Ready for Change

In the five days leading up to this Saturday’s workshop, Do You Have Time or Does Time Have You?, I’ll be posting daily about the ideas that work best for me when it comes to time.

Part One: I Can’t Manage Time

Whenever I work with a coaching client who uses the words “time management”, I get curious.

What would it mean to “manage” time? Time doesn’t perform better when I give it positive feedback. I can’t give time a bad performance review and then fire it. I can’t send time to human resources training.

David Allen sums this up succinctly in Getting Things Done. You can’t manage your time, he says. You CAN manage your actions.

That’s a simple and powerful switch in perspective. As long as I am trying to manage time – an intangible phenomenon that can’t be managed – I’ll feel frustrated at my losing battle. But if I switch my focus to managing my actions, suddenly I am back in control.

Next time you hear your mental chatter telling you to “manage your time better”, stop and ask yourself: Which of my actions do I need to manage better? And what would it mean to better manage my actions?

In my post tomorrow, I’ll dip into some of the action management skills that I’ve found most helpful.

To register for my April 3rd workshop, Do You Have Time or Does Time Have You?, email me at ReadyForChangeCoaching@gmail.com.

You may also be interested in:

• one of my previous posts about time
• a free 30 minute sample coaching session

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Alarm Clock from linuxhub.net

After a year of coaching, one of the things that has become crystal clear to me is that many people struggle with this elusive thing we call “time management”. I put together a few thoughts about this in a blog post, and now I’ve developed a workshop for anyone who wants to spice up their relationship with time.

During this three-hour workshop, you will:
-explore the perspectives you hold about time
-consider and evaluate your values and priorities
-get a quick overview of some fun time management tools and systems and a chance to play with them
-set goals and make a plan to put into practice what you’ve learned and so that you can befriend your calendar

The details:
Saturday April 3rd, 2pm-5pm
Limited to 10 people
$30 (payable at the door)
Bloor-Bathurst area (details provided upon registration)

To register, email me at ReadyForChangeCoaching@gmail.com.

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March 23, 2010: This post and workshop description have been updated. Please check here for updated information.

After a year of coaching, one of the things that has become crystal clear to me is that many people struggle with this elusive thing we call “time management”. I put together a few thoughts about this in a blog post, and now I’ve developed a workshop for anyone who wants to spice up their relationship with time.

During this two-part workshop, you will:
-explore the perspectives you hold about time
-consider and evaluate your values and priorities and relate these to your time
-get a quick overview of some fun time management tools and systems and a chance to play with them
-set goals and make a plan to put into practice what you’ve learned and befriend your calendar

The details:
Two Saturday afternoons: April 3rd and 10th, from 2pm-4pm
Limited to 10 people
$50 (payable at the first session)
Bloor-Bathurst area (details provided upon registration)

To register:
Email me at ReadyForChangeCoaching@gmail.com.

March 23, 2010: This post and workshop description have been updated. Please check here for updated information. 

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“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 

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I spent the weekend at a workshop focused on “opening the heart”. Two days meditating on my heart, loving-kindness, and forgiveness; drawing pictures representing my heart space; doing expressive dance to Chopin nocturnes to enact heart feelings; and feeling the warmth of sending and receiving love, silently, with the people around me. This morning, all of that love and heart is still shining on me and through me, making the whole world shimmer in shiny new love. 

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December has been busy, and December has been lazy, and I have not been writing blog posts. Today I have two things to say, plus a poem.

First, this week I’m hosting Two Hours of Perspective, Dec. 30, from 2pm-4pm. Any and all are welcome, just contact me.

Second, I’m putting together a 2010 visioning package for coaching clients (or anyone else interested). The visioning package gives you a chance to focus completely on the big picture instead of the day-to-day. It consists of reflection and planning exercises, plus an hour-long coaching session designed to set you up for the year to come. Drop me a line if you’re interested in taking advantage of this, or watch here for more details.

Finally, I stumbled across this poem in a book from a friend, and I loved it:

The Church says: The body is a sin.
Science says: The body is a machine.
Advertising says: The body is a business.
The body says: I am a fiesta.

-Eduardo Galeano

May your 2009 end with a fiesta. Your body’s already partying. 

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Over on the wishcasting page, Jamie asks, “What step do you wish to take?”

For once, my answer’s remarkably clear. Since May, I’ve been toying with the idea of bringing more group work and facilitation into my coaching. In August, I hosted a Party of Possibility to try to figure out what this would look like. And this month, I started the pilot run of the One Change course.

I love the One Change course. I’m watching and facilitating as our cozy group of five takes on changes close to our hearts – everything from business plans and client recruitment to starting art projects, exploring health and fitness, and being present.

My next step: to take the foundation laid down in the pilot course and fly with it!

The One Change course will have its official launch on January 14, just in time for any New Year’s changes you might be thinking through.

And you are all invited to the party.

Drop me a line if you want to be a part of my next step. 

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Stepping into Change

In January 2010, I’ll be launching a course incorporating mixes of co-active coaching, group work, and some of the work I’m doing in my experiential therapy training program.

The One Change course will be a space for a group of individuals to come together and support each other in making One Change (a change each participant identifies herself or himself) in their lives.

I’m looking for 3-5 people who will help me test-run the course in November. Might you be one of them?

You get:

• a supportive group environment and individual coaching as you work towards your One Change
• assignments designed to support your change
• a sneak preview of what’s going to be a great course!

What you do:

• you identify One Change you want to make in your life, and bring that to the course
• you’re willing to be a guinea pig for the course while I’m ironing out the kinks in it
• you provide feedback and suggestions to make the course better

What type of change?

The sweet thing is you get to pick the change! Some samples: start writing that book you’ve always meant to write… get your house organized… start dating… bring more love into your relationships… get your finances under control… get a healthy routine going… change your job… reduce the amount of time you spend on facebook… improve your public speaking… start a community group… heck, run for mayor… ANY change is welcome – the key is that you’ll be doing the work, getting coaching and support, and committing to and being accountable to the group for acting on the change you want.

Details:

• contact me if you’re interested (laurajoanne /at/ gmail /dot/ com)
• tentative dates are Thursday evenings, Nov.5, 12, 19, 26, and Dec.3 … and possibly one more evening after that. Bloor/Bathurst area.
• expect to be completing homework throughout the course
• nominal course fee of $30 (basically to cover materials. When the course launches in January, the cost will be closer to $200-$250).

I’m really excited about getting this course going and will be ever grateful to the people who help me test-run it and figure out how best to deliver it. Hope to hear from you! 

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