How do you show up to coaching for you? Would you say that you are coachable? And/or coaching ready?
You know the saying that we can only work with others to the depth that we have gone ourselves. So are you all in when you are being coached?
This is a question that Patrick Harding asks the high-performance sports people he works with before he will commit his time and energy to them, and I found it really powerful to ponder. And not just for me to ask the people who approach me for coaching. But also for myself.
Am I all in? Am I willing and able to get into the dark places as well as the light? Am I willing to become my best?
This question is flowing around my body. It’s not just in my head. Intellectually, I may be ready (being the good girl, preparing what I want to work on in coaching). But am I emotionally ready? What mindsets are holding me back?
I can argue that working on those mindsets is part of the coaching. I am often blind to them until I start talking out loud in coaching (and/or therapy/supervision). And I can be working on those mindsets in between times too.
Maybe we should step back a moment though….do you even have coaching for yourself? If not, why not? As I wrote above, you can only go as far with the people with whom you work as you have gone yourself. And isn’t it a little hubristic to think that you have nothing left to work on? For those of you who are new into the coaching field, you may feel as though you had to think of so many things to be coached on in your training that you have run out of things to bring to coaching. But the learning about yourself never ends. You might space it out for a while, but don’t give up on coaching for yourself.
Personal development
Julia Carden and Elizabeth Crosse wrote an insightful article for May’s Coaching at Work magazine, about the difference between CPD and CPPD.
- CPD: Continuous Professional Development
- CPPD: Continuous Professional and PERSONAL Development
CPD generally includes formal learning. But personal development is much broader as it’s about who we are as a human being.
That might come from coaching, supervision, and therapy but also from yoga, breathwork, cold water swimming, nature rambles, painting classes, sound bathing, shiatsu….and the list goes on.
What are you doing to develop yourself as a human being? And to look after yourself?
How do these feed into what you take to ponder and how you show up to coaching, supervision or therapy?
