Ready for Change

“Your client is naturally creative, resourceful, and whole… and so are you.”

This weekend, I’m going back to the Coaches Training Institute Co-Active Fundamentals course to serve as an assistant. I’m looking back over my notes from when I first took this course, in July 2008. The three days were thrilling – my first taste of co-active coaching and the amazing impact it can have. I fell in love with coaching, and I haven’t looked back.

Rereading my notebook, I find these gems:

Your client is naturally creative, resourceful, and whole… and so are you.

A cornerstone of co-active coaching: the belief that all people are naturally creative, resourceful, and whole. And a coach needs to remember that in order to truly believe that about our clients, we need to believe it about ourselves too.

The evolution of getting better at something is the willingness to stay in the painful place of knowing what you don’t know.

See the (un)conscious (in)competence ladder for details.

Coaching is not about getting the client to have an insight you have about her/him.

Coaching is NOT about getting your client to think what you think! It IS about reflecting, mirroring, and asking questions, so that your client can be clearer on what she/he believes, values, and desires.

Curiosity is the antidote to judgment.

Whenever you feel judgment or opinion coming on, get curious.

As the coach brings more of him/herself to the coaching (e.g. more of his/her humour, warmth, willingness to fail, willingness to risk, boldness, dreams, heart), there is more room for the client to bring more of her/himself too.

I can’t wait for this weekend, and for that heart-racing moment when a roomful of participants sees co-active coaching for the first time. It’s stunningly beautiful.

If you want a little taste of what co-active coaching could be, check out these tools from the Co-Active Coaching Fundamentals course:

Personal Wheel of Life

Professional Wheel of Life