The gift that you give yourself

I want to share a story with you – one that taught me a lot about the power of perspective. It was in 2010, I was riding in my car with one of my team members, Martha. At one point in the conversation I turned to ask her "What is it that you like about yourself?" We rode in silence for almost two minutes. Finally, she turned to me and said, matter of factly, "I can't think of anything."

To say that I was shocked is an understatement. This lady is intelligent, charming and compassionate and somehow she was missing all of that. As I dug deeper I found out that she had time for everybody except herself. She would find the good in people and appreciate everybody around. What hit me hard was that she had no good words for herself. And I knew for sure that she was not only brilliant but one of the finest human beings I have encountered in my life.

Why does this happen? How does an eco-system conspire to make this real? The truth is, in many ways a combination of our lives - our culture, family, friends, and early exposures and as we grow up, our thinking and perceptions conspire to undermine our confidence as women. Often, women have not grown up in families which teach positive affirmation, continuous encouragement, and respect for one self. I have seen women being held to a higher standard and reminded that they don’t measure up.

We have no idea that these are the building blocks to self-confidence. The world today likes size zero and Barbie-doll figures. Our car, our house, our paycheck, our title, our designer labels, or some other artificial yardstick gives us temporary pass to the world of “The Accepted One”. But in our hearts, we know it isn't real.

I needed to act for Martha. I owed that to Martha as her manager and good friend. As luck would have it, some months back, I made sure that Martha has a Coach.

Last week, I called Martha at around 8:30 in morning. The call was not picked up. This was very very unusual. I got a return call an hour later. Martha told me that she had her phone on silent mode because she was listening to an audio book on her way to work. For me, it was too good to be true. Martha was spending time with herself. She was nourishing her soul. She had started the process of falling in love with herself all over again.

Since coaching is confidential, I could not talk to her coach about the methodology but obviously something was clicking. I am sure the coach was helping her take some baby steps and I could just see the results out there for myself.

In all likelihood, it was the persistence of a Coach at work. This would have led to many changes and among other things it would have led the morning routine of reflection. Being around I could observe few more things. Now, Martha doesn’t wait anymore for everybody else at work to leave before she exits. As a matter of fact, twice a week, she is leaving at her own chosen time. I am not surprised.

Here is the insight I want to share with you – coaching, in the right spirit, brings a change in small steps, small successes and then one day we look back and are so surprised to see how far we have come.

Since centuries, we women have been trained to believe that putting yourself first is selfish. When you search “self-love” in a dictionary, the current definition is conceit, vanity and narcissism. We think of love as something that we get from somebody else rather than something we have inside us and we can draw upon it anytime. Only persistence effort of a “Coach “ can ignite this thinking in us.

I urge all of you, especially women to build their self-esteem and sometimes coaching helps .

Don’t wait. Do it today.