture that making a commitment createslimitations. When you choose one career or one mate, you'reessentially un-choosing every other possibility. You're stuck withyour choice, forever sacrificing other attractive options. Thisperspective misses an important point. Ultimately, a commitment is anexpression of your freedom to choose. Once you choose, you're free toexpress yourself fully in the context of that career, relationship,hobby, whatever. And as long as you live, you're always free tochoose again, and again, and again...Whenyou order the fish, you've excluded the steak or the chicken fromthat meal. But from herbs to cooking methods to side dishes, thereare innumerable variations on any food you choose. Don't forget thatevery meal also includes a salad and a dessert—more ways to satisfyyour palate. The point is, there are infinite ways to spice up yourcareer, your relationships, and every other part of your life so thatyou'll feel full (fulfilled) every day. The only limitation is yourimagination. Youcan't earn a living without choosing a career path. You can't have afulfilling romantic life without a beloved. So choose the steakcareer or mate. Or the chicken or fish career or mate. Just choose,live and learn. You can always choose again if you discover you needto do that.