Achieving life balance through coaching (2)

Great works are performed not by strength, but by perseverance” (Samuel Johnson).

There is sufficient proof that a lot more people have in the recent past adapted general coaching principles and methodologies to achieve better career and life goals. There is every reason to believe that this trend will continue, as more people become more aware of the benefits of having in a coach, a committed, experienced, loyal and non-judgmental sounding board. And, as coaching is becoming more relevant in daily life as a personal transformational process, so is the increase in the need to achieve life balance through coaching.

The power of coaching in facilitating personal development and performance improvement is now well known. Related to this benefit is the effectiveness of coaching in helping to establish an excellent life balance, whereby a person can be active, passionate and committed in several spheres without suffering burnout or loss of focus. It is all about learning to be less intense in one area of life, chasing the ideal while other areas suffer neglect and are left in ruins. This results from poor self management.

The very essence of coaching is about being able to do more and do better, not because you necessarily have to work harder physically and be strained, but because you are more resourceful and creative, through personal inspiration. In this regard, you learn to look within yourself, and access through the power of self awareness, self belief and self motivation all of your mind resources to achieve feats supposedly beyond you.

In every coaching process, the key is to have a mindset that possibilities exist. In believing that possibilities exist, the client is assisted by the coach to seek the correct life balance by seeking the highest level of self management. Self management in this regard is the ability to lay aside and effectively deal with personal issues that tend to put or exert excessive pressure on self. These personal issues include thoughts, opinions, egos, pride, defensiveness, preferences, struggles and judgments of self and others.

Self management also means giving up on the need to look or appear ‘good’, especially in attempting to do so much and give so much, in order to meet other peoples’ expectations. True self management is about being fully convinced about what is right, and being totally focused on doing what is right, the right way. The motivation in this context must always be that you are doing what is right and best, not for any other reason, but for the fact that it is the right and best thing to do.

It is that superior judgment and conviction, based on increased self awareness and self belief that a coach would often use as the “anchor” for helping the client to establish correct life balance. In the course of the coaching process, the coach helps the client to investigate, discover and deploy the most realistic solutions and best patterns, in meeting the demands and challenge of correct life balance. The goal in doing this is to ensure that the client can rightly manage personal judgment and the judgment of others.

What the coach offers as a partner in the coaching process for life balance is the constant reminder about the client’s needs and the agenda set forth by the client.

The role of the coach is to provide guidance, acting as a valuable change agent and catalyst, but never wresting the initiative from the client. The focus also is on being more conscious and alive in a deeper relationship with all aspects of the life of the client where the correct balance is required.

The coach has the responsibility to listen and be receptive to the words spoken by the client and analyse what are the underlying but unspoken issues behind the spoken words. The coach can thereby track the client’s personal energy, fears, frustrations, desires, passion, values, resistance, and other issues, which potentially create the conditions of life imbalance. Through empathy and effective communication, the coach is able to offer to the client the scenarios of new perspectives and expanded options. That is the value proposition that coaching offers in facilitating life balance.

Do not get trapped in a maze of activities and processes that drain you physically, mentally, financially and spiritually, simply by thinking that you have to do so much in a day. You must decide what is worth giving all your attention and energies to at each time. It is important for you to decide that you need to have a good balance in your life, so you must learn to create more time for yourself as you focus on priority issues. These must remain the things that can create more sustainable value for you and others. You can read more about the transformational power of coaching at www.ceedcoaching.com.

Emmanuel Imevbere