Coaching Model: Self Voyage To Find Your A.I.M

A Coaching Model Created by Barbara Busi
(Career Coach, FRANCE)

Introduction

People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing. Dale Carnegie

Well, it can be challenging without really knowing who you are and what your real reason for being is in life. To reach this level of awareness, you have to listen to your deepest self. The following pages aim to present to the dear reader my personal journey and the coaching model that I offer to clients who would like to find their A.I.M. (Authentic Inner Me) and have enjoyment in their daily job and have a fulfilling and balanced personal & professional life.

Personal background

In this accelerated world, we often make choices that seem logical or reasonable, we often listen to others or let ourselves be influenced by our environment when deciding about our career path and choosing a job. This was my case too. After having finished my Bachelor studies in Hungary I moved to my dream city, Paris, to finish my Master studies. I was grateful for having been able to integrate one of the most prestigious Business Schools “GrandesEcoles” of the country. After two wonderful years, the day of the graduation has arrived and I had to quickly decide about the next step and find a job. Yes, A job and not THE job. At that time, I wanted to find a job quickly, mainly for financial reasons and also, because this was the “usual” way that I have seen in my environment. When you finish your studies, you jump into the corporate world. So, I put my feelings (heart) aside and followed the reason (head). That’s how I accepted one of the first offers in the banking sector as a consultant, even if I had an inner feeling (gut) that it is not what I really wanted to do. During 5 years I suffered from my decision and could not find the way out. I have changed consulting firms, hoping that I will find what I was looking for, but I did not and I got stuck in a spiral where I could not say no, the workload was heavier and heavier, the topics I was working on were often out of my center of interest, so I felt more and more frustrated. I did not dare to fight for myself and always wanted to please everyone around me, my managers, my clients, my colleagues. The negative self-transformation that I went through, from a highly motivated, funny, life-loving person to a sad, exhausted person who could not find enjoyment in the daily work anymore, was so scary. It felt like I was burning from the inside and could not change. One day, on international project things, got really serious and I felt so much of weakness and sadness that I could hardly fly back home from abroad, my health started to collapse. This was the moment when I decided that I needed to do something, before completely destroying myself physically and emotionally.

On the very next weekend, I took time for self-reflection and started to listen to myself. I was thinking about what could help me the best and realized that coaching can be the right solution to my situation. That was the point when I took control of my life and started my journey at ICA. I am really grateful for this decision because through coaching, I have learned a lot of things about myself and managed to open up my mind, my heart and started to listen to my inner voice, that I would call gut. One month later I changed job, I have started to work in Human Resources and for the first time I felt that “I arrived”. I found the job that resonates with my values, allows me to help employees having a better employee experience and more fulfillment in their everyday job. Combining my skills acquired in human resources with my coaching skills, I would like to help individuals to find their A.I.M. in life, their “Authentic Inner Me” (who you are at your deepest core) that allow to define who they really want to become and follow that path in order to be able to live at their highest self, by using their capacity and find full enjoyment in what they are doing. Life is too short to do something that we do not like. Every human deserves fulfillment and purposeful life.

Self-voyage to find your A.I.M. (Authentic Inner Me)and experience full enjoyment in life and work

Coaching is like traveling, we make the decision to get from where we are to our desired destination. In order to get to our destination and be sure that we will experience enjoyment, we need to take into consideration several parameters:

When organizing our trips, we aim to balance the above-mentioned factors and do our best to then experience joy and fulfillment once we arrive at the desired destination.

In my coaching, I would like to invite my clients to a voyage, but to the deepest one possible, to a self-voyage, that helps them to discover what their brain/heart and inner core (gut) tell them and balance them in order to reach their A.I.M., Authentic Inner Me.

My definition of Authentic Inner Me: is your true self, who you would really be if there was no influence and barrier around you. If you were not impacted by your environment and there was no burden or constraint in your life and you could follow your path, what you were born for, by living according to your values and using your highest potential/talent. When you get to your A.I.M. you listen to your thoughts, feelings and inner voice/values.

Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are. Brene Brown

When you are authentic, you are true to yourself no matter what role/position you have in life. You maintain coherence between your feelings and acts/words and you make choices based on your values. It is important to have an alignment between who you are and what you are doing. In this way you can bring out your potential at the highest level, you can be yourself in everyday life and find enjoyment in what you are doing.

