2011 New Year's Resolutions

It is that time of year again.  Here are my 2011 New Year's Resolutions:

(1) Appreciate happy times.  

(2) Reach milestones with my start-up business.  Create my first products, launch my website. See if it has promise to be a full blown business.

That's it for now.

Life Coach Experience, Part II

This blog post is about my past year's experience working with a life coach and is a continuation of a previous post, here.

This picture has nothing to do with the subject of this blog post, but contains relevant scuba diving information

What immediately struck me upon meeting Vicki was that her style of coaching complemented me well.  First of all, she is a certified "Fearless Living" coach.  This means that she espouses familiarizing ourselves intimately with our deepest fears, encourages being conscious of our reaction to our fear, and provides tools for handling our fears.  She also espouses embracing our fears, and "being uncomfortable with being uncomfortable." I aspire to be a courageous person, so her brave style of coaching appealed to me.  She also mentioned that she used to work at a large company before getting fed up and striking out on her own to launch her own coaching business.  This attitude also appealed to me, since I, certainly don't wish to climb the corporate ladder for the rest of my life, and would someday like to be my own boss.

I was also impressed with her abundant intuition. On many of our meetings, she surprised me by honing in on things I didn't realize about myself, or providing an insight that completely changed the way that I look at my life.  I spoke to her about what I perceived to be weaknesses, and she helped me reframe them into extensions of my strengths.  For example, I perceive one of my worst problems to be an inability to verbalize quickly on my feet.  Vicki reframed this supposed weakness into a result of one of my strengths, my ability to think things through thoroughly and in great detail.  Another weakness of mine that I mentioned was being overly-emotional, which can be dangerous at work. Vicki pointed out that my emotionality showed passion, and a strong sense of truth, and of right and wrong.  The general point to this exercise of turning my weakness into a strength was getting to know myself better and learning how to leverage my own strengths instead of nit-picking on my weaknesses.

Another major insight that I got from working with Vicki was realizing what my trigger was.  Everyone has a main fear, or trigger. A trigger is something that will cause people to overreact and behave irrationally when triggered.  My trigger just so happens to be "loser".  This means that I make great efforts to never be perceived as a loser in front of others.  And often times, I will be paranoid and misinterpret others as perceiving that I am a loser, when in fact that is not the case.  It wasn't until recently that I learned that not everyone is driven by the same "loser" trigger that I am driven by.  Some people, for instance go to great lengths to avoid being perceived as "selfish", "inauthentic", or "weak".  And I have recently met people who admitted that their trigger was "unlovable", which I find to be alien, but I have no doubt is a miserable fear.

Ironically, the efforts we make to avoid our fears can misfire.  For example, my "loser" trigger drives me to self-destructively compare myself to others, to over-apologize, and also to work furiously under a dark cloud of negativity.  Since identifying my trigger, I have become more adept at catching myself.  Oftentimes I will be working on a project and the following internal monologue will repeat in my head: "Everyone thinks I'm a loser, and will think my work sucks", "Everyone is going to hate this". I am beginning to learn how to interrupt this vicious circle of negativity. Sometimes I will reach out to a coworker and start a friendly conversation, sometimes I will take a deep breath or go for a walk.  Then, I change my internal monologue with the following playback loop: "How can I do better?  How can I excel? How is this fun?"

There are so many insights that I have gained by working with Vicki, that they are maybe too much to write about in this one blurb.  But I wanted to reiterate that Vicki has been a life coach who has not only provided me communication skills and techniques, all useful in navigating this game of life, but has also challenged myself to look deeply within myself and to become better acquainted with my deepest emotions and fears.  Her brand of coaching and encouragement is not always the most subtle, or gentle.  She herself states on her website: "Because sometimes you need more than a gentle push."  I have definitely appreciated her comment that I should become "comfortable with being uncomfortable" and I definitely appreciated her when, after a long session of complaining and feeling sorry for myself, she encouraged me man up and to "put my big girl pants on".

If you are interested in learning more about Vicki's coaching services, her information can be found on the following website:

http://mykickasscoach.com/

Also, you can find her on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/MyKickAssCoach

Life Coach Experience

One of the most significant things that happened to me this year, was deciding to work with a life coach.   As I revealed in an earlier blog post, I have been working with my life coach, Vicki, for the past 6 months.  I was not the first in my circle of friends to get a life coach. Two of my friends have gotten coaches (career or life coaches) before me.  These coaches helped my friends to varying degrees, but nevertheless, I was impressed by my friends' courage in taking steps in their personal growth, and vowed to eventually make similar steps of my own.  Beginning with my meditation retreat several years back, I have been making my personal growth a priority.  I consider my working with a life coach as continuation of what will be a life-long quest for self-discovery.

The above picture has nothing to do with the subject of this blog post, but who can a resist a cute kitty picture?

From what little I know of the profession of life-coaching, a life coach is similar to a sports coach, except instead of guiding, critiquing and cheering on the players of a sports team, a life coach guides, critiques, and cheers on a person in their life's endeavors. I decided to get a coach because I felt that I was getting myself into difficulties at work time and time again, and at work place after work place.  The only common denominator to these work situations, it seemed, was me.  So I decided to get an outside perspective to aid me to see what I was doing wrong, to help me to have the correct conversations with coworkers, and to present myself in a better way.

By hiring a life coach, I expected to get a toolbox of skills and techniques, and rules of thumb to help me navigate my work perils better. I am getting these things, but in addition, I think I am getting something a little deeper.  (As a side note, not all coaches are created equal.  A friend of mine who hired a life coach was asked to attend karate classes, and to attend Toastmasters to pump up her confidence, and to improve her public speaking skills.  The coach even went clothes shopping with my friend for work clothes. I thought that my friend was very brave to try on a new persona. But I felt I could hardly recognize my friend anymore after her coaching sessions were over.)

Vicki and I speak for an hour on a biweekly basis.  The conversation is conducted over the phone. Coaching sessions are not inexpensive.  For the cost of hiring a coach, I could be buying a couple of expensive pairs of shoes every month.  Before each coaching session, my coach sends me a list of pointed questions to ask myself:

What are the roadblocks I am now experiencing? What is it you are not willing to bring up? What do I want my coach to help me with during this call?

In addition to these questions, I have also been e-mailing Vicki twice before each session.   This can be something that is bothering me, a success, or whatever.  Finally, after each coaching session, Vicki writes her coaching notes, which contain "homework", usually reading assignments, and insights from the coaching session.  I have been using the insights to guide me in how I behave towards myself and others, and revisiting these insights as need be.

To be continued...