Personal energy and lifestyle for successful coaching

Coaching is a conversation that opens up new vistas of possibilities, energies, forces, skills and enjoyment” (Julie Starr).

Several years ago, before I met Tony Dovale, my coach, mentor and partner, I came across an article where he was referred to as “South Africa’s number one energy coach”. What occurred to me then was that the gentleman must be extremely hyper active, if his coaching focus is on facilitating and raising energy through coaching. Of course, I later got to meet Tony Dovale and soon became closely associated with him as a friend, protégé and partner. 

Although I know that he is a great leadership coach and team building specialist, he just seems to be a master at elevating the energies of people around him whenever he is present. He is always so lively, full of vigour, enthusiasm, passion and enjoyment. When we visited Nigeria together as joint facilitators of a transformational training programme at Abuja in December 2012, Tony Dovale ensured that his trademark energy engagements would not be easily forgotten. After more than 30 years of coaching, he remains just as passionate and energised. He taught me lots about personal energy. 

Personal energy describes the level of enthusiasm, drive and passion that you have about a particular desired outcome in life or any endeavour, as well as the personal price that you are willing to pay to achieve the outcomes joyfully. As a result, your personal energy is especially heightened by the very thought of the outcome. This will in fact often tend to ‘pump’ you up, keeping you awake at night and up early in the morning with sheer zeal and determination to achieve.

Furthermore, your energised state is also infectious, because it would appear that you make everyone around you to be just as passionate and enthusiastic as you are. This is especially true of visionary leaders. They are extremely passionate about their vision, and they do everything possible to communicate that vision to their people with just as much passion as they are being driven. Hence, Tony Dovale insists that a true leader builds the energy of his people around his own energy. 

Unfortunately, this is not always possible, nor is it common to achieve in many organisations. Global statistics show that less than 18% of people employed in an organisation are enthusiastic about going to work each day. They often drag themselves out of their beds, and go through the motions with gritted teeth each day, just as our kids go through the motions of going to school each day. 

But, why do we act differently when we are going on a holiday or to visit someone that we love? I believe that it relates to our perception and our realities about having to do something, rather than loving to do something. 

Personal energy is having and/or creating the space for the development and unleashing of personal creative powers. It also shows its applications through definite motivations for enthusiasm, cheerfulness, inspiration, and eagerness to create value. In other words, when we have to do something simply because it is necessary, we just do it anyway and try to love doing it. 

But, when we have to do something that we love, it is a joy for us to do it, and we would still love to do it over and over. The reason is that we are energised by the desire to do what we love and desire. That is the reason why we usually get better at what we love to do. We find that we practice it continuously with great enthusiasm until we become even more creative doing it. Adapting personal energy is in fact a means of inducing and increasing our personal creativity. 

Personal energy is however greatly dependent on, and influenced by a person’s general lifestyle, as manifested by his general outlook to life and worldview. Essentially, a person’s lifestyle refers to how the person lives his life and functions on a daily basis, in relation to other people, the environment, personal values, habits, obligations, desires, activities, and behavioural tendencies, among others. 

A positive lifestyle thus suggests the good balance of talents, health, mind, body, spirit, resources and well being, especially in relation to work, play, family, relationships, etc. That balanced state is especially what coaching seeks to achieve on the long run. This is especially true of impact leaders and others that have the opportunities to influence others. 

In every practical coaching process, there is the unquestionable desire of both the coach and the client to raise personal energy levels in a manner that would facilitate a more positive lifestyle for the client. This is often anticipated by the coach, who is usually quite concerned that the desired coaching outcome would compel positive lifestyle changes. 

A lot of the time, the coach has to challenge the client to see that the desired lifestyle changes are worth fighting for. Naturally, most of us would prefer to be left alone and not be challenged to make some important lifestyle changes. What the coach often uses as the currency of lifestyle change is personal energy. The success of the coaching process would therefore depend on the level of personal enthusiasm that the engagement can generate, in order to compel personal transformation.  You can read more about the transformational power of coaching at www.ceedcoaching.com

Emmanuel Imevbere