"Climbing the Mountain within; Unlocking Potential to Maximize Performance"

I have trekked in Sikkim, Ladakh as well as some places in Himachal Pradesh (India) in small groups and have often pondered how the process of walking for miles and miles helps me in unravelling the cobwebs of my own mind. While I am walking forward, I am also walking within myself, in both the journeys skirting pitfalls, sudden turns, loose sand, ups and downs. And I have often felt the presence of our trek leader gently guiding us by his presence, forever listening to us and watching over us like mother hen and ensuring we take the right route. He watches us and notices how we are walking, whether we are distributing our weight in the right manner, whether we are walking at a pace which is right for us and without telling us what to do, he simply corrects our alignment by walking with us in this journey on the mountain so that we are able to walk our best and reach our next camp in the best frame of mind as well as safely. I have often wondered how he is able to do all this without telling us what to do and what not to do.

I have recently joined 'The Art & Science of Coaching' being conducted Erickson Coaching International and I have started to understand how our Trek Leader has managed to get us to enjoy ourselves on our treks as he was Coaching us throughout. I am putting a picture above this article of me praying to the mountain and thanking it for allowing me to travel safely on it once I completed the Hampta Circuit Trek as I feel that it shows some of the peace and 'musical silence' that I achieved and which is what I feel is akin to what I feel when I am experiencing Coaching either as a Coachee or as a novice Coach.

The process of Coaching is strangely a journey into yourself (both as a Coach and a Coachee) where you are able to climb the mountain within and reach your own summit and it is strangely calming but at the same time the journey never ends with reaching the summit, it carries on to other summits... I know I must be sounding strange and too poetic to some readers but if any of you have gone through a successful coaching session with a skilled coach, you would have felt the positive impact that he/she made for you.

As an adult, we rarely do things when they are told to us as instructions or as right/ wrong even when it is obvious to us that we should follow those instructions. The only way we change is when we realize ourselves that we need to make a change and only then do we act. I wonder at times why we are so resistant to anyone else telling us what to do?

Coaching allows the coachee to realize through self awareness what needs to be done and works from the premise that solutions to all issues/ problems/ situations lie within us and the Coach helps us with establishing our alignment in order to understand what we actually want (and not what we are saying we want) and then getting an actual solution to this which we find within ourselves.

I read somewhere that the humans get the highest form of happiness when they help someone else which is why a lot of philanthropists do a lot of what they do - I feel. I also feel that being a Coach is probably the best way for me to feel some of that happiness when I am able to help another person in finding a solution to their problem/ issue - helping them climb their mountain within.

I wrote some lines a few days ago which I wanted to share in this context:

Junoon insaan ke liye fizool hai, uski insaniyat hi ibaadat hai

Us pal ko yaad kar jo rooh ko choo kar reh jaaye ek muskurahat mein

Translation: Passion is a waste for a human, it is his/ her humanity which is his/ her prayer, Remember that moment which touched your soul and left you with a smile.

This is what Coaching is to me...