Hiring a life coach helped Morgan Nichols to completely transform her life and as she explains, to enjoy the process not just the results.

I started life coaching because I was confused. Confused about how to get out of my dead-end job. Confused about my next step to becoming self-employed and financially free. And most of all, confused about which of my many interests to focus on.

One of the most useful things I learned through being coached was that I didn’t have to focus.

Focusing is one way people achieve success but it’s not the only way. It was only one of my many ‘a-ha’ moments in my process where I discovered that my way could be just right for me.

What a relief!

I had spent years trying on various jobs and careers, either because I was presented with them, or I saw them as a stepping stone to something else. The problem was, I had been in the job market for five years and was stuck in debt and a job that didn’t inspire me. I was underpaid for my skills and experience.

My coach helped me to discover that I had been going about things with an external frame of reference. I needed to re-connect with what made me tick, and investigate what kind of work could satisfy my needs and values.

During the course of my coaching this changed from having a holistic business (although this is still a long-term dream of mine) to returning to my lifelong love, writing, as well as building on my yoga teaching which was naturally expanding.

I learned how to not only set goals but to engage with them, transforming goals from “shoulds” to “want to’s”. I learned techniques of neuro-linguistic programming to transform the way that I visualised my life, and to deal with fear of failure.

I discovered that I am by nature a multi-tasker and can make that work for me rather than trying to follow others’ moulds.  My coach pointed out that the ‘focus’ theme is used so often in self-help literature because it’s exactly what people don’t do. But once I liberated myself from the mentality of “I have to write x pages a day or I won’t be a success”, I could see opportunities that had been closed to me.

My positive projection began to attract people and resources that could help me reach my goals. For example, I was asked to appear on radio shows to perform my poetry, and one of my poems was accepted for publication in an anthology.

Meanwhile, even at my “dead-end” job I was given an opportunity in line with my broader goals of serving society: I began to supervise less experienced members of staff, thereby getting a chance to apply some of my counselling training.

An unexpected pregnancy came just at the time when I was looking for another job. While I had always wanted to be a mother some day, I had ruled out being ready for it at this stage – I wasn’t financially well-off enough, I hadn’t established my career, and so on.

This could have been a serious spanner in the works, but in fact it gave me a welcome break to re-evaluate my career and where it was going. I realised during my pregnancy that I wanted to create work that fitted around my life, not the other way round.

I stopped working two months before my due date and used this time to rest as well as write, plan projects and await this next phase of my life. I learned a lot about pregnancy and birth which has inspired me to do doula training inj the future, as well as begin an antenatal yoga teacher training later this year.

Looking back at the past year, I can hardly believe that I came from such a stuck point; from being unable to sense and trust my own direction, to being motivated and sure of my path (even the many unpredictable twists and turns on that path!)

In the past 8 months, I have qualified as a yoga teacher (writing my exam at eight months pregnant!), had work published in literary magazines, made radio and live performances as a poet, finished the first draft of my novel, started a successful mother-and-baby yoga class, and started to get back into freelance writing.

And the biggest creation of all: giving birth to my beautiful son six months ago.

The best thing is that all of this was without driving myself on mercilessly, as I used to do.

I have enjoyed the process and not just the results.

Your procrastination habits may seem to be very deep rooted and, indeed, they probably are. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be changed.

Forget everything you have ever been told about laziness, tardiness, lack of application and short attention span; procrastination is about how we think. More specifically, it is about how we allow certain thoughts to morph into beliefs.

If we are serial procrastinators then we will have some underlying beliefs that are getting in the way of action.

Changing our beliefs is essential if we want to procrastinate less but it isn’t easy. So here are 10 quick fixes. They won’t mend the engine but they are good for a jump-start.

The 10 quick procrastination fixes

1. More Challenge

To be motivating, a goal needs to be challenging enough to stimulate our interest but not so difficult as to be demoralising.

Too little challenge and we can’t be bothered to start, too much and we don’t know where to.

2. A Suitable Reward

A stroll in the park, a shopping trip to New York, or a room with a view in Florence – choose a reward to fit the challenge and that’s worth the extra effort.

3. Penalty Points

For some of us the idea of losing something is more compelling than the idea of gaining it. Write a cheque to an organisation you can’t bear. If you don’t get the task done, post it. Ouch.

4. Double, Not Quit

Procrastinators tend to be super-optimistic when assessing how long a task will take – so there’s no need to start just yet. We imagine no traffic, a full tank and perfect directions.

Double your estimate for how long the task will take. Better get going.

5. Dive In

Tackle the tough stuff first. After that, it will be downhill all the way.

6. Move

Stand up, change position, go outside; do something to change your mood and your perspective.

7. The Fast Set

We adapt our behaviour to fit in with the people around us.

If we mix with a crowd of action heroes and heroines, we are much more likely to kick into action ourselves.

8. Bite Size is Right Size

You can’t eat an elephant in one mouthful. Break the task into small chunks and identify the end for each bit.

Concentrate on one chunk at a time and congratulate yourself each time you finish an element.

9. Time Fragments

Do you feel you need to have an uninterrupted slug of time – say, between 2 and 3 pm – to complete a task? This doesn’t need to be the case.

Try using four 15-minute slots instead.

10. Five Minute Start

Do it just for five minutes. No more, no less. When the time is up to decide whether you want to continue. If you do, commit another five minutes to it. Review and then, if you want, another. And another.

If you got this far, you’ll be motoring.

*This is an edited version of the Mañana chapter in the MindGym’s Give Me Time book (TimeWarner Books, 2006).

My journey to becoming a successful coach started back in 2005, while considering what options I had for creating a different lifestyle to the one I had then. I was successful, working in Supply Chain Management for GlaxoSmithKline, travelling the world, leading major change projects and found myself at a point where I knew things had to change. When I say change, I mean for me personally, it was time to do something that gave me time to do some of things I missed, such as reading, studying and just being with friends and family.

I considered a number of options, the wild card being a ski instructor, but the thing I kept coming back to was coaching. Friends and colleagues had more faith than I did, that I had a natural aptitude for coaching and could make a success out of it. In 2006 the decision was made by an offer from Leadership Trust to join them as an associate Leadership Coach. I had a long relationship with Leadership Trust having worked as a Tutor (team coach) on a number of their programmes over the years, so this just seemed like a natural extension.

You could say the rest is history, but having trained as a Leadership Coach it took another couple of years before I felt confident that I was making a difference and enabling my clients to move forward and develop their leadership skills. 2008 was a busy year and I was conscious of applying my learnings, using the CLEAR model, thinking about client’s “Maps of the World” and actually getting deeper into the Leadership Models I had been using for several years.

Early in 2009, I started to think about Coaching as a business and making it the part time occupation that I needed to pay the bills and that led me to think about the different types of coaching and a niche market. In addition I felt a need to continue my development in Coaching and in the summer of 2009 I attended a 2 day course at the The Coaching Academy. I enjoyed the approach and the trainers and took the opportunity to sign up for The Diploma in Small Business Coaching as well as a Diploma in Corporate and Executive Coaching. Adding the GOAL model to the frameworks I was already using was useful and filled in some gaps in my thinking.

The big thing for me though, was discovering my interest in Small Business and how its values and dynamics fitted the way I like to coach, to see quick results, and take a holistic approach looking at both the person and the activities. As a practical person, practising coaching alongside the theory was a great way of learning and reflecting back using Case Studies for my Diploma was really rewarding. I started in September 2009 and gave myself a year. However by June of 2010 it was clear I was going to need to step up the pace and use my own coach to get everything done and complete. In the end it took a couple months longer, but it felt worth it.

For the last year I have focussed my marketing on Small Business Owners, in particular those that deliver a Profession such as Accountancy, Law or Optometry while running their own business. I have often noted the challenge that business owners face getting the balance right between what they are trained to do and what they need to do to be successful in business. I still work as a Leadership Coach, but the Business Coach side of my business is growing.

For me my favourite coaching question is the one that enables the light bulb moment, the point when something changes and enables the client to move forward. Consequently it is hard to have one favourite as the point when this happens in coaching is so different with every client and situation.

I enjoy being a coach as it gives me a great mental challenge, I can’t just listen and make the odd comment, I need to be watching, listening and piecing all the bits together, making sense of conversations and steering the client towards the clarity they are seeking. I want the questions I ask to have impact and inspire people to take the actions that move them towards their goal.

If you are considering Coaching, think about whether you are a Coach or a Consultant, an asker or a teller. If you like to share your knowledge and give advice, coaching isn’t for you. If you like to listen and challenge peoples thinking to enable them to make the right changes for them, then take up Coaching.

If you are training as a Coach, make lots of new mistakes, push the boundaries.

If you are about to qualify, think about how you want to work as a Coach, for yourself and all that entails in running your own business, or as an Associate.

The key priority for me now and for others that are past the first period of enthusiasm, is to keep things fresh, to challenge myself to keep moving forwards.

The best thing that could happen to my coaching business in the next two years is to combine the Corporate and Small Business elements and land a contract supporting a chain of business, all with their unique operating unit. The first step is to change this statement from being a dream to a goal!

Carol Skolimowski

Sarah Fraser qualified through The Coaching Academy programme and has enthusiastically agreed to share her coaching experience, so we have put her in the Coaching Hot Seat. Here is Sarah’s story:-

The coaching seed is sown

My first introduction to coaching came in 2000 when, whilst working in marketing at Philips, I was selected to participate in their talent programme – a one-week personal development course during which we were coached individually and learned to coach each other. I remember learning how to actively listen for the first time in my life! After the course, I was asked to coach new talent coming into the company.

When I first applied for The Coaching Academy’s free weekend course in 2008 I actually had no intention of becoming a full-time coach. With the recession, many of my marketing projects had been cut and I was simply looking for some new mental stimulation. Coaching seemed like a good choice – after all it could always help me be a better manager.

Finding my passion

After that taster weekend I was hooked and signed up for the Diploma in Personal Performance Coaching. That’s when the real magic started to happen! The further I got into the course the more I felt like I’d found my true passion. I threw myself whole-heartedly into the experience, travelling from Amsterdam to every Accelerator Day and clocking up more than 70 practice coaching sessions along the way.

In 2009, I put myself forward for redundancy – at once both the scariest and most exciting thing I’d ever done. I still remember the first time I said out loud that I was going to become a coach. It was daunting to hear myself utter those words, but I felt I was right to take the risk. And I’d had such great feedback from my practice clients, helping them make major breakthroughs in their lives, that I felt confident in my potential to become a great coach.

The redundancy package gave me the financial security to focus on finalising my studies and developing my business plan. This resulted in a ‘distinction’ for the Diploma (Jan 2010) and a well-researched business plan for launching my coaching business in London, having decided with my husband that we would move there in 2010.

It wasn’t all smooth sailing, however, as early in 2010 my husband was offered a not-to-be-missed job opportunity down the road from our home in Amsterdam. After much reviewing of pros and cons we agreed he should take the job. This of course meant that my business plan was now rather out of sync with my actual situation! But with the help of my coach I was able to re-think my approach and tailor my plan towards the local market.

Happiness Express

In May 2010 I officially registered my coaching company at the Dutch Chamber of Commerce. My initial focus was to build a solid base of private clients, targeting the expat market. I work on a variety of topics including career change, building confidence and adjusting to expat life, and I find that the name of my company attracts people wanting to get a more positive outlook on life. I’m happy with the number of private clients I have today.

For the immediate future my goal is to maintain a steady stream of private clients and increase the coaching I do within organisations. Philips and Heineken have hired me as a freelance coach and I’ve been running workshops at the US Consulate in Amsterdam. I aim to grow my corporate coaching experience further and have submitted pitches to various other companies in The Netherlands. I find there’s not such a huge difference between coaching within a company and coaching privately – people are still people. The main challenge seems to lie in the length of time it takes to simply get accepted into a corporate coaching role. Here I’ve had to balance my expectations considerably and learn a little patience!

I’m a big believer in continuing my professional development. In 2010 I became an NLP Master Practitioner and in 2011 I will get MBTI certified. Continuing to learn and add extra techniques and approaches to my toolkit helps me to increase my value to clients. That’s good for them and it’s super rewarding for me too!

My two cents

If you’re planning on becoming a coach I would advise you to get coached yourself on what you really want, what you value most about a coaching career and what you will need to sacrifice along the way. Once you’ve got that clear, don’t give up! I’ve met with lots of entrepreneurs (I network like mad!) who’ve all said that it’s taken them 2-3 years before they would confidently say that they were financially successful.

I also suggest you make a plan, but be flexible in your planning. Eisenhower (US President 1953-1961) once said, “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable”. The process of making a well-thought-through plan will help you easily adapt to later changing situations or wrong assumptions.

Also, get creative with your marketing. I approached the local expat English-speaking radio station in Amsterdam and now pop in once a month to talk to them about various issues that their listeners might be facing. Get listed on as many online directories as you can. Figure out where your target audience hang out, physically and virtually, and make a point to be there. Attend networking events, submit articles to websites and e-zines read by your target audience, post reactions on their favourite blog posts. People will only find you and remember you if you’re regularly engaging with them about problems they may be facing.

And finally, relax into it. If it feels right, go with it. This can be applied to your coaching sessions too. Trust that the right next question will come and focus instead on really listening to your client. Having a few simple back-up questions like “What question should I be asking you right now?” will help you stay focused on the client and their goal.

Connect with Sarah Fraser through The Coaching Academy’s LinkedIn discussion group.

I have been setting goals since the heady days of 1990 when I first became an NLP Practitioner. Master Practitioner and a year long hypnotherapy diploma followed and I continued to set goals. Looking back over my notes, I have pretty much failed to achieve any of them.

I have devoured self help books (including Brian Tracy’s “Goals”) I have written lists of goals, following each author’s formula and the results have been fairly, uniformly dismal and at times depressing.

I have had private sessions with famous names in the NLP world, meditated, created and attempted action plans, vision boarded, tried the Secret and Cosmic Ordering (ha ha), followed a proactive approach, zero cleared, reiki-ed, worshipped Tony Robbins. You name it and I have probably tried it, and am still paying off the loan.

One thing I can definitely say is that much of what I have read about goals is complete tosh, at least for me. This can be a very disheartening place to be. The books and audios are so positive; and speakers like Wayne Dyer seem to find everything so easy and amazingly effective. When I could not reproduce the same results, feelings of guilt and failure were common house guests.

The other thing I can definitely say from my own experience is that the only time that the whole goal setting and achieving thing has worked for me is when I was working with a coach.

From this point there are two places I would like to direct your attention. The first is to ask the question, what was different about having a coach? The second is to outline how I am engaging with goals now, during a time I am not working with a coach.

The difference that made a difference

My first experience of coaching was a blessing. My first experience of coaching changed my life. The nurturing, caring, challenging, joyful accountability was unlike anything else. Goals were set and actions taken.

Why? Why this change when I had tried so hard on my own? Was it that just that I was being held accountable?

Partly, yes, and this is part of the leverage of having a coach. I believe a fuller answer is that in the coaching process my own creativity was rebooted and, more importantly, sustained. I became what I always had the potential to be, a creator rather than a victim of my conditioning. That for me is the primary power of coaching.

Unfortunately when the coaching came to an end due to the new government cutbacks, and a business partner parted company, I lost momentum. Was it to be the same old victim story?

Letting go

How many times does someone have to hear the same message before they ‘get it’? An unanswerable, and in this