When you are authentic, you create certain energy…people want to be around you because you are unique. Andie MacDowell

During the self-voyage, I partner with my clients to mainly discover 3 areas, their 3 brains and connect them in order to discover their A.I.M.:

1. Head or Cephalic Brain: This brain is in charge of cognitive, thinking processes. It helps to recognize things around us, to analyze them and gives meaning to them through the language and narratives. It mainly focuses on data, facts, and figures.

The coaching process itself is a thinking process. The client is working on finding a solution to a given situation and the brain is activated during the entire process. However, in some situations, the brain is even more impacted that the Heart or Gut. There are several ways to work with the Cephalic Brain in these situations (not an exhaustive list):

Discovering facts& figures: during the discovery session and foundation setting the client shares the topic, the objective that she/he wants to reach and explains her / his vision about the given situation

The discovery session is mainly focusing on the explanation of terms and conditions by the coach and the discussion of the client’s needs. It is rather factual, the coach and client agree on the coaching conditions and set the frame of the coaching contract& relationship

The establishment of a coaching contract during each coaching session also contains several topics that activate the Cephalic brain

During the definition of a possible solution and in the goal-setting phase the client defines concrete next steps and the timeframe to complete. She/he needs to think about possible solutions/outcomes and actions that can help her/him to get closer to the desired result

Highlighting thoughts and beliefs: through powerful questioning, we can reveal positive or negative thoughts and can help the client to create self-awareness and identify underlying beliefs generated by her / his brain

Visualizing possibilities/desired outcome: visualization is a powerful technique used in Neuro-Linguistic Programming and can help clients to imagine a future state, a desired outcome or job, etc. They can rely on their creativity and ideas created by the brain to find potential solutions, to create awareness or to change perspectives.

Focusing on strengths and skills: by focusing on the strengths and skills of the client, it becomes easier to activate positive thinking and to identify opportunities regarding a future situation. The client also understands what competencies she/he can rely on or what needs to be acquired to reach the desired position, job.

2. Heart or Cardiac Brain: this is our emotional brain, responsible for feelings/emotions (anger, fear, love, disgust, surprise, happiness, sadness), for values (what is important to you, dreams, desires) and relational aspects (who you want to be connected with, love/hate/caring/etc.). It defines how we feel about a person, a situation and what we find correct or incorrect. It also helps us to define what is really important in life for us and drives compassion.

Coaching can help the client to discover the deepest feelings and understand what feeling triggered a given reaction

Discovering feelings: without going into therapy or psychology, the coach can help the client to discover the root of the feelings. Often emotions/feelings come from past experiences and can impact the rational thinking or decision making. By discovering feelings, we can help the client to create awareness and find techniques to control the emotions.

Identifying feelings: through powerful questioning, we can help the client to verbalize feelings and identify the connection between feelings/acts/response in the body.

Discovering values: values represent our unique and individual essence and serve as a compass pointing one’s judgment of what is important in life. Jobs, situations, events that are conflicting with our values can make us suffer and can generate a feeling of disappointment/fear/anger, etc. Through coaching the client can identify her / his own values, prioritize them and be more conscious about them in the future. In the corporate world, it is important to compare our values with the company values and be sure that there is an alignment. Otherwise, we easily find ourselves in situations where values are in conflict and we compromise. It can impact our performance, our mood and can lead to frustration and sadness.

Working on relationships/conflict management: through coaching the client can work on difficult relationships or situations. There are several methods that can be helpful:

3. Gut or Enteric Brain: This is the deepest level of an individual’s self, it is your core identity. It is responsible for self-preservation (safety, protection, etc.) and for the mobilization (courage, mobility). The gut is identified with the instinct & intuition: “My gut tells me…”

Through coaching we can help the client to discover her/his deepest self, the reason for being and find her/his real purpose in life.

Finding purpose: allows identifying what our deepest desire is and what gives us the highest level of personal fulfillment. Your purpose drives you, provides you with energy and gives meaning to your actions. It is aligned with your values, strengths.

