This week I received my certificate … I am a certified professional coach certified by ICA an ICF accredited education program for coaches.

I have worked myself through the classes. ‘Worked’ is the wrong word - I have really enjoyed the international calls, sharing our thoughts on the different themes that were proposed for discussion.

Also I have coached 5 people during 12 coaching sessions each – I was coached myself for 31 sessions.

I have created my own coaching model, have made my own power tool. Also I have written a study on how the very functioning of our brain impacts coaching.

I coached  and listened in  in supervised coaching sessions

It took me overall 2 years with about 6 months of low activity.

I am satisfied and proud of my work and my achievement. Also I am happy that quite a lot of people encouraged me to continue.

It was a great journey : ) – now up to the next: applying my skills as a private coach and taking up additional training opportunities.

I am now looking into gestalt therapy  – the HR department of my employer thinks and talks quite highly about it. If you can send me some info it is greatly welcome.

Speak to you soon

As part of my ICA coaching graduation I write a research paper on tunnel vision versus broad vision.

You could wonder how I got fascinated by the subject.

During my coaching I experience that we all have it hard opening up to possibilities outside our own limited world that we see now. For instance this typically shows up when people are looking for new carreer opportunities. They feel unhappy where they are now. And still they find it hard to look outside the experience they have build till now. Off course it is good to look at what you have gained as experience and build on that. But still that omits people to look behind that. To dream big. What do I want to do? Who do I want to be? in case I hadn’t any restriction.

In what directions I am looking at?

In first instance I am looking at what makes us limit our view. And then I come to the functioning of the brain. Currently I am reading a book from Edward de Bono – I am right, you are wrong. He clearly describes how the very functioning of the brain makes us filter what we see and this in turn limits us to return to the big patterns in our brain that were formed based on our experience. We get into a kind of circular movement : we look at the world and our possibilities through the lens of our patterns which filters what we see, thus what we see confirms that our patterns are right which reinforces our patterns and strengthens our filter …

What I am looking at is: what makes us look outside of circular movement of our brains? What tools do exist that I can use during my coaching sessions for my clients to also see other possibilities?

Edward de Bono speaks about: provocation, any given word. I will discover as I move forward in the book how they could serve for me in my coaching.

Also he mentions a program he developed to teach ‘thinking’ at schools called CORT (Cognitive Research Trust).

So in case you can help me with clues to broaden my view on possible tools or share your experience in this area, let’s discuss here on my blog.

I will be sharing my discoveries with you on this blog. Let’s interchange information, thoughts, feelings, …

Ready to receive an abundance of information : )

Hilde

Please check out my coaching model – Fluid Goal Oriented Coaching on a new seperate page on this blog.

Feel free to contact me in case you want to explore !

Love

Hilde

I find it a challenge to stay in balance now that I am starting a new job (new in content and company) and wanting to develop my coaching practise.

A full time job in a quite busy environment during the day time. In the evening coaching, reading people development books and taking some coaching classes. In between I want to spend some time with my husband and daughter. I also work on softening our communication. I am also organizing a birthday party for my daughter this Saturday (15 young and exciting kids of 8 to entertain for 3 hours). And in everything I do I want to be good.

With this schedule I am currently leaving out my personal time (doing yoga, taking tango classes) and time to keep up with my friends.

Choices ! That is what it is all about… setting priorities and enjoying the choices that I have made and not bothering about the things that I have left out. Choosing what I love and loving what I do.

I need to reflect on the different elements in my life and the time spend on them and evaluate …

What about you ? How are you dealing with the overload of choices we have ? Curious to hear and learn about you.

How about you ?

Do you feel free and strong enough to live your full potential ?

Or do you let your fear of other people’s judgement restrain you from doing so ?

How does it serve the world if we all strive to be the average person ‘John Smith’ or ‘Jan Modaal’ ?

How would the world look like if we all did ?

if we all averaged out our specificity, our potential to shine

ooh … and guess what … your specificity will be cheered for by some and ‘boooo-ooood’ by others

Remind yourself  “… people that mind don’t matter and people that matter don’t mind” – Dr. Suess

I did not expect great luxury but found that it was worse than I had expected. Also and more importantly I had expected my colleagues to be friendly and understanding and I found more than that. People are really who they are, do not put up a façade (what you quite often see in multinational companies). They are friendly and open. Also I knew that the company organizes personal development training that you can follow in your own time. There I have found a wider range of training possibilities than I could imagine and covering subjects like mindfulness, yoga, meditation, alfa training, being before doing, … There is also an alfa room available as a retreat if you want. Do not imagine great luxury there either (a forgotten room next to the airconditioning motors on one of the top floors, with blankets, matrasses, cushions) : all you need is there ! Great !!! I have found myself a place that really suits me : )

I want to share with you today an aha-moment I had during one of my coaching courses at ICA. The facilitator and other coach-pupils were coaching me on a blocage in one of my coaching relationships.

The background : I had aligned my energy level to that of my coachee who felt quite down and had reasons for it. I didn’t dare to really ask probing questions first to kind of spare her and also because I felt she was overall quite sceptical about coaching and the ‘emotional’ approach (how do you feel about … ?). These were difficult questions for her. For 5 sessions I felt little progress.  My coachee did not really share breakthrough steps except for her feeling better after the sessions and also she mentioned that they helped her not to let herself pull down by the circumstances what she would normally do.

