Life Skills and Lessons from Coaching

[This is the second article out of a series of articles on coaching]

What I love about coaching, is how it is inextricably tied to self-development. Coaching is not just something you “do” to others. Coaching is about becoming a better person yourself, so that you can show up better for others. The coaching skills we learn, are fundamental to improving the relationships in our lives – be it with our loved ones, our co-workers, or with the wider communities we reside in.

In this article, I’ll share a few powerful life skills and lessons that my coaching journey has taught me so far, and end off with a vision for our society for the future.

Being present

Just recall the conversations you had with people this week. In how many were you truly present – fully focused on the other person, and not distracted by digital devices or whatever internal dialogue was running through your head?

According to Marcia Reynolds, the key to mastery of coaching is not the perfection of technical skills, but the deepening of presence. Being present is what makes a person feel safe, heard and valued. And I think that is one of the hardest things a coach has to master – being fully present with someone requires a great deal of intention and focus, as we need to set aside the internal chatter that goes on in our heads. I didn’t realise how much chatter I had in my head until I started to be consciously aware of it. Am I having thoughts about judging the other person? Am I having thoughts about how I’ll be perceived? Am I just thinking about what I want to eat later? Now during conversations, I am more aware of whenever I become distracted with my own thoughts, and to release them to return to being present with the person in front of me. It’s a similar skill to meditation, so meditation is a great practice for coaches.

Being present also requires listening actively to the person in front of us. In coaching, we learn to navigate between different levels of listening. At Level 1, we listen through a self-centred lens (“what does this mean for me” / “what can I say in return”); our main focus is our own thoughts, analysis and opinions. At Level 2, we listen through an others-focused lens (“how can I help you”/ “where are you coming from”), which brings about greater empathy and understanding. But it doesn’t end there. At Level 3, we don’t just listen to what you say. We look out for what you are not saying, and pick up on subtle energy and emotional cues. This is the deepest and most difficult level of listening, but it is at this level where we can truly connect with each other.

So many opportunities for quality connections are lost because we are not truly present or listening to each other. By cultivating greater presence, not only can we strengthen our relationships with others, we also unlock the key to happiness. According to spiritual teachers, psychologists and philosophers, the ability to live in the present moment— not getting caught up with worries about the past or future— is what brings us peace and joy.

?Choosing how you want to show up for others

There is an interesting principle in coaching, which is to choose how you want to feel in your client sessions. Often we think our emotions are a reaction to external events, but we can actually consciously choose to cultivate positive emotions when engaging others. Our emotions are contagious, and can have more impact on people than our words.

A practice I do before each client session, is to take deep breaths and say the words “care, compassion, curiosity and courage”, and try to really feel these emotions and qualities in my body. I started using this practice for work meetings and even conversations with loved ones. And it really takes intent to feel these emotions and qualities, as they may not come naturally in the moment. When someone frustrates you, it is a choice to feel compassionate to try to understand what might be going on behind the scenes. When someone talks about something you don’t usually care about, it is a choice to feel curious rather than disengage. When something difficult needs to be said, it is a choice to be courageous to state it rather than sweep it under the rug.

But how can you choose how you want to feel when you are emotionally triggered in the moment – or if you are just feeling tired, stressed or anxious? I do think that self-care and looking after our own emotional states come first. The key thing affecting how well coaches can show up for their clients, is their own state of well-being. It’s as the saying goes – we need to put on our own oxygen masks before we can help others.

Above all, I think the most powerful way you can choose to show up for someone, is to believe in their potential. Coaching is based on the core principle of unconditional positive regard, and I hold strongly to the principle of believing in the best in others. This comes in at Level 3 of listening – where you not only listen to someone as they are in this point in time, but also listen to their future emerging potential. As a manager at work, I feel that this has helped me to better support the growth and development of my team. Research by Shawn Achor has shown that just believing in a person's potential and expressing your beliefs, can bring that potential to life. People need to feel valued and respected, in order to be motivated to grow.

Embracing curiosity

Curiosity is an innate quality we all had as children, but somehow might seem to have lost along the way to adulthood. In school, we learn that questions have specific, right answers, or that some answers are better than others depending on how we get graded. At work, we focus on finding the best, most effective solutions to the problems that we face. We look for the low-hanging fruits for quick success. In my own life, I find that I put pressure on myself to look for the “right” answers or decisions.

Curiosity is one of the key skills that coaches need to hone. It requires unlearning our natural tendencies to problem solve or find the right answers, because in that space, we are limited by our existing knowledge and beliefs. In coaching, it is the space of the unknown where new insights are generated and where growth happens, and it is the process of exploring that creates learning. To facilitate curiosity, we need to detach from what we believe to be right, to understand other perspectives and possibilities. We need to be able to sit with areas of confusion and uncertainty, and trust that insights will eventually emerge. We need to let go of our need to control and predict how things will turn out, and let the process of growth and discovery take its course.

In our work and lives, do we give ourselves the permission to be curious? To not pressure ourselves to find the “right” solutions as quickly as possible, but to take the time and space to explore and learn? To be okay with uncertainty and not knowing? Without the art of curiosity, we risk leading limited lives. ?

Being unconditionally honest with your imperfections, while also unconditionally loving yourself

The last lesson I will mention here, is something that applies to any of us developing a new skill or craft. We all have moments of uncertainty and doubt, whether we are “good enough” and whether we can “make it”.??

I am still a work in progress in developing all those skills I mentioned above. There are moments where I doubt myself, and coaching sessions where I wish I had showed up better. But I’ve learnt that it takes compassion and strength to accept that we are all always works in progress, and to be willing to stare nakedly at our own flaws so that we may work on them. This is true of any area we want to improve in life, but particularly so for coaching – because if we cannot be honest with ourselves, we cannot expect our clients to be honest.

The beauty of coaching, is that it is a never-ending journey of growth, of working towards the best version of ourselves, so that we can bring out the best in others.?And while we need to be unconditionally honest, we also need to unconditionally love ourselves in the journey. Ands just like our clients, coaches can only grow from a space of feeling valued and enough.

Now, imagine a world…?

Now, imagine a world where the fundamental principles and skills of coaching are widely used by everyone.

What if in all our conversations in families, schools, workplaces, governments – we are able to be fully present and listen actively, to practise empathy and non-judgmental curiosity? What if we were able to choose how we wanted to feel and show up for each other, instead of being reactive? Addressing societal polarization might seem like a thorny problem, but there is so much we can do to heal our divides with these fundamental life skills.

What if we chose to see each other for our potential and strengths, instead of focusing on our limitations and flaws? What if not just professional coaches, but teachers, parents, doctors, counsellors, and civil servants, adopted this belief of unconditional positive regard for the patients, clients and citizens they serve? What if we designed policies and systems based on the expectations of the best versions of ourselves, rather than to mitigate the worst versions of ourselves?

What if we all committed to leading fulfilling lives, and to making a difference in the lives of others? What if we were all able to be unconditionally honest while also unconditionally loving ourselves?

It would be a transformative world, where we truly see each other for who we are, where each of us can fulfil our potential and contribute our unique gifts to society. Where instead of living from a place of fear, comfort, and appearance, we live from a place of courage, compassion, wonder and growth.