A Coaching Power Tool By Evdelina Sooky, Transformational Coach, NETHERLANDS
When you see your future it will start to happen. Frederic Hudson
I chose to start my power tool with this extraordinary sentence, which explains how powerful our thoughts are and how everything depends on our ability to believe in ourselves and our strength.
Living in a modern world leaves little time to spend with ourselves. We are constantly in hurry, working, going home, going to sleep, and mostly ending up in a circle with no way out. Or at least, not visible one. People are getting stuck between the everyday life they live and the life they think they want to live and that they will live one day when: get a better job, children move out, change house, buy a new car, etc. Taking back control over our lives and starting to search for true happiness and fulfillment is for most people still unachievable. But not if we take a different approach… Positive thinking and believing in our ability to make the best out of our life can make us do what we thought can happen only in our dreams.
Visualization vs. Realization Explanation
The first powerful thing, and maybe the most important in a process of change, is that we RECOGNIZE that we need change. That we realize that the way we live is not OUR way. That we want better, more powerful, more MYSELF in life. Most people are giving up before they even start because the first step of recognizing and looking at the problem that is standing in the way can be very unpleasant, painful, stressful, and it’s easier to close your eyes and go back to your comfort zone. Comfort zone, the zone where nothing is growing.
For those who overcome the first step, there is the second one, IDENTIFICATION – WHAT do I need, want, wish? Who I want to be, why am I starting this change, what this change can bring to me, and what can take from me?
The third step is OBSERVATION – what are my wishes, needs..something which will bring me more peace, love, money or is this something that is not possible to happen ( I want to become No.1 tennis player, I am 50 years old, never played tennis before). Point is to split fiction from reality and to have a REALISTIC approach to what a person wants to overcome, become, see or feel.
The fourth step and most powerful one is VISUALIZATION – when doing this we are one step away from our goal. Visualization giving us push and power what we need to reach unreachable. Giving us the power to run the first km ever for future marathons. Giving us the power to lose 1 kg on our journey to lose 50 kg. Empowering us to invest last 1000 euro in our own company which will later give us 1000000 euro.
The last step is REALIZATION – having a clear, realistic picture in front of us is moving the WHOLE US to the journey to becoming better than ever and to reach unreachable using a step-by-step approach.
How can the coach support the client to embark on this extraordinary journey? There is a saying:
When the student is ready the teacher will appear. When the student is truly ready… The teacher will Disappear. Tao TeChing
In this case, the pupil and the master are on the client.
Coach supporting the client to identify what he wants to achieve, where he wants to be, what is a dream he wants to live, what is a life he wants to live.
Once recognized what needs to be different and what the client what to achieve, the coach supports the client to explore and look at the wish, situation, dream from different angles, changing perspectives, challenging the client to see is his new life, situation, dream- realistic, measurable and possible to happen. The coach is supporting the client to recognize his obstacles, to become aware of what is stopping him to fill the full power of life.
Coach using visualization technic with the client to support the client to see the possible outcome of desire, dream, life, situation and to support the client to give power back to himself and to see that impossible is nothing.
The coach supports the client to reach the wanted outcome, to look at his unstoppable power, and to make his dreams, wishes, desires a realistic part of his life.
From Visualization to Realization Is Just One Step
Coach is not a magician and can not use magic to support the client, but the client IS a magician and can use magic in his own life. That magic is BELIEVING in yourself and your power to change what you think that has to be different, magic to see that life is not stopping after one obstacle, two or a thousand. Sometimes life is then beginning. Coach’s ability to challenge the client and to support his move forward is a great skill and most of all great achievement for the client. What more does the coach need?
References
1 As one of the leading thinkers on positive psychology, Martin Seligman, has written, “One of the most significant findings in psychology in the last twenty years is that individuals can choose the way they think” Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life by Martin E. P. Seligman