The Coach Approach

How To Fight Fair In Important Relationships

MOST relationships are important for one reason or another.

Maybe you care about someone in an intimate relationship. Your relationships with your parents and your kids are probably important as well as your relationships with friends. And then there are your professional relationships - how you get along with coworkers, vendors, bosses, and other professionals impacts your ability to succeed and how much you enjoy your work - among other things.

Since we don't always see eye to eye on everything, there are going to be disagreements.

Disagreements can be highly toxic and damaging to these important relationships, even destroying the relationship if we don't learn to fight fair.

Friday's Coaching Inquiry: Something to Think About

I've been thinking on this one alot lately myself.

What would you do if you knew, absolutely, that you would not fail?

Personal Development Books - The Answer by John Assaraf

 

I was a true book-a-holic last month, plowing through four new books, repeat reading six old books and perusing three of the many books written by my office mate over the last ten years.  I cherish books and the learning at my fingertips. 

Not too long ago, when I longed for the time to finish even one new release - often settling for book summaries or spot reading on Amazon or in the book store.  If you are in that camp, or if you missed it recently, here is a summary of John Assaraf's, "The Answer."  Assaraf is one of the key contributors to the hit DVD, "The Secret."  He has built four multi-million dollar companies and is currently at work on his dream of building the largest franchising company of the world at OneCoach.

The book brings together neuroscience, coaching, positive psychology, self-motivation, and goal-setting with a dose of the spiritual if you will.  Below is a summary of the psychological and strategic concepts.  I've skipped the tactical business coaching that starts on page 173.  Even so, this post is fairly long.

"Discover what it is you are uniquely gifted to be and to do, then build your business and your life in ways that take maximum advantage of those aspects of yourself.  That is when life flows."

We know from the field of quantum physics that everything is energy - even things that look like solid matter, like a chair - are, the tiniest level, packets of energy.  Your thoughts are energy that create your physical world basically by broadcasting to the universe - kind of like a radio - what it is you are thinking about and desiring.  Some mysterious force makes sense of what you are broadcasting and brings it into your awareness or reality.  This is what some call the "Law of Attraction."

While it can't be scientifically proven, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to support it.  Everything you desire is out in the ether waiting for your thoughts to resonate at the proper level to bring these good things into your life.  But how?  Harness the power of both your conscious and nonconscicous minds.

Your conscious brain has five levels of functioning.  They are will, memory, perception, reasoning, intuition, and imagination.  The most powerful of these is imagination which is where dreams and ideas are born.  However, to tap the power of the quantum universe, you have to train your subconscious mind and need both aspects to work together.  To do that, you use the following six step process.

1. Create a vision of what you want to achieve complete with sensory and emotional details.

2. Write down affirmations that fit the vision in your mind.

3. Feel the emotions of succeeding in this way by accessing memories of other times you have succeeded.  The author refers to this a "neural linking" and spends good deal of time explaining exactly how to do it.

4. Make a vision board of your dream.

5. Design and implement a daily routine to imprint the new beliefs on your subconscious mind three times per day, morning, noon and before bed.

6. Feed positive messages to your subconscious throughout the day via audio, video, affirmations or mediation.

The above technique is referred to as Neural Reconditioning and it is a rock solid method for self-motivation.  Chapter 8 provides a complete list of FAQ's for more information on the technique.

The balance of the book covers creating a vision for your business based on your passion, defining your ideal customer,innovating, and differentiating your business from your competitors.  All practical , specific and useful information!

I love the science although I don't know enough to be skeptical about it and I am fine with that.  The information on how to use your mind is useful with or without the science although the authors go to great lengths to provide the background and the science.  he book is an excellent balance of theory, explanation, and practical application.  After completing the exercises, you will have written a fairly comprehensive business and/or life plan based on your deepest passions. 

This is an excellent coaching book for people who need to understand a little more about the science behind visualization, a positive mental attitude and the relationship between thoughts, energy, and success.

Related Posts:

• A Recipe for Happiness

• Getting Started on Your Goals

• What Areas of Your Life Need Fresh Goals?

• Three Simple Tips to Help You Achieve Your Goals

• Improve Your Opportunities for Success with Laser-Like Focus

• Save Time and Energy by Visualizing Your Goals

• Stretch Your Dreaming Muscle

Life Coaching Tool: Friday's Inquiring Mind

 
Photo by crouchingcathiddendog

Something to contemplate over the weekend, or the week ahead.  Journal on it.  Discuss with a friend or just mentally chew on it a bit.

There are 61 days left in 2008.

Where is the best place to invest your energy for the rest of this year?

 

 

Related Posts

• Inquiring Mind Friday, Oct. 24, 2008

 

20 Habits You Need to Break to Get to the Next Level

"You can get there.  But you have to understand that what got you here won't get you there."  Marshall Goldsmith

Executive coach Marshall Goldsmith's book "What Got You Here Won't Get You There" identifies 20 behaviors that successful people need to change to get ahead at work.  The book elaborates on each of these negative habits and provides useful remedies and strategies for modifying the offending behaviors.

Worth a a read and what I notice is you can apply them at work, at home, in relationships and other places in your life as well.  They don't need much explanation.

