That sounds like what happened to me….

In the past I would have thought it a superstitious coincidence, but my new perspective is that like attracts like. I was reading a text book about the importance of “accurate empathy” which “should not be confused with the meaning of ’empathy’ as identified with the person or as having had similar past experiences. Accurate empathy involves skillful reflective listening that clarifies and amplifies the person’s own experiencing and meaning without imposing the counselor’s own material.” Miler and Rollnick 2002

It was really great to read this, as one frustration I have had with my ICA classes is when a session is hijacked by someone recounting a story about themselves which doesn’t enhance the meaning of the lesson. i just switch off, and sometimes I find it difficult to re-engage with the session.

Only days after reading about accurate empathy, I received an email from a friend who has moved to the other side of Australia. We were discussing the difficulty of holding back opinions and suggestions, and she raised accurate empathy: ” The one that I also really try not to do, but I still do I know, is when someone is telling you of a problem and asks for advice directly, making sure that I don’t come back at them immediately with a similar story from my life. I find that really frustrating myself and never helpful.”

Proof of the theory !!! Now the trick is to remember…..

From the Inside

We all need to feel good . I suppose that’s why genetics provides us with endorphins, and why James Brown sang about it. But many of us have lost touch with how to make ourselves happy,and look to others (like partners), or work, or possesseions to do the job for us. The International Coach Academy(ICA) topic Underlying Automatic Commitments gave me a window into the kinds of thoughts clients have about themselves, and how they are limiting themselves. UAC are the thoughts we have about ourselves that are so ingrained they are ‘automatic.’ They could be ‘i dont deserve to be happy’ ‘ I am stupid’ or ‘i am unlovable.’ Psychologists call them core beliefs. Armed with this new knowledge on UAC, I feel compelled to share the following excerpt with you. It is from an Opinion Piece published in the Sydney Morning Herald by Clive Hamilton who has written a book called Affluenza. This is what caught my attention: “Affluenza, and especially the boom in spending on so-called luxury goods, reflects not so much the growth in prosperity but the spread of the anxiety and self-doubt. One marketing executive put it bluntly: “Most people don’t have a sense of self-worth. Buying luxury goods makes us feel special and successful.”. Wow.
Reading that was like a revelation. It explained succinctly western society’s obsession with designer labels, and simultaneously reminded me that i have the power to change the way I feel about myself, (while saving money). Even better I will soon be qualified to help others do the same !
For those not familiar with the term affluenza, to paraphrase, it describes the paradox that at a time when more people than ever before are affluent, the numbers of people suffering from stress and depression are at a record high. The publicity blurb says: “The Western world is in the grip of a consumption binge that is unique in human history. We aspire to the lifestyles of the rich and famous at the cost of family, friends and personal fulfilment. Rates of stress, depression and obesity are up as we wrestle with the emptiness and endless disappointments of the consumer life. I think it sounds like a great read and am going to add it to my list!

What is motivation?

I’m not up to action vs inaction in my ICA classes yet, but i can’t stop thinking about what motivates us from thinking about something to actually doing it.Why? becasue over winter I have found it extremely hard to get out of bed to meet my friends for our 5:45am thrice-weeky run. It has been so difficult that i hardly ever turned up. The day before a run I would think to myself how great a morning run would be, the evening before I would lay my running clothes out, but when the alarm went off (usually in the form of my 6 month old baby’s cry) more often than not, I would groan, get up, breast feed and stay in my warm PJs. I did have a very good excuse for not running. Our daughter is not a great sleeper and it is not unusual for either my husband or I to be up to her 3 three of 4 times a night. And I was still breastfeeding her at least once over night. But in my heart of hearts, no matter how sleep deprived I was, I knew that if I was REALLY motivated, I could have done it. But why couldnt i convert this to action? I’m sure I’ll find out in action vs inaction, but my gut feeling is that the incentives to run didnt outweight the incentives to stay at home. Losing weight, the endorphin rush, catching up with the people I cared about all lost out to the incentive of staying warm indoors sipping on a cup of tea huddled next to the heater.

But there was a turning point. i set a goal. i wanted to run a half marathon in september. in order to cross the finishers line, I had to train. Apart from going to the gym and attending my group personal training sessions (all during the day and not pre dawn!)I had to do a minimum of 4 long runs to ensure i could run the distance and not get carted off to hospital in an ambulance. And guess what? i did it. i completed my runs, I did the half, and even better, I did the run in exactly the same time i did it before I fell pregnant. I achieved my small goakls, which gave me confidence and drive to achieve my larger goal.

Simultaneous to my wrestling with motivation, I read a fantastic book called “freakonomics”. The two authors have looked at common questions like ” why did the crime rate drop in the 1990s” and by changing the PERSPECTIVE of the research, came up with some compelling answers. The chapter about incentives was particularly interesting. I highly recommend the book, and there is a blog http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/incentives/

You should…..

From my classes at ICA, it has become abundantly clear to me that Life Coaches shouldn’t give advice to clients. Which, being opinionated person, is going to be a challenge for me. So, if you have a life coach and they utter the words “you should…”, you should find a better coach! (cue laugh track).

i regard this as really important aspect to successful coaching, as any discovery or change is so much more powerful if it has emanated from ourselves rather than from someone else, no matter how supportive a role they are playing. Also, when kind hearted people offer advice like” If you want to…. , you should…” and then when they realise you didnt take their advice, it can complicate the relationship. Ask anyone who is trying to fall pregnant or who has a baby, the amount of advice heaped upon them is astounding!!!!

The challenge for me over the next week is to practice refraining from giving advice to friends and family. So you should check in next week to see how I’ve progressed……

Thought Control

Years ago when I was in university I realised that my state of mind could influence my enjoyment of experiences and thus life. I used the crude descrition “one small positive thought snowballs into lots of positive thoughts, and one negative thought spirals into negativity.” i came to this crossroads when I realised that I let little things irritate me to the point of tipping me into a bad mood. if i dropped something on the floor it made me really angry. It wasnt a fun way of living. So i forced myself when i had little setbacks to say “opps! never mind!” with a smile on my face. It took a while but it eventually became second nature. A decade later I still say it.

Now that i have started my life coaching qualifications with ICA, I particularly enjoyed the topic “perspective.” The most powerful sentence in the notes for me was “Your perspective determines your experience in life, not your circumstances.”

When sharing my enthusiasm for this notion, a friend sent me the following link about Luck, and our views on how lucky we are. And you guessed it, if we think we are lucky then good luck soon follows. it is a fascinating read, and will only take a minute or two.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3335275.stm