Mea Culpa

It’s funny how human beings tend to blame others or external circumstances for everything that happens to them. It’s so easy to blame others to feel better about yourself.

Sometimes we are the ones responsible for everything that happened and again and again, we remember the details and what we did wrong. And gradually we lose control of our lives, and helplessness and despair take hold of us.

But then, what can we do? We can not do anything, now it has happened and the cake is already burned, and I was late to work, and that car soak me, and it snowed two meters and I could not get to my 3pm appointment, and my boyfriend already spent the rent’s money and I am going to be evicted, and …, and …

And what now? We get angry, frustrated, we hate the world in which we live in; we become the victims of the injustice that surrounds us. Yes. That is what we do. And that where it leads? Well, more anger, more frustration, and more hate. Or not?

But what if instead of reacting we accepted what has happened and took responsibility for it? What if we learned about it and acted in a way that the past will stay in the past and we would look to the future?

I do not know, maybe we would be able to control our lives, able to decide for ourselves the next step to take; able to release the burden of guilt from our shoulders and look to the future with the confidence that we are doing everything in our power to reach our goals.

What can we do to take control of our lives? Maybe it is as simple as realizing that no one can make you feel anything without your permission, understand that taking responsibility for what happens to us is a privilege and start taking responsibility for oneself and the consequences of your actions, accepting that we are human beings and as such, we make mistakes, and that it doesn’t have to be bad, and realizing that doing nothing is also doing something.

So maybe it is my fault, but what am I going to do about it?

I am still here

I was having a look at my blog and realised that my last post was in March last year, oh my! It has been a while. But I haven’t been completely disconnect, it is just that my life has taken me to a different place.

Becoming a coach is probing to be the most exciting experience that I have never lived. I am pasionate about it. I am engaged. I am commited. The period that I didn’t publish any new posts I was working on another blog in spanish, my mother tongue. I really like to write when I feel inspired and it is easier for me to write in Spanish, I guess you understand.

But for the last 3 weeks I have been very proactive regarding my teleclasses and my course requirenment in general and the english is coming back to me. So I am now ready to start again and to share with you my thoughts and my insights.

So from now until I graduate in June I am back in town.

Releasing Judgement

Last night I had a teleclass about Releasing Judgment in coaching and surprisingly enough, the trainer turned to be a real inspiration.

She opened my eyes in such a way that my conception about coaching has now changed. I had my reserves about how I was supposed to act in a coaching situation. As an inexperienced coach I was afraid of how I was supposed to react or think before a client. I was not sure how I had to structure my thoughts in order to be the best possible support to my clients. It was all uncertain and it caused me some anxiety.

She had the perfect answer to my doubts. As a coach YOU DON’T THINK. In a coaching process you, as a coach, have to be there 100% for your client. Your experience, your baggage, your opinions and your judgements have no place in the room. The client is the “leading performer” and the coach should stay behind the scene. It is the time for the client to express their concerns, their doubts and also their dreams, their goals and their successes. The coach should be there to guide, support and celebrate when necessary, not to judge or give their opinion.

It is a natural process as human beings to think, to have an opinion or try to contribute with our own experience; but as professionals we should be able to identify those moments and switch them off, or use them wisely so they don’t interfere in the client’s own personal growth.

So what you do is to detach from yourself and as weird as it sounds, it makes perfect sense.

… and so the new year comes

This year is probing to be complicated. It is almost March and I am still trying to get started with my teleclasses, this is crazy!.

First were the “late Christmas” visits, after that was the continuos sickness from my kids and then myself, yeap; and now that I can finally sit down and start, my skype is banned for phone calls and my telephone does not have enought battery to hold on for a one hour teleclass.

Oh God, do I have anymore surprises coming?

It is good though that I was very, very, very excited about this course because otherwise I don’t know if I could be able to keep going.

So don’t think I gave up already, it is just a little break

Change

I heard somebody once say: “coaching is about creating change”, and I wonder what do we mean by change?

Is it really necessary to change something in order to be happier, more sucessful, more fulfilled? Of course I am assuming that the person is not so happy at this point of her/his life.

I was working with my coach on my topic (stress managment) a couple of weeks ago and as I was talking I had this though: do I really need to change something in my life?

We got to the conclusion that maybe if I could only change something on my life to make me happier with myself I would be able to control my stress levels. So I started to create a “feel good list”. This turned to be a great experiment. I started to list all the little things that make me feel good, rather than listing all the things that stress me out. As I was remembering those little moments of happiness I was reducing my stress and feeling a lot better. I had this project in mind all day trying to find all those little things that help you through out your day, i.e your child’s smile, having your breakfast while watching your favourite tv programme, reading a book, calling your best friend, talking to your grandmother, … and guess what? my day was great!!!

Well, I consider myself a happy person, I have a great husband who loves me (or so he says ), I have two great kids that give me the gift of their smiles everyday, I am starting a new career that I love, I have good friends, my family has always been there for me, … what else can a person need? And as I was thinking this I realised that I didn’t need to change any of those things to make me happier or more fulfilled, but rather to realise that I have them to be happy.

So is it always necessary to change something in your life to make you happier? Maybe not, or maybe the only change you need to make is your perspective of how things are.

Perspective

I had this teleclass on Thursday and it was quite early in the morning, for me it was 6am, ouch!, so there I was, half sleep and trying to focus on the subject. As the teacher was going through the session my memory started to take me back to situations where I had made use of this tool, perspective.

What it made me realised is that I use perspective on a daily basis. I may have not been conscious about it or I may have called it differently, actually I never named it before.

And the question is, who has not changed their perspective ever in their lives? How many times have we seen the situation through a different “glass color”? Did changing your perspective ever made things look better, more optimistic or even worst?

I am sure that you all know what I am talking about. So how powerfull could it be if we could just take control of our own perspectives? If we could just decide what “color is our glass” going to be today?

This is a great tool to have in your box, whether you use it for coaching others or for your own use. Life could be so much better  if only ….

My first coaching session (as a client)

Well, I just finished my first coaching session and it was great. For the last few weeks I have been reading about coaching and about the “match” between coach and client. I was assuming what a match was and I understood the concept pretty well, but now I “know” what it is.

I totally felt the connection between me and my coach. We spoke for a bit longer than a hour and it felt like chatting with a friend in a coffee shop, although it was better because I could feel that she was leading the conversation in a very smooth way, she was listening to me very carefully, she made observations and explored the situation and I could see the coaching session structure. It took me a while but we agreed on an action for next week, so thank you Patricia. I am really looking forward to our next session.