Leading your business from your inner wisdom

How would your business, and for that matter, your life be, if you were always operating from your inner most wisdom??

Generating awareness

At its very root, coaching is very simple.? Coaching is about generating more awareness, of ourselves and of the rest of the world (others we interact with and the situations that unfold), from a more objective view.

That’s it. ?

Because with more awareness, we then get to chose how we react and respond to these situations and people.? It’s not magic.? Its not about controlling a situation in a manipulative way.? But it is about operating from an emotionally regulated place where we have agency over our thoughts, actions and behaviours.

Science tells us that most of our thoughts, actions and behaviours are governed by our subconscious brain. ?

This means that all of those functions, actions and the micro decisions we take, are done so on autopilot where we not really thinking about them when we’re doing them.?

Societal programming

As humans living mostly in some form of community, we then have societal programming.? This is the programming that we receive unconsciously from our parents, our environment, government, society, institutions and our peers about how we should operate, think, feel and behave.? I don’t mean in an oppressive way, in Western societies we’re not literally told what to think say do.?

This programming is more nuanced and subtle and generally relates to codes of conduct, social norms, belief systems, expectations about life choices such a career, partnership and family.? This programming starts when we are born and continues throughout our lives.? As children, with brains which haven’t fully developed, and therefore our ability to think critically and to objectively evaluate all the programming that we are receiving, has not yet developed, we take this programming to be true and we operate from this place.? Our actions, decisions and life choices are influenced by this programming, whether we like it or not!

Why am I saying all of this?!

The more we operate from a conscious place, an aware place, the better the decisions we make. ? The better the actions we take.? The better the outcomes we get.

Can you recall a time when you made a knee-jerk decision that turned out not to be a very good one?

• A very simple example could be when someone we are close to does something that irritates us and we snap at them, shout at them, get angry and frustrated with them.? I’m guilty of this many times over.
• Or perhaps in the middle of a boring task at work, we reach for our phone and we start idly scrolling, without really thinking about what we are doing. I'm also guilty of doing this.

How many of you can also relate to these examples?? How helpful were these responses for you?? Did they get you the results that you wanted from this behaviour??

Whilst these actions might at first seem like automatic responses, actions we take over which we have no control, they are in fact decisions.? These micro decisions and choices all come from our subconscious brain. We do have control over them, we can change the way we react and respond, with intent, effort, consistent practice, and of course, increased awareness.

This is why I’m a big fan of coaching when I’m trying to shake an unhelpful thought process or pattern of behaviour.? Coaching can’t stop the trigger from happening, but coaching can help us to chose how we respond to the triggers (sometimes small triggers, sometimes, life impacting events) that inevitably happen throughout our lives.

Coaching is about creating space and time and awareness in the moment, so we get to choose a different and better response, that serves us better over the longer term.

Your business, your choice

So, how would aspects of your life be, if you got to chose how you responded to triggers and situations and choices?? How would your business be if you got to take decisions from a place of calm, tapping into your inner wisdom, knowing what is really right for you and your business and not operating from a place of what you think you “should” do, because that is what everyone else does or what everything else thinks you should do? ?

So, as you wind down for your Christmas break, and as you also start to consider the new year ahead, here are some coaching tips and questions to help you to start to notice where you have a choice for a different action:

After a triggering event: (happily, Christmas is riddled with these!), at the end of that day after a triggering event has occurred, think back and answer these questions (use a journal to write your answers down for extra benefit). ?

• How did you respond??
• What was the consequence?
• How did you feel after this response?? What did you notice was going on in your body and in your mind?
• How would you have liked to feel instead?
• Looking back, what other options existed, regarding how you responded?? For instance, did you take ownership of an issue and could someone else have helped?? Did the thing/issue need to be dealt with right away? Could you have responded differently, how might you have done this?
• What might the outcome have been had you responded differently?
• How do you think about the triggering event now?

The important thing is not to beat yourself up about what happened.? My coaching is all about having compassion for being human and having compassion for the things we don’t yet know, including awareness of our behaviours, especially in challenging situations.

I’m not going to write about changing behaviour here.? It warrants another post, but what I will say is this, now that you have noticed, don’t expect that you will change your behaviour as a direct result, over night.? Changing behaviour is hard, our automatic responses are the result of years of programming.? Noticing, is the first important step. And if you have noticed, give yourself a pat on the back because that is the best thing you could have done for yourself today. ?

So take a moment to acknowledge that and congratulate, and maybe have an extra mince pie.

How does all of this relate to my executive coaching?

I am passionate about working with business owners who lead purpose-driven, values-led business and I coach them to take better decisions about their businesses so that they achieve the impact they desire.

If you have a difficult business decision to take or you would like to operate from your inner wisdom to achieve the impact you desire for your business, why not book a discovery call to explore how I can help.