Quotes are a great way to get the brain fired up and get your imagination working on what it could mean to (and for) you.  Some people adopt them as mantras.  Either way it is likely we will be stirred into thought and, maybe action!  I found a selection that I had ben saving because they stuck in my mind. I started out writing about others, then thought, hey, mine are “good enough”! I thought I would use this summer post as one of a musing nature.  Maybe you are lucky enough to be reading from a beach somewhere and have time to question them…

“Good enough and done is better than perfect but pending”

Sheela Hobden

When I first started working with my first coach back in 2017, she created a metaphor for “who” I was.  She created an image of a vacillating moon rocket.  That is, one that is hovering over the takeoff pad, checking EVERYTHING is in place before leaving.  It was me down to a tee – perfectionist at every turning.  Together we designed activities to help me overcome this tendency, and this mantra was one I created to remind myself to “just do it” as another famous brand suggests.

IDEA:

In practice, this means saying “if my deadline was today, what else would I need to do as a minimum?”.  It usually gets me started (if I haven’t!) AND pushes me to decide if the things I am faffing over are really adding any value.  Finally I ask, if I do nothing else on this piece of work, what will the consequences be?

“May as well come as yourself…as everyone else seems to be taken”

Oscar Wilde

I love this quote.  The identity crisis!  I see this time and time again with doctors.  Being a medic is like part of your soul, your entire life goes into it, training, exams, rotations, more exams.  When we start working together, the fear levels are really high and the big knotty question sits in their stomachs “if I am not a doctor, then who am I?”.  I worked on my identity as a whole person with my coach (I didn’t want to be the moon rocket any more!).  Quitting a well-paid high profile role without a clue what is next (hindsight tells me a plan B might have been helpful!), you suddenly feel like there’s an identity crisis going on.  I faced the identity issues again a few years later, when I was told a knee injury was permanent, and I was no longer a “runner”.  How do you move on from that when your entire social network are runners or in medicine, where you have difficulty naming and non-doctor friends? It is hard, but YES, you can!

IDEA: 

Knowing your core values is instrumental in this process.  Many people think they “know” their values, but when we work together and we get right into the detail, and pitch them against each other, we get a LOT more clarity.  THEN, we can use that set of values to figure out if the things in our life are serving those values.  It is really important to have a set for the “true you”.  Not a set for work and a set for home.  Values can be used in decision making and in understanding and sense making in times of turmoil.

“You have the answer if you ask the right question”

Sheela Hobden

You might read this and think, you’re the coach, of course you should ask the right question.  When I became a coach, there seemed to be so much pressure on the powerful or “killer” question.  Ending up spending so much time trying to think of it, I wasn’t listening to what my client was saying.  Now, I think I take more time to really tune into the clients thinking, gently nudging and probing, so that actually it is them that takes a moment, stands back, and asks THEMSELVES that “stand out” question.  It is such a delight to watch.  It can only happen with the right amount of presence, space, and safety, with of course, a willingness to go to those uncomfortable places.

Many people avoid coaching, because of a fear of what they might find out.  It is such a shame, because there is so much richness inside all of us, if only we would ponder and dive just that little bit deeper.

IDEA:

If you are fearful of working with a coach, then try journalling, or rush writing. Journalling might be a daily practice, where you capture thoughts and feelings, and take the space to question them. Rush writing is where we write what we are feeling to a timer set for say, 3 minutes. Write until you run out of things to write…bet you’ll be writing longer than 3 minutes!

When you are ready though…please do drop me a line.