I want to share some aha-phrases in my yesterdays session in ICA class : your client is like a mirror of you (she wants to have an impact on her life as much as you want to have impact on her), probing questions : what contract do you have with [your limited belief] ?, what is withholding you to dream big ? but the best one was :

Do you give your client the permission to dream big dreams ? By acknowledging your client for where he or she is, by enthusing him or her, …

And also

Do you give yourself permission to be the coach you want to be ?

This was an eye opener to me : I was withholding myself, not daring to fully follow my gutfeeling in the coaching relationship, being afraid to hurt my coachee. I physically felt a change, an ‘opening’ after having heard that question. Yes, that was it.

‘What coach do you want to be ?’ I would fully stay in my own positive energy, dare to ask powerful questions, accept longer silences, allow plenty of space for the coachee to think.

I believe we (my coachee and I) have reached a breakthrough during our 6th session and have touched on a UAC (underlying automatic commitment=an absolute belief you are committed to). We will be exploring and working on this during the coming sessions.

Do you give yourself permission to be who you want to be ?

In case you feel stuck ask yourself that question. How does the above work for you ? I would be happy to hear about your experiences…

This makes me think about a comment an instructor gave me more than a year ago at the end of an influencing course just before my sabbatical. You will open your cage now, make sure you step out of it to know or understand what is outside.

There is also the story about the baby elephants that are chained at the foot. As a baby they try to break lose but they are not strong enough and as time passes they omit or forget to try convinced that it won’t work anyhow.  Once they are strong enough to break the chain they have forgotten to try…

Some animals that get used to their cage will not risk stepping out once the cage is opened afraid for the unknown.

For me it hurts to let go of my … luxury …

I am or was quite well paid with a lot of financial advantages in my former company. Now I have decided to change jobs. Take a step down in the hierarchy and also on the financial side. Although I am convinced that I will live an exciting and more peaceful live with a much better work-life balance I still have from time to time an akward feeling of having to let go of the luxury. From time to time it pops up and the feeling can be quite strong. Luckily I come back to the ‘who do I want to be’ feeling in the end. And the balance still goes in favor of my taken decision.

What is sure is that changing does bring fear of the unknown (which for me is less applicable) but also and more important for me the mourning of letting go what you had or what you leave behind. It was nice and it has served me for that time. It was the best thing for me at that time. Now it is time for something new, something that suits better ‘who I want to be’ now.

It gives me a great and proud feeling to be brave enough to take this step.

It also helps me advance in my coaching carreer which I develop in parallel of my job. Not only the flexibility of the job enables me to invest time in my side job, my own experience of daring to change my life enables me to help and guide others that think about a life change. I help them bring more clarity in their drive, their dreams, ‘who they want to be’ by exploring all the different elements that come into play for them. And I stay along side them during the potential change to sheer them up when they are having a difficult time, to bring them to ‘who they want to be’. Change as such should not be the driver, only the clarity on ‘who you want to be’. The motivation needs to be a ‘towards’ not an ‘away from’ to be strong and sustainable.

Spirituality or your inner strength as part of your current active life to fully enjoy and live life enthusiaticly!

I also have lived a stresses, never fully happy, empty, rushing, ‘searching for short & rapid pleasures’ live. I did not know what could exist outside of that as this was the only kind of life I had ever lived and seen around me. Until I stepped into the adventure of discovering myself, my inner self on my pace. I know there is a different life out there. That everyone can live. Only essential thing is to discover your inner self, your inner strength and keep in contact with it.

With that bagage you can then step into your active, challenging life and make the correct choices that correspond with ‘who you are’, ‘who you want to be’, ‘the consciousness you want to be’. You hold this vision within yourself and use it as your inner kompass to make the best choices.

I want to become an excellent and  brilliant coach being able to make a living of it.

This is what I came up with during a ‘Reaching your dreams’ workshop organized by a coach friend.

I was so amazed that she had given up her day job to entirely dedicate her time to being a coach. What she did was very professional. I was impressed : very nice 2 sided name cards with a slogan on it, wonderful postcards to anounce some activities of here (a get to getter on the Law of attraction and a business networking club), documentation for the workshop, flipchart, pens & paper, drinks, … Everything was organized super well… and I was impressed. So much even that it gave me an odd feeling. Is it about ‘I could not do this’ or ‘why am I not doing this’ or even something else.

What is withholding me ?

Is it lack of experience ? I am coaching 2 persons now and still continuing my training. This argument tells me to stay put where I am and continue my coaching training. Wait till I am better.

Is it fear of letting go of a fixed job ? Ease of money and security ? yes, a part of me has difficulties letting go and my husband is an essential element supporting this view as well.

Is it the fact that in my group of friends people really do not act enthusiaticely when I speak about my training ? Why ? Because I communicate in a hesitant way – ‘coaching is not a profession but a hobby, not highly perceived’ or is it because they don’t know what it is really about ? … why would I care … Remember ‘people that mind don’t matter and people that matter don’t mind’. Still I do not feel a lot of animo in my group of friends around coaching. My neighbour did and had worked with one. Who else ? Can not think of anyone else. Maybe one of my coachee’s who has spoken about the possitive effects to a collegue who would be interested as well.

Anyhow I need to discover my UAC beneath what is prohibiting me from launching myself in the coaching. I feel I can be happy doing this.

I will be posting a request for coaching on the ICA discussion board. I feel I need some help here : )

To be continued

The scientist name is Masaru Emoto and his book on the water pictures is named ‘Messages from water’.

You can admire some of the ‘happy’ watercrystals on the site

http-www.hado.life-europe.com-english-

Enjoy : )