[This User’s Guide to Coaching series explains everything you need to know to successfully engage and work with a coach—a life coach, a creativity coach, an executive coach, any sort of coach. It accompanies Dr. Maisel’s latest book, The Coach’s Way, described as “the finest resource available for anyone who wants to develop or enrich their coaching abilities.” Grab your copy now!]
Maybe you’ve been putting off your annual medical checkup, your mammogram, or your prostate exam, because you’re scared of what the results may be. It is very human not to want to hear hard truths, even though it might save our life to hear them. The same is true with regard to seeking out a helper like a coach to help with your current challenges. You may know very clearly that you want and need some help, but you may not want to hear any hard truths about your situation.
The first question to ask and answer is, “Am I willing to do the work?” We chatted about that in the last post.
The second question to ask and answer is, “Can I tolerate hearing a hard truth or two?” You want to answer this question in the affirmative, too. You don’t want your very human defensive nature to prevent you from getting the help you need. As scary and as difficult as it may be to hear hard truths, tolerating hearing them is a key to healing, growth, and change.
Say that you’re thinking about working with a business coach on finally getting your business up and running. You have a personal recommendation from a trusted friend about which business coach to approach but you can’t seem to get yourself to connect with her. What may be getting in the way? Very likely your simple, very human desire not to want to hear from your coach that you need to put in more hours than you’re currently spending and that you need to engage in all those marketing and promoting efforts that you’ve been avoiding.
What could be more human?
To use the language that Sigmund Freud introduced, it is very customary for us to defend ourselves against knowing the truth of our situation. Human beings employ all sorts of defenses with names like denial, intellectualization, projection, regression, and so on. We have many, many ways of avoiding the truth. That you are contemplating getting some help for your challenges means that you are considering opting for vulnerability and considering looking yourself squarely in the eye. Congratulations on approaching the starting line!
The next step is to sigh and to surrender. You sigh, surrender, and say to yourself, “Okay, bring on the truth.” It’s likely that you already half-know the truth: our defenses typically have cracks in them that allow in hints of the truth. You probably already half-know that your drinking isn’t really helping your creative process, that your curt, critical business style isn’t helping you land customers, and that all that snacking that begins right after dinner isn’t helping your diet. You half-know this already: isn’t it time to know these hard truths fully?
As you contemplate getting some help, your first tasks are to answer yes to the question, “Am I willing to do the work?” and yes to the question, “Can I tolerate hearing some hard truths?” Your yes may be a little shaky, but a shaky yes is much better than a half-hearted maybe or an adamant no. Your “yes” may cause your anxiety to rise, but rest assured that you are heading in the right direction: in the direction of facing your difficulties and vastly improving your life.
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“The Coach’s Way is possibly the finest resource available for anyone who wants to develop or enrich their coaching abilities. This new book is designed to give coaches the confidence and structure in their practice that will generate real results for their clients. Any- one who makes a living in the coaching arena will benefit from Dr. Maisel’s tremendous experience and training as a therapist, coach, and human. I’m so glad to have this book as a guide for my own coaching work and will recommend it to many others in the helping professions.”— Jacob Nordby, author of The Creative Cure: How Finding and Freeing Your Inner Artist Can Heal Your Life
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Read Part One Here: The Coach’s Way: User’s Guide to Coaching
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
