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View this issue online at www.todayscoach.com/2003/120503.html
Sunday, December 7,
2003
Part 4:
Evolving as a Coach
Have
you ever wondered why your most cherished goals,
projects and desires don’t happen?
Or even more so, why you (and I) so easily settle
for less than what we truly desire?
Throughout
this Today’s Coach series, we’ve been exploring the
evolution of a coach.
We’ve identified that Masterful Coaches work
with clients in three stages:
revealing the hidden truth, recognizing the
conflicting intention, and resolving the core dynamic.
In
our last installment of the series, we delved into the
importance of handling the truth versus working around
the truth. Big
goals often cause big problems.
Exploring these problems is what often unleashes
the hidden truth clients avoid addressing.
But
once you’ve identified a hidden truth in your client,
where do you go from there?
How does this hidden truth reveal a conflicting
intention preventing the client from moving forward?
Read on as we discuss the impact conflicting
intentions have on our lives and how Masterful Coaches
work with them.
Got
a comment or question?
Contact us at letters@coachville.com.
Keep
playing,
Dave
dave@coachville.com
Masterful
Coaching: Exploring Conflicting Intentions
“Well
you know it's fear, or maybe I’m lazy
I just don’t want to work that hard.
In the middle of this crazy world
I’m just hoping I’ll show up and be heard”.
-
Wah, “Show Up and Be Heard” - from the album
“Opium”
Helping
another person to identify, clarify and achieve their
desires in life – helping them “show up and be
heard” as Wah put it - is truly a profound calling.
To be effective, we must explore the real issues
of life in a deep and meaningful way – simple tips and
techniques will not do.
This is because our clients’ most cherished
desires often carry with them the seeds of inner
conflict.
“The
difference between what we do, and what we are capable
of doing,
would solve most of the world’s problems.”
-
Mahatma Gandhi
The
potential impact we can have by mastering the skill of
exploring the real issues in life is huge.
As Gandhi said, if we can help others do what
they are capable of doing, we can change the world.
When
our clients’ true intentions in life don’t happen
the way they want, we could simply chalk it up to
laziness. Another
explanation is that the actions required caused too much
fear. Either
way, we’d move on to something else.
But that is not what Masterful coaches are all
about. We
don’t want to give up that easily--that’s why we
coach!
Remember
the example we gave earlier in the series about a client
who had the opportunity to create a lucrative strategic
alliance, but couldn’t push herself to make the phone
call? She
was experiencing an inner conflict.
But what could possibly be at conflict with such
a clear, strong and compelling desire?
How do we identify it?
And most importantly, how do we resolve it?
At
this point, the beginner coach would begin to get
frustrated by a client like this.
We would wonder to ourselves, “Why won’t she
make the call?” The
“solution” would be to put in an accountability
structure i.e. have the client promise to make the call
and then call the coach to report on the result.
The coach “motivates” the client by creating
a situation where not calling – and looking bad as a
result - has more fear associated with it than making
the call. The
client will presumably go for the option that involves
less fear. This
technique does often work the first time, but is unsustainable
because it doesn’t address the cause of the
problem.
Intentions
are Energy
Through
physics, we understand that everything is made up
of energy, including our thoughts, beliefs, actions,
intentions, and circumstances.
You are probably familiar with the Law
of Attraction, which explains that each of us is
like a giant magnet, attracting situations that are
energetically compatible with what we put out into the
world. If you take the appropriate action when the situations occur,
your desires tend to come into reality.
However,
if you have concurrent intentions that are at conflict,
what tends to happen is . . . NOTHING!
“Emotionally healthy, well-functioning individuals carry out their
intentions unless there is a dynamic that conflicts with
the stated desire.”
-
From the CoachVille Absence of You program
Examples
of Common Conflicting Intentions
- Intention
to avoid the feeling of being rejected
- Intention
to avoid situations where the outcome can not be
controlled
- Intention
to avoid anything that would jeopardize acceptance
by parents, siblings, spouse, co-workers, community or
friends
So
when things don’t happen naturally, or when we won’t
take obvious productive action, there is almost always
an unseen or unspoken intention that has more energy
than our desire. That
is the essence of a conflicting intention.
The energy of our negative intention (fear)
clashes with the energy of our positive intention
(desire) and neutralizes, or cancels out, the intention.
What’s
the result? Self-sabatoge,
status quo, more of the same—more new year’s
resolutions that get recycled and dragged around year
after year.
Conflicting
intentions are insidious.
They often live just under the surface of
realization, wreaking havoc on our most passionate wants
and desires. Awareness
of conflicting intentions takes the mystery out of
coaching. If
something doesn’t happen, you can be sure that there
is a conflicting intention somewhere.
Inner
Conflicts Are Caused By Conditioning
“Even
if I told you what I’ve found and what I’ve learned
it
would all be wasted in the wind.
Each
one has a silent understanding
Born
through witness of events first hand”
-
Wah,
“Show up and be heard” from the album “Opium”
(visit www.wahmusic.com)
I
love this verse from “Show Up and Be Heard”.
It perfectly describes the problem with beginner
coaching. Until
you deal with the “silent understanding”, nothing
you say will make a lasting difference.
The “silent understanding” is the conditioned
thoughts, beliefs and behaviors that we accumulate
during our lifetime.
They become our default way of operating.
They significantly limit the number of options we
have available to us in any moment.
Conditioning
occurs from childhood events, disappointments,
experiences, and challenges;
some happen to us and others we merely witness.
Society and our family of origin often condition
us and normalize us in countless ways.
“Don’t speak ‘till you’re spoken to.”
“Who do you think you are?”
“Don’t get too big for your britches!”,
“Why can’t you be more like your brother?”, “If
you don’t clean your room I won’t love you
anymore”.
With
our earlier example of the woman with the strategic
alliance opportunity, her conflicting intention turned
out to be her belief that the opportunity would cause
her to grow and expand to a point where she would no
longer be accepted by her family.
She couldn’t face the possible risk of losing
her connection to them even though she knew it was
holding her back. She
had been conditioned to play a smaller game so she would
never have to deal with these fears, but of course the
masterful coach “caused” her a BIG problem by
bringing this truth to the surface!
What
Can a Masterful Coach Do To Help?
This
situation reveals several Core Dynamics of Common
Problemssm For
one, the client’s need for validation from her family
is known as “looking for yourself where you are
not”. Another,
the fear of the feeling of rejection is called
“resisting feeling things fully”. The Core Dynamics
comprise the language of conflicting intentions, and the
coaching practices that resolve each one are based on
profound but accessible spiritual awareness.
They are the gateway, or entry point, in helping
your clients actually get what they want.
We
believe that this is the future of coaching, and next
week, we will introduce the Core Dynamics to you,
beginning with an exploration of Resisting Feeling
Things Fully.
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