Why who you are is crucial in the coaching relationship…

If I asked you to describe yourself, where would you start? Would you go with physical characteristics or focus more on personality? Would you be keen to talk about where you’re from or more about what you do?

I like this question because it helps establish how fixed a view people have of themselves and if there is any particular thing they hold dear to their identity. I find these are absolutely crucial to know if I’m to coach them effectively.

If you asked me 3 months ago to describe myself I’d give you a different answer than I would now and this change (for the better!) was thanks to a book called The Power of Letting Go by John Purkiss. What resonated most was that although we have consistent behaviour patterns that can say something about who we are, these are never true 100% of the time.

Kind people can sometimes be unkind. Hard working people can sometimes be lazy.

Adopting this less rigid, “I can be…”, way of thinking feels useful for 3 reasons…

• By not having an impossible standard to live up to, it allows you to be more forgiving when you get things wrong – “I didn’t handle that very well but accepting I can get it wrong sometimes in areas I pride myself on is an important part of who I am”.
• It helps avoid developing limiting beliefs about your ability to meet the needs of a situation – “I’ll find this tough but I can be honest with people and that’s what I need to do with them”.
• It helps to recognise and address very specific situations when you don’t interact as well as you could – “I’m usually very patient but I can be impatient with them – what’s going on there?”

While I found this very useful I did need to think about how this would work best for me. Are you good at turning ideas into something that make you more effective?

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