Most of us have personal goals that we are working very hard to achieve. We also have personal desires that we want to accomplish, and dreams that we pray would come true sooner than later. For some of us, these are the drivers of our daily enthusiasm and the fuel for our life passions. In other words, they are what keep us motivated a lot of times, making us to sometimes stay awake at night, while still sustaining our personal energies during the day.
The truth is that there is very little that a person can achieve without personal enthusiasm and self motivation. And, that is one of the reasons why a lot of people fail to record tangible achievements in one endeavour or the other. They simply lack the personal energy or passion that compels them to act with conviction and stay committed to what can be described as their personal motivations.
Sadly, when a person lacks self-drive, there is not much any other person can do to help in moving that person forward. This also explains why some coaching engagements would simply not work. As we often say, “you can take a horse to the river but you cannot force it to drink”. This is also why coaching is described as a facilitator of personal inspiration or self motivation. Coaching never succeeds where a person is not totally committed to change or personal transformation.
For all practical purposes, coaching is an interactive process that unlocks peoples’ potentials. It helps people find from within themselves the ‘how to do’ solutions, without imposing the ‘what to do’ solutions from the personal knowledge or skills of the coach. Coaching sessions would therefore be focused entirely on helping the client to improve certain aspects of his life. But, the client must be personally motivated to succeed.
Coaching is essentially about change facilitation. This is because coaching is by its nature, structure and process a transformational engagement. Irrespective of whether coaching is adapted to life, personal, business, team, organisational or corporate situations, the result can be expected to be the same. Coaching elevates what is working well to new levels of performance. And, with regard to what is average or mediocre, coaching assists to change it to a position of excellence.
Quite often, people that are just getting introduced to one form of coaching engagement or the other are pleasantly surprised at the vast opportunities that the application of coaching offers. Coaching finds application in virtually every spectrum of life, business, work, organisation, spirituality and culture. Its application is almost limitless. The universal application of coaching can be linked to the concept of personal inspiration being the fundamental principle of coaching.
Coaching thrives absolutely on personal inspiration. It derives its transformational potentials, benefits and power from the personal energies that is created from within a person. Such a person must have a positive mindset and self-propelling belief system to complete a task, attain certain heights or achieve specific goals. This is what makes coaching so personal. Its success must be inspired from within, and its sustainability must be driven by heart-felt passion.
I have come across statements about change and goal achievement being a combination of 90% personal inspiration and 10% perspiration. That can be said to be equally true about coaching. The real success of a coaching engagement is driven from the mind of the client. A positive mind frame, which creates a positive mind state in turn produces positive belief systems, which play out in positive thinking patterns.
These are eventually manifested in the display of positive personal attitudes, as well as in speech and actions. But, where does it all begin? It all begins in the mind, and then becomes systematically ingrained into the muscles. It is the “mind to muscle” dynamics that makes coaching so personal. Hence, you cannot divorce coaching success from a person’s personal lifestyle or worldview.
The coaching process must therefore provide answers to how the client’s outlook to life matches his or her expectations and future aspirations. It is important in this regard to determine whether the client’s lifestyle will potentially be a positive contributor or hindering factor to the achievement of his or her goals. This is what the coach would often refer to as ‘empowering’ or ‘limiting’ energy, depending on the potential effects on goal achievement.
The sum total of the actions manifested in the course of a coaching process thus end up being a combination of personal thoughts, personal empowerment and personal action. Rooted in the thoughts of the client are personal beliefs and mind frames. Facilitating these personal empowerment factors is what coaching is all about, and determine the skills and capacities that coaching espouse.
Compelling personal actions of the client are the effective use of the mind-body-emotion system. This is in relation to the value system, personal intention, expectation and decision of the client. An experienced professional coach brings all of these together to ‘create magic’ and effect personal transformation. You can read more about the transformational power of coaching at www.ceedcoaching.com.
Emmanuel Imevbore
