Life Leadership Coaching
The Life Leaders Digest
ONTOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO CHANGE - RELATIONSHIPS
We are living through challenging and uncertain times. If we are to live a life of meaning and purpose we must be prepared to take responsibility for our choices and hold ourselves accountable for what we do or do not do. This is an inspiring and empowering prospect, but it does mean digging deeper into our unconscious mind to find the vision and resilience to make it happen.
The Life Leadership Model offers you an opportunity to explore through reflective dialogue, with a good listener, the deeper questions that will give your life and work real meaning and purpose. This is not a mystical art. Reflective practice is a powerful tool that can enhance performance, health and welfare, and create a deep sense of personal satisfaction. You find yourself taking control of your internal dialogue, your mood state and emotions as well as how you use your time, energy and personal resources.
The model outlines the key questions. It is based on the idea of neuro-logical levels. By making your way through the questions your confidence will grow as your embrace life's uncertainties, complexities and tensions. The answers will enable you to critically assess your own unique way of being and it's effectiveness in enabling you to take a stronger lead, both at work and in your life generally.
The place to start is with the question - Who am I ? This gives you the opportunity to get a handle on your personality and character traits, your preferred senses and thinking styles, your talents, passions and strengths. It gets at your identity, the who behind the why, how, what, where and when. It asks you to reflect on what is natural for you. What is it that makes your heart sing? When do you feel in the flow and not aware of time passing? How you see yourself in relation to a bigger purpose? Positive language that reflects positive assessments are needed here. Any negatives should be turned into optimistic, positive language.
Asking yourself - Why am I here ? can hep you understand that life operates at multiple levels of learning and change and if you do not have a clear purpose for being alive you will find it difficult to make sense of the world and your contribution to making it a better place. Your thoghts should reflect an optimistic mood state. This causes you to ask - What do I want to do with my life ? Your deeply held beliefs and values will lead you to consider a particular vocation or occupation. The degree of fit between who you are and what you want to do with your life holds the key to you experiencing high levels of awareness, satisfaction and happiness with the path you have chosen. A loose fit leads you to experience unease and structural tension. It might be a dream unrealised or a feeling unfulfilled. Understanding what you value is important simply because your values influence how you behave, the work you prefer to do, the relationships that work for you and the deeper intentions that determine what you focus your attention on - especially your time and resources.
When the answers to the above questions are clear in your mind then living authentically according to your values, intentions and personality seems easy and obvious and will influence your lifestyle and state of wellbeing. The question now is - How will you live your life ? to ensure that it is healthy, meaningful and enjoyable. Much will depend on your capacity to think more deeply and your ability to influence your choices and priorities. You will no doubt puruse strategies and goals that will shape your interpretation of subsequent experiences and how you go make sense of things. The issues here are often linked to work/life balance because you hold on to memories, beliefs and habits that may no longer be working for you. Suddenly the things that you could relate in the past are now breaking down. You start to reflect and ask - Where and with whom ? would you prefer to be interacting. You become more choosy about the friends you keep and the work you do. Your life at home and in your community assume greater importance. You are much more aware of what really matters to you. You plans and goals have to take into account the needs of significant others as you ask - What will I do when? The act of planning ahead keeps you future focused. You are not relying on anyone else which means you must be proactive in finding out what is possible andwhat skills may need to be developed. Life choices are often based on previous experience, assumptions, distinctions and interpretations. They have to be challenged to maintain a good fit between you and your world view. Priorities change and new dilemmas come along all the time. So what ? You are better able to deal with the anxiety and uncertainty if you have a clear idea of who you are, what's important to you, your resilience levels and what actions feel right for you. It's about being clear - What exactly do you want ? When do you want it ? Where do you want it ? Who else wants it ?
The logic you use to inform your goals and reflect on your experiences shape your life. What's more, the outcomes you get from the actions you take influences subsequent behaviour and future outcomes. If the outcome is not what you wanted then you must change your behaviour. But to change your behaviour you have to change your thinking. Sequential thoughts need to be balanced with random insights and abstract thoughts with concrete actions. This may require you to question the assumptions behind your current way of thinking. This may mean changing your belief system or developing new capabilities. This is when Life Leadership Coaching can help you transform your way of thinking and your way of being in the world. You should always reflect on what could you lose by improving your personal effectivness ? How could the benefits you envisage be protected ? How might others be affected by your heightened awareness ?
Clients who have used the Life Leadership framework have gained a stronger sense of where they are going and why they are doing it. The insights have challenged and supported their efforts to realise their potential to lead themselves and others.
Life Leadership Coaching
Life Leadership Coaching is about raising the client's awareness to a level where they can can achieve their goals by becoming more powerful observers of their own way of being. It is done in such a way that the client discovers for themselves what is not working for them and learning from experience how to help others take leadership of their own lives. Clients learn how to embrace the unknown by exploring the tension between who they are NOW and their NEW preferred way of being. The Coach has the task of dealing with any resistance to act and help remove the blockages to seeing things differently.
This is done by establishing a rapport with the client and demonstrating that the coach cares deeply about them as a person and their desire to change. This often hinges on the client developing a clear idea of what they are looking for and why they want it. The coach is looking and listening for evidence of the gap between NOW and NEW from which to question the client about their assumtions and intentions. As well as challenging the client to face facts and accept what they cannot change, the coach remais curious to explore possibilities for new ways of seeing that will boost the client's confidence and support their commitment to take action.
