Achieving meaningful goals
life mastery methodology
What is life coaching?
Try thinking about it as an ultimate form of active, collaborative learning. Did you ever think about how you learn best? Sitting in front of a lecturer, trying to absorb what is being discussed, or actively experiencing and being involved in the learning process, experimenting and contributing? Most people prefer the active route: it’s much more fun and engaging, accelerating results.
Nobody knows what your future holds, and nobody else has the same feelings and representations inside themselves as you do. So our coaching will, inevitably, be unique. Coaching is about asking the right questions and listening for possibilities. In many ways, we are all simply the result of the questions we ask. And so coaching allows you the complete freedom to ask those questions you haven’t yet asked and to create what has yet to be created.
My approach
There are many variants of coaching, and coaches typically draw upon multiple techniques to best serve their clients. My method of activating the resources within you has a multi-disciplinary underpinning and so is sufficiently adaptable to follow your unique circumstances. I combine rigorous techniques gathered together by Tony Robbins, Chloe Madanes, Mark and Magali Peysha in human needs psychology, cognitive therapy, hypnotherapy and neurolinguistics.
Psychologically, my approach is in many ways derived from the work of Carl Rogers, one of the founding fathers of client-centred therapy. I draw upon an understanding of Fritz Perls’ Gestalt therapy; Adler and Eric Berne‘s developmental theories and Transactional Analysis conceptualisation; Shostrom’s views on manipulation; the existential observations of Yalom, Jung and Rollo May; Smedes‘ work on healing shame and Hutschnecker‘s pivotal “Will to Live”. I supplement this with meaningful life scientific approaches undertaken by the University of Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center and profound transformative therapeutic techniques supported today by Dr John Butler.
My aim is to elevate your inner strengths and resolve emotional states and fixed ideas that inhibit your personal and professional growth from blossoming: to help you find more resourceful states and ultimately shift your internal metaphors until the sky is, metaphorically, the limit. How do we reveal your internal metaphors? By carefully questioning your inner mind using clean language techniques. This ensures that the imagery and ideas that emerge are yours and yours alone, untainted by my expectations, biases or interpretations.
Each week, we explore a specific technique adapted to improve your unique circumstances, be they in your home life, social life, career, health, spirituality, personal development, family, community, finances or, more broadly, your emotional well-being. Each session acknowledges and aims to improve a specific behaviour, belief, state or emotion. The cumulative effect of multiple sessions creates a bedrock of support, like a series of stepping stones from which to propel yourself toward your life goals. You grow to know yourself more deeply and release the truths within you that can guide you to your passions and a more fulfilling life. Comforting illusions evaporate, replaced by confidence, inner support, wisdom and newfound resource, which will ultimately improve your connection, communication, mutual understanding and happiness.
“Who looks outside, dreams…. Who looks inside, awakens”
(Jung)
This all sounds too good to be true!
Let’s get some things straight out of the way: this isn’t magic, I’m not a guru, and my life is far from perfect. Also, I’m not here to tell you how to live your life or to show you “the way”. I don’t know the answers to your questions; I don’t even know what your questions are just yet. But as Jung said, “Who looks outside, dreams…. Who looks inside, awakens”. And that’s what this is all about.
Perhaps it feels safer to resist. It can’t be that easy. But changes can happen in a split second when you make the decision. Do you want to make a change? Or, do you perhaps absolutely need to make a change? Are your goals and purposes in life hazy, or are they clear? Do you find yourself lacking something that feels to be important and just can’t quite put your finger on it? Or are your goals frustratingly always just out of reach? This is what coaching is for. It’s not mumbo-jumbo; it’s tried and tested. So, give it a try. You don’t have to believe it to experience it. Or ask around, see what others say, and then make an informed decision.
Will I feel uncomfortable?
Possibly. Maybe, maybe not. I have found that all the meaningful progress I ever made in life felt a bit uncomfortable at the time. Indeed, in retrospect, I sometimes laugh at how meaningless the great successes of my life were and how utterly extraordinary and fabulous my most significant failures became. It seems like we don’t get too far from feeling comfortable. My job here isn’t to make you feel comfortable or uncomfortable; it’s to help you get results. To get those results, you must own your decisions, take responsibility for your choices, and embrace them. Squeeze them. Depending on your temperament, that can be thrilling or make you feel uneasy. Perhaps it requires ditching some comfortable delusions or alibis. Everyone is different. But we will work together with respect and kindness, it will be a lot of fun, probably very revealing, and ultimately it will be really, really great.
Will it work?
The best way to answer that question is for us to get on the phone and discuss your particular circumstances. Everyone is different, but if you genuinely want to improve, I am confident my techniques can be transformational.
How does it work?
As the saying goes, you never see your blind spots. With the best of intentions, we can all go through life without paying attention to our fixed ideas, our inhibitions or our comfortably vague intentions… and equally, we can meander from day to day, not ever really engaging the strengths, resources and creativity within ourselves to build our lives the way we truly want. Other times we don’t hold the roadmap to where we want to go.
My approach to coaching works by applying tested, relevant techniques to raise awareness, question the limiting metaphors guiding your life, and welcome the resources within you to achieve your goals. It involves taking practical, rigorous steps together, typically once per week, that make tangible improvements in your life, perception, and outlook. It’s active, it’s fun, it’s non-judgemental, and it makes life more authentic and more honest. It requires your effort to step up and embrace the task, take responsibility for your life and take the steps you want to take to improve your life.
You may be someone who likes to practice between sessions, in which case we will actively support your way of working. Or you may be someone who needs a moment to digest each discovery in your own time. I will honour your needs and adapt my approach to help you work in harmony with the style most effective for you.
Is it safe?
Absolutely. One of my central undertakings is to create a “space” for you where it is safe for you to grow, where you feel understood and free to be yourself. Clients and coach work on an equal footing, sharing the responsibility and the intent to obtain extraordinary results in collaboration.
I feel this could be for me, but I’m not sure. How can I become more certain?
The best way is to experience it. That’s why I offer a free discussion that can bring clarity. We can review exactly what you are hoping for and what techniques I can bring you. At the end of our conversation, we should both be in an excellent position to say whether or not we can work effectively together to bring about the results you want to achieve.