Overcoming fear: fear can paralyze us and stop us from taking actions that are necessary for the progress of a given situation. Coaching can help clients to overcome the feeling of fear and have the courage to take action and follow our purpose in life

With the discovery and the understanding of our 3 brains, we can identify and define our A.I.M. (Authentic Inner Me), who we really are, our core deepest self. Once we know it, it becomes much easier to identify situations, activities that bring enjoyment in our life. We can be more conscious about relationships and chose our path (personal or professional) that resonates with our true selves. In the professional environment, we can easier identify jobs and tasks that are in alignment with our skills and competencies, we can better handle relationships with our colleagues, manager, and clients. It can help to reach the state of flow, defined by Csíkszentmihályi Mihály as an optimal psychological state that people experience when engaged in an activity that is both appropriately challenging to one’s skill level, often resulting in immersion and concentrated focus on a task. This can result in deep learning and high levels of personal and work satisfaction.

During the self-voyage model, I invite my clients to work on the area of focus of the different brains in order to help them to experience fulfillment and enjoyment in their personal and professional life. The journey does not end by finding our A.I.M. It is a life learning process, new challenges, questions, and doubts can arrive at any stage of our life and apply the self-voyage model over and over again, by focusing on the brain/area that has been impacted by a given situation.

The word self-voyage refers to the process of self-discovery and covers some notions and competencies that are an essential part of the coaching process and the coach-client relationship:

		Meaning for the client& expectation from the coach
S	Safety	Creating a safe space for the client, where all information is welcomed without judgment The coach ensures to respect the confidentiality of the discussion
E	Enjoyment	Creating an atmosphere and offering a coach experience that allows the client to take pleasure in the process of self-discovery
L	Learning	Helping the client to formulate learnings about herself/himself and making her / him think about how to use these learnings in the future
F	Freedom	Allowing the client to share whatever they have in their mind/heart/gut in order to be able to discover the deepest roots of the given topic that create awareness. Freedom of expressions, feelings, and thoughts.
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V	Verbalization	Helping the client to verbalize thoughts, emotions, feelings, intuition through powerful questioning and direct communication
O	Observation	Observing the situation and the clients and provide her/him with feedback that allow to create awareness and reformulate perspectives
Y	Yourself	Bringing the client into the center. It is the client’s journey, the client has the full potential to find the solution to her / his own topic. The coach needs to stay neutral in the process and has to avoid leading questions or advice
A	Active listening	Showing the highest level of listening by paying attention to the client’s verbal, non-verbal communication, understanding what is hidden behind the words of the client and realizing the shift of energy
G	Goal focused	Focusing on the desired outcome and goal of the discussion(defined by the client), check with the client the progress of the discussion during the coaching session and helping the client to get to the goal defined during the agreement
E	Empathy	Being able to sense the client’s emotions and understanding / accepting the person’s uniqueness

Self-application

As a coach, it is very important for us as well to find our inner balance and authentic self. I have realized that I can only be fully in my element when I balance my brain, my heart, and my gut:

By mastering and aligning my 3 brains, I find myself in a high level of enjoyment and satisfaction, because that is the moment when I can be the most focused to my client, the more compassionate and understanding and I have confidence in my coaching process. That is when the client can experience the manifestation of my Authentic Inner Me and can get the most out of the coaching journey.

Conclusion

With the self-voyage coaching model, my objective is to partner with clients during their deepest journey and help them to meet the true self that can drive them to full authenticity. This authenticity will light up their inner spark and can lead them towards a purposeful life filled with enjoyment.

I would like to invite my dear clients to this journey with the following quote:

Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along which comes the inner voice which says, ‘This is the real me,’ and when you have found that attitude, follow it. William James

References

1. Vicki Brock (2015): Neuroscience and Coaching: Impact of Coaching on a Leader’s Three Brains, Coaching Journal Article: http://vikkibrock.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/UTD-Three-Brains-648efa8c-f301-4d1a-871b-5f4a09a315d7.pdf
2. Herminia Ibarra (2015): The Authenticity Paradox: https://hbr.org/2015/01/the-authenticity-paradox
3. Lorri Freifeld (2013): COACHING THE BRAINS IN OUR HEAD, HEART, AND GUT; Training Magazinehttps://trainingmag.com/content/coaching-brains-our-head-heart-and-gut/
4. TEDxStCharles – Marty Linsky – Adaptive Leadership-Leading Change:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=af-cSvnEExM
5. FLOW (CSÍKSZENTMIHÁLYI)https://www.learning-theories.com/flow-csikszentmihalyi.html