I love what I do for a living! Working as a professional coach, I have the privilege to be invited into the lives of amazing people who trust me to have their best interest at heart and to help them achieve what they want to achieve be it at work or elsewhere in their lives. Sometimes the people I work with figure out their next steps pretty quickly and just needed the opportunity to voice them, and sometimes it’s a longer journey. Both are equally satisfying in so many ways.
What’s become clear in my work is that it’s always a journey, and that there are three things that are always needed, regardless of what the journey entails. You could even call them stages on the journey.
The first one is clarity – How clear are you? And what do you need to be clear on?
How clear are you in terms of what you want, your goals? This can be such a stumbling block!
“I don’t know what I want!”
… is something I hear often and then we have to find out whether that’s true or whether there’s a fear driving that response. A fear that it might not be possible, so what if I fail? A fear that wanting this thing will be seen badly or differently by others? What does wanting this say about me? A fear that I might miss out on something else if I pursue this thing. A fear of changing my mind… and so many more.
So how would it be if all those fears were eliminated? What if you could go for it AND change your mind along the way as new or different information came through?
Getting clear without the fear is the first step, because then the ideas on how to achieve it, the strategy, will appear.
Confidence is the second stage – what is confidence for you?
Once we get clear, action beckons and that’s when we need to gain the confidence to choose which course of action to take. Now confidence is complex, and we are all at different stages when it comes to our own confidence.
Is it about skills? Do we have the skills – hard and soft- that we can lean on, in order to take the action that we want to take? This is when more clarity is needed! Are we clear on which skills we actually need and how to go about acquiring them?
Is it about self-belief? I grew up with a belief that I was no good at sport. It was reinforced not only by my experience in taking part in sport but by a number of well-meaning people around me, who would tell me that I was not naturally gifted and should spend my time on other things. This meant that when it came to any sport, my confidence was pretty low so I would do my best to avoid situations which required me to participate in any sporting activity. It was my husband, who is a naturally gifted sportsman and a tennis coach by profession, who helped me change that belief. He encouraged me to try tennis, he set up opportunities for me to succeed, he gave me feedback on all that I was doing well and how I could use that to do even better, he made it an enjoyable experience. That gave me the confidence I needed to choose to do more and not only in tennis. I now run, swim and even get on a bike!! I now have the confidence to have a go at more sports with a belief that I can learn and have fun doing it.
The other belief that I’ve nurtured that enables my confidence in many situations, is the belief that if I make a mistake, I can make it right. This belief enables me to take calculated risks more easily and with more confidence. It enables me to get ideas out of my head and into real life, because if it doesn’t work, I can work it out.
What does confidence mean to you? What do you need the confidence for?
Last but not least, is courage – What does courage look like to you?
This is one that we get to at different times for different people, but the need for it always appears at some stage. And it is almost always about the courage to get out of our own way, the courage to do something that our body is telling us is dangerous for us in some way. As human beings, we are built to spot danger and avoid it. Depending on our experience, our personality, our beliefs, our values – and I’m sure a whole lot more! – we will experience danger differently.
Get clear on why it feels dangerous, build the confidence to find a way through and then add a dose of courage to get it over the line – this is something that I see repeated time and time again.
And even though there is this pattern, the pattern plays out differently for each person and for each part of the journey for each person! This is what I love about what I do! I learn so much not only from my own journey with my coach, but also from the journey that I get to be a part of with every person I work with.
I was speaking to one of the members of my Rising Leaders Circle membership the other day and she said to me:
“Sonia, I’m so enjoying the weekly sessions with everyone. One of the best things is that I get to hear about what is happening for people in different industries and roles from mine. I get to hear their way of seeing things and doing things and I’m sat there going – ‘really? I just wouldn’t have thought about it in that way! I’ve never experienced it like that! It stretches me and helps me learn”
Working with a coach will help you get the clarity, confidence and courage to succeed in work and in life, as a leader of yourself and as a leader of others. Being part of a community of people who also want to get the clarity, confidence and courage to succeed (whatever success means to you!) will only help you on your journey and make it a lot more fun! Come and experience a week of working with me by registering at https://join.soniagavira.com/coachathon . It’s free and it’s fun!