1. Winning too much.

2. Adding too much value.

3. Passing judgment.

4. Making destructive comments.

5. Starting with "No," "But," or "However."

6. Telling the world how smart you are.

7. Speaking when angry.

8. Negativity, or "Let me explain why that won't work."

9. Withholding information.

10. Failing to give proper recognition.

11. Claiming credit that we don't deserve.

12. Making excuses.

13. Clinging to the past.

14. Playing favorites.

15. Refusing to express regret.

16. Not listening.

17. Failing to express gratitude.

18. Punishing the messenger.

19. Passing the buck.

20. An excessive need to be "me."

The only one I didn't really get on first read was the last one.  An 'excessive need to be me" is justifying a behavior with "That's just the way I am." 

Which of these behaviors might be coming between you and your next level of success?

Life Coaching Tool: The Inquiring Mind

Photo by Michael Mahlum
All of the wisdom and resources you need to solve problems, identify opportunities, grow yourself and move forward toward greater fulfillment and success are within you.  They simply need to become available to your conscious mind from your subconscious mind or some other mysterious holding place.

Train your mind to access this guidance by sending it on a quest for information.  Pose a query to your self and then reflect on it over a period of time and see what surfaces.  There is no right answer to a query of this kind.  There is only your answer, your wisdom.

Each Friday, I'll post a query here for you to contemplate over the weekend if you like.  Write about it in a journal.  Talk about it with a friend.  Twirl it around in your mind while you're driving.  See where it takes you. Let it be effortless and entertaining.

The question for this week is:

Where am I in relationship to my biggest dreams?

Related Posts

• A Recipe for Happiness

• Stretch Your Dreaming Muscle

A Recipe for Happiness

Dustin Wax at Stepcase Lifehack asks, "What's it going to take to make you happy?" in his post by the same name earlier this month.  He makes some good points about what doesn't make people happy pointing out that there have been unhappy rich people, desperate smart people, and suicidal famous and beautiful people. We know then the answer is not money, brains, beauty or fame. 

The key to answering the question he says is "self-knowledge – facing the question of what it will take to be happy head on."  He is spot on.

Specifically, what makes YOU happy is living YOUR life according to what is most important to YOU.  It's different for everybody so there is no "formula" but there is a "recipe." 

The recipe is in the value or the meaning that you place on things.  Anyone can discover their own recipe for happiness by identifying their most deeply held values.  Once you know what they are, happiness is a byproduct of living in a way that moves toward those things that you value most and away from those that you don't.

How do you discover what's in your particular recipe?  You explore.  At The Coach Approach, all of our clients go through a lengthy values exploration with their coach.  Here is an overview of one of the processes we use. 

Manage Fear and Anxiety So They Don't Get the Best of You

We all experience fear and anxiety at some point in time.  They are natural responses to stress in the environment and can be useful in moderate doses.  We experience fear in response to a perceived threat.  We experience anxiety when contemplating possibilities in the future and in fact, anxiety helps us take action to influence future outcomes. 

As we focus on the worst cases scenarios, we lose the energy and the usefulness of these heightened states and begin to frustrate our abilities to successfully respond to whatever challenges we may need to face in the future.  Fear and anxiety overload the body systems with stress hormones that decrease mental, emotional and physical functioning and stimulate disease and distress.  Clearly, we cannot function at our best under these conditions.

Getting Started on Your Goals

We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence then, is not an act but a habit.

~Aristotle

There are two ways to get started on your goals or take up the charge again once you are off track.  The easy way and the hard way. 

You know the hard way - making huge sacrifices, trying to swallow big changes in one giant bite, trying to overhaul your whole life or career all at one time.  Its a good strategy when you are facing an immediate crisis.  Think of people who wait to change their lifestyle until they have had a heart attack or the executive who hires a coach AFTER he loses all of his top people.  The hard way can work AND it takes a monstrous amount of energy and discipline. 

Nothing against the hard way.  I've done it many times myself.  I ran up a good amount of credit card debt in my twenties and didn't get it under control until the government came in and took 25% of my paycheck for back taxes.  I always had the choice of paying it off a little at a time but, I didn't make that choice.  That was then and this is now.  Now, I prefer the easy way.

The easy way is to make incremental changes or improvements.  There is a great article on the process called kaizen over at Zen Habits posted by guest author, Mary Jaksch.  Habits are the foundation to achieving goals.  Mary makes two really good points -

• "If we change direction little by little, we can use momentum to affect change."

• "With a strategy of continuous low-level change, we are able to sidestep the number one barrier to change: fear."

The kaizen method, the easy way, is more sustainable in the long run while the grit and bear it approach can bring about more immediate change.  Ultimately, it is a personal choice and based on your circumstances, personal strengths and weaknesses and the nature and urgency of your goals.

What steps will you choose today?  I'm sticking with tiny steps in the right direction - for now.

To your success,

Lora

What Areas of Your Life Need Fresh Goals?

When setting goals, you want to consider all areas of your life.  Its no good to achieve extreme success in your work if it costs you your health or your family.  Its no good to be a superstar parent if it costs your fitness and personal relationships.  There needs to be a balance so you can lead a rich, full life and achieve your goals with all parts working together for success.

One of my favorite success coaches, Jack Canfield, author of the Chicken Soup for the Soulbook series, recommends setting goals in the following areas: