Ask yourself these questions:
- What would you identify as your top three strengths?
- What do you see is in the way of how you utilize your strength and talents?
- Who would you be if you actually utilized your strengths? How would your life be different? Your energy level?
- Are you willing and able to put forth the energy required to obtain what you want?
- What must you let go of to have more energy through utilizing your strengths and talents?
- What if you could be anything, or anybody, you chose to be? What would you choose to be?
Coaching Application
And what is a man without energy? Nothing—nothing at all. Mark Twain
Your selection of Coaching methods or discipline areas may be more “energized” if you best understand what areas you thrive in as your specialization. For example, if you consider the coaching cycle to include Dynamics: exploration, encouragement, examination, and/or execution and execution is where you most thrive in spending your time, you may have more enjoyment with Business Coaching or Executive Coaching where examination and execution is where most of the focus is directed. Spiritual coaching on the other had is usually heavy in exploration; trying to be a Business Coach may “drain your bucket of energy” and require more of your focus and energy to do well. Understand where you energy comes from—what energizes you and what depletes your energy and understand that coaching is about your client and what will energize them. You may be challenged to manage the client through all of the discovery. The coach’s job is to let the client go where they need to be. If that challenges the Coach’s ability to have energy and there is a sense of “dread” when preparing for a coaching session then the coach may need to set ego aside and recommend that the client needs a different coach. Embracing differences between you and your client will be key to managing the coach/client relationship. At the end of the day, we need to enjoy and look forward to our coaching journey and be filled with the energy to do so.
As coaches, we support our clients’ learning how to listen to their own wisdom and intuition so they can live with greater authenticity and integrity—the building blocks of energy management. To merely succeed is not an end in itself. You must use your success to impact other people…to impact the world… and to live life from the inside out. It all starts with the choices you make—they determine the person you will become. By helping our clients identify their deepest desires and take the actions required to manifest them, we facilitate a more effective “merger” of time and energy management. People living from joy enabled through higher energy and sense of satisfaction engender an entirely different reality (BEING) than those living strictly from duty and constant battles of DOING. Energy Management vs. Time Management, when applied toward your clients’ disciplines and desires, can illuminate their unique corner of the world.
Reflection questions
Real wealth is ideas plus energy. Richard Buckminster Fuller
Each of us is given 1,400 minutes each day, 168 hours each week, and 8,760 hours every year. What we choose is what we get. Take care of the most valuable resource—not your time, but your energy.
- Ask yourself—is this activity worthy of my energy?
- How will you adjust to manage energy vs. time more effectively? What benefits would you experience as a result? How would it affect your well-being?
- What support will you need in keeping your desire alive while applying the necessary discipline to achieve it?
Resources
If you are a coach that takes interest in the utilization of assessments to bring energy and insights to your clients or teams, you may want to evaluate “5 Dynamics” at their website: http://5dynamics.com
If you have interest in assessing your strengths, you may want to consider a Strength based assessment called “Finding your Top 5 Strengths” at https://www.gallupstrengthscenter.com. “How full is your bucket” For Tom Rath & Donald O.Clifton, Ph.D.