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The Beginning of a New Chapter

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The past year has been an exciting year of learning and discovery. It was a tough journey, but an exciting one, nonetheless. I’ve learned so much and made many new discoveries about coaching and myself. It’s going to be tough to summarise everything in this blog, but I want to highlight 5 key focus points that stood out for me. 1. Focus on the coachee– “Coach the person, not the problem”, is a phrase I remember very clearly from the first practicum, and it’s one that I remind myself at the start of all my sessions. Different people may face the same or similar problems, issues or challenges, but how we each respond to them will vary. Hence, it’s crucial to stay focused on the coachee, help them expand their perspective and explore possibilities.  2. Focus on staying focused – Staying focused throughout the session, being present with the coachee and also ensuring the session stays focused by keeping the conversation centred around what the coachee wants to achieve. Having said that
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Hustle!

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This last webtorial got me thinking of why I started the Catalyst Coach Certification programme, and that reason is, I wanted to help people achieve their full potential. To do that, I needed to learn how to do that through coaching, acquire the necessary skills and perhaps even help myself achieve my full potential. Seems like yesterday that we started Cohort 10 and now the time has come to start practising all that I’ve learnt, to start doing what I had set out to do… time to “Hustle”. It's “easy” to think about wanting to start doing something, or maybe even to begin “planning” the steps, but the actual start may not be as simple. Coach Mel shared some possible reasons why we could sometimes get “stuck” at the start; 1. Self-sabotage – things we say, think or do that prevent us from starting 2. Tomorrow – putting things off till the never-ending “tomorrow” 3. Not good enough – self-doubt, doubting own capability 4. Uncertainty – the fear of the unknown 5. Scapegoat – b
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Honour Time

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What does it mean to honour someone? I thought about this for a while and to me, honour means to show recognition, respect, and to hold the person in high regard. It is to demonstrate to the other person, that you value them. To celebrate them. Why is this important in coaching? Coaching is a journey and it could potentially be a difficult one for the coachee. The fact that they have chosen to take this step and possibly expose their vulnerabilities is something not to be taken lightly. I feel we as coaches need to honour our coachees for who they are, where they are at in the current moment, what they are going through, and how they are feeling. I was reminded during the webtorial, a mindset we need to have as coaches to help honour our coachees, and that mindset we need to have is the belief that our coachees are whole, resourceful and creative. Our coachees lack nothing, they have all that is necessary to overcome and are able to bring into existence a solution to their own challeng
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Creativity in Coaching

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The first thing I did was to look up, what is creativity? I found a few definitions and my favourite is, “the ability to make or otherwise bring into existence something new, whether a new solution to a problem, a new method or device, or a new artistic object or form”. But why do we need creativity in coaching? As coaches, creativity helps us explore new ideas and creative methods to help coachees uncover different perspectives and gain fresh insights. As the coach we need to remember that coachees are creative, resourceful and whole… as the coach, our role is to facilitate the process to allow creativity to flow… Ok, now that we know what it is, and why we need it… what do we need to do to be creative? How to we hone the ability to make or bring into existence something new, or a new solution to a problem? While looking into this, I found a study conducted by NASA. In the study, of 1,600 school children, 98 per cent were considered ‘geniuses’ at divergent thinking at age five. At 10
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Coaching with T.E.A.

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Our lives are very much controlled by our thoughts, emotions and actions (or behaviours). It isn’t obvious, but these three elements are integral to who we are. What’s less obvious is how these elements interact. What we think affects how we feel, how we feel affects what we do. There are conflicting thoughts on which of these come first, I guess it depends on which we notice first. To me, what’s more important is, how aware we are of our thoughts, emotions and actions. I believe our behaviours or actions and decisions are the outward “expressions” of our thoughts and feelings. It is the most obvious of the three elements, it is what others see and experience. What’s less obvious are our thoughts and emotions. In coaching, this knowledge should help us coaches to guide coachees in exploring and bringing to awareness the thoughts and feelings that are driving them. As coaches, we need to look beyond the surface and dig deeper. We’re often unaware of the impact our thoughts, emotions and
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Strength Based Coaching

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In my limited coaching experience, when coachees are asked what they would like to talk about or focus on, it is usually on an area of “weakness”. This comes as no surprise as research has shown that across a wide array of psychological events, people tend to focus more on the negative as they try to make sense of the world. We have a tendency to 1. Pay more attention to negative events, rather than positive ones 2. Learn more from negative outcomes and experiences, and 3. Make decisions based on negative information rather than positive data To me, this makes strength-based coaching that much more important. To me, strength-based coaching is really about drawing the coachee's attention towards their strength, not to distract them from their challenges but to help them amplify their strength, to leverage it to help them overcome challenges or even to maximise their potential. It’s helping coachees realise that they have it within them to overcome their challenges.  This is ke
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Neurological Levels

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  It took me quite some time to properly process the lesson and it dawned on me to try and find something familiar or a metaphor, something I can easily relate to, to help summarise my learnings for the webtorial. To help me understand the lesson better in this particular instance, I realised applying this framework in coaching is like trying to “debug” a faulty software code. Software codes are basically a collection of “instructions” and algorithms that are put together to perform a certain task. Without going into much technical detail, software codes are structured into parts or levels, each part/level is designed to perform a certain function. Some parts/levels need to work with other parts to complete a function, while others may work independently. Collectively, they come together to make the software whole. Like most software (or applications), there is a “user interface” that we interact with, the part that we see, touch and feel, and then there’s the part we don’t see, the in
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Filters and Styles

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We each perceive reality differently. Our backgrounds, culture, upbringing and experiences, shapes the lenses we look through, and ultimately affects the way we “interpret” the world around us. I believe there is no “right” or “wrong” lenses, it’s just different and these different lenses are what makes each of us unique in our own way. Reflecting on this and its relevance to coaching, I’m reminded that I need to be aware of the lenses I’m looking through and how it “colours” the person I’m coaching and how it might “filter” what I hear. On the same note, the coachee themselves have their own lenses and filters through which they experience the world and while I can’t change their lenses and filter, I should do my best to empathise. I’m therefore, mindful that I have to make a conscious effort to not allow my “lenses” and “filters” affect my perception of the coachee, lest I appear judgemental and unempathetic.  This had me reflecting on what I can do to try and overcome these potentia
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G.E.A.R.E.D for Progress

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So we’re tasked with coming up with our very own coaching model. And to be honest, I started thinking about this one even before the webtorial and I had a couple of ideas but in the end, I threw it all away and started again from scratch. At the end of the webtorial, I asked myself, “what would my coaching model look like? How will it represent me and my style of coaching? What is my style of coaching?!” There were many questions, but little answers. As I reflected on those questions, it helped me shape my first coaching model, or at least the first one I didn’t throw out. In the past months, I’ve begun to see what coaching is, why we coach and to me, it’s about helping others make progress. And progress really is about moving forward. So with that, I came up with the “G.E.A.R.E.D. for Progress” model. 1. Goal – What is the desired outcome or what result do I want to see? This is the first step, articulating the goal and putting it in writing. Writing it helps us make our goal clear,
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Explore Coaching Models

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Coaching models… what are they and why do we need them? Coaching models are essentially a framework of sorts to provide a structured approach to the coaching process. A coaching model can help a coach prepare and plan for a coaching session, help guide the coaching conversation and help a coach stay focused.  I realised there are many models out there and there isn’t a “one size fits all” model. But, while looking at some of the models, I found some similarities. They each have some form of the following components; - Establish a goal - Explore options - Enact a plan While coaching models are designed to provide a framework, a structured approach to coaching, I believe as coaches, we should allow a model to constrain us. Coaching isn’t a “linear” process, coaches need to be flexible and flow with the coachee… not the coaching model.  The model is like a vehicle we use to get our passenger (the coachee) to their destination. As the driver, we need to pay attention to where the pas
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Purpose

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Purpose is a journey, not a destination. It’s not something we work towards, not something we achieve, but it’s the reason we do what we do… it’s like our compass, our north star. So why is knowing our purpose important?  I believe that knowing our “purpose” helps guide our decision-making, it can help us stay focused on what’s important (to us), it give us clarity on our goal, helps us prioritise our resources, and align our thoughts and actions towards our goal. Purpose… it’s powerful. After graduation, I focused on getting a job. When I got a job, I focused on doing well at work, so I could get a fat bonus which allowed me to go on a spending spree and enjoy myself. After all, I worked hard for it, I deserve it! Nothing wrong with that… the question of purpose didn’t really hit me, till I realised that life’s got to be more than just work, paying bills and eventually meeting my maker. Life’s got to be worth more than that… there has to be more meaning to life! I believe the question
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Focus and Priorities

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Life can feel like it is an endless cycle of distractions and tasks. There are so many things that compete for our attention. And because of this, our ability to sustain focus and attention can be reduced, making it difficult to fully engage with experiences and appreciate their meaning and significance. According to a Harvard study in 2010, the average person’s mind wanders 47% of the time. This basically means our minds are half the time wandering while we’re working on something! When I think about how this compares to me, I think I’m not very different. I’m often distracted and by the time I’m done dealing with the distraction, I forget what I was doing or even why I was doing what I was doing. Worst still, sometimes the distraction completely takes over and the work I had started doing, doesn’t get done!  This got me thinking about what I can do to stay focused. How do I stay focused on a task or a goal? And when it comes to coaching, how can I stay focused on the coachee and what
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The Inner Game

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  The formula of “Performance = Potential – Interference” got me thinking of a recent incident. Not too long ago, I received a call from my mom, she was experiencing car problems and was stopped by the side of the road. Sounding distressed she told me that her car engine was vibrating violently and had stopped running. I rushed over to her location and arranged for her car to be towed to the nearest workshop. While waiting for the tow truck, I started walking through with her the sequence of events prior to her car stalling to try and identify potential causes of the engine stalling. She told me she had just filled her car with “petrol”. I thought it was rather odd that her car would stall after a refuel and requested to see the receipt… and that’s when I realised she had accidently pumped diesel instead of petrol. As I reflected on this incident, I immediately drew parallels to the lesson in this webtorial. Just like the vehicles we drive, we have the potential to deliver optimal perf
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