A useful coaching question to help check you’re on track…
One of my clients offers their staff a one month sabbatical after 10 years of service and as we’ve just passed our 10-year anniversary it got me thinking.
In busy lives it can be hard to find time to step back and consider if where we commit our time and energy is meeting our needs, and I found a good way to do this was to ask….
- If I was given a month of paid sabbatical what would I do with the time?
- What does what I decided to do with that time say about how I live my life?
Having done this I found the second question to be way more useful than the first because I think it can help anyone understand what motivates the choices they make…
- I want to travel and see the world – is this about new experiences for you or the need to create new experiences you can share with someone else (and why is that important?)?
- Part of your planning would be how you would stay in touch with work – by accident or design, do you need the feeling of being indispensable (fyi – you’re really not 😊)?
- You’d learn a new skill/study – how would what you can’t do/don’t know impact your life? Is this a practical thing (a better cook) or emotion driven: you like people to think you’re smart or good at stuff, you lack challenge in your life, you lack social connection and would welcome learning with others or you feel you haven’t done enough to fulfil your potential?
- More times for hobbies – what do you really like about your hobbies and would they still be hobbies if you did them way more often?
These are just some examples but I do think some of our deeper motivations can take over without us realising and taking a step back every now and then to see what’s going on is a good thing.
Tony
If you’re interested in receiving our monthly Insights sign up here
