0Story: Fox and the grapes:
We all have heard the famous fable about the fox and the grapes in our childhood. A fox was walking through the forest and spotted a bunch of grapes hanging from a tree. Being hungry he jumps at the hanging grapes but misses. He keeps trying and jumps repeatedly, but cannot reach the grapes. Finally, he gives up and goes away saying” The grapes were probably sour anyway”.
Let us stop for a moment and think about this. The fox wanted the grapes and made an effort to reach them. He had the potential and strength to reach them. So what is one thing that could have enabled him to reach those grapes? What would have made a difference in this situation of him wanting those grapes and he being able to reach them? What do you think?
What can make a difference?
Coaching can make a difference!
“Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximize their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them” - Timothy Gallway.
Coaching is a powerful tool that aims at rocketing individual performance and achieve outstanding results. It also enables an individual to experience transformation and sense of well-being, joy and fulfilment.
Coaching is one of the fastest growing service industries today and Sheila Maher and Suzi Pomerantz state that [ International Journal of Coaching in Organizations, 2003, 1(2), 3-11.] “It is clear that coaching is not a fad and it is not new. Coaching is rooted in a range of philosophies and practices that can be traced back to Aristotle, Buddhist thought, Gestalt theory, and various gurus of ontology and business.”
Coaching is an effectual process that involves a partnership between two people. In the process, there are conversations within a context that leads to awareness, reflections, realisations, actions and results. Coaching is not a motivational tool. It is a process where the coach supports, encourages and challenges you to think differently.
In simple words, coaching encompasses the journey between where you are to where you want to be.
Who is a Coach?
- A coach is a partner that helps you develop and tap into your strengths, maintain sustained efforts and stay focussed.
- A coach is a resource that helps you clear your lens and have more clarity in your vision.
- He is like a sounding board that listens to you from a deeper level as you think through ideas and produce results.
- A coach is a space that provides stillness as you see different perspectives; attend to your deepest fears and your internal conflicts.
There are different kinds of coaches such as Sports, Fitness, Performance, Life, Executive, Health coach and so on. Every coach works differently, based on his area of expertise.
What does a coach do?
A coach helps people produce excellent results at work and in life. He believes that people have limitless potential and works with those who are willing to work on themselves and wish to engage in the process of change, transformation and success.
A life coach helps individuals experience a sense of well-being and personal transformation by addressing various areas of their life. What does that exactly mean? Probably this might be a question in your mind. Let me share a couple of examples here.
I had this opportunity to work with a friend of mine. After more than two decades of working in a role, that he claimed was his passion, was suddenly finding a sense of dissatisfaction at work. He believed it was because he was not experiencing the freedom to work the way he wanted. In the coaching sessions he discovered that he did have the freedom, so where was that sense of dissatisfaction coming from? As I worked with him, his deeper thoughts unfolded. He realized, he wanted to earn more money, and through the sessions, he clearly saw a belief that was holding him from generating more money. Just knowing what was really causing the struggle within him, set him free. With this insight, he then created a goal that motivated him and felt purposeful. We then created a plan and structure for him to achieve that. That’s the potential of coaching!
A challenge that one of my clients had was lack of confidence while speaking to people. He was aware that his voice trembled while speaking to people and that he spoke irrelevant matter while answering. Through our coaching conversations and few NLP processes what changed for him was that he started believing in his ideas and thinking. He began focusing on the conversation and not on his internal dialogue or the idea of impressing people. He got muscle into his conversations when he began expressing his own thoughts, insights and ideas. That’s the power of coaching!
Similarly, an Executive Coach helps professionals, leaders, managers to improve their performance at work, achieve organizational goals, progress in their career and find a sense of joy and purpose at work. Here I would like to share one of my significant coaching experiences.
“One of the challenges that I faced as a leader in my organization was the team not maintaining discipline in the processes involving paperwork and response to the internal communication. I struggled for a very long time and had several flight and fight scenes at the office. But when I worked with a coach, in just one session, I became aware that I was trying to fix a leak where it was not happening. Some other part of the pipeline needed plumbing. That Aha moment threw me into a spiral of actions. The processes smoothened out and today I share the best relation I could imagine with my team.”
We all have limitless potential:
- Currently, are you looking at achieving some goals? If you are, then do you have clarity about what you truly want? Is it just a hazy image or just a lingering thought in your head as a “maybe” plan?
- Is there any challenge that you are facing and think that this is how it will be? Really? Does it have to? Think again!
- Have you started working on something and are wondering if your direction is right?
- Do you wish to bring change in some areas of your life, certain behaviours, or an emotion, but are not sure how? If you are experiencing moments like these, then you can certainly benefit from coaching.
In fact ”you” are the most powerful ingredient that makes coaching brilliant. When you step into the coaching space with an intention and single-mindedness of working on your growth, improvement, success and fulfilment, magic happens. What you focus on expands and gets stronger!
So looking back at our story of the fox reaching out to his grapes as a metaphor, do you think he needed a coach? I don’t think he needed one. But if he truly wanted those grapes and wished to expand his potential a notch higher, then a coach would have certainly enabled him to tap into it.
“You don’t have to be great to get started, but you have to get started to be great” - Les Brown.
Move, jump, leap and keep that smile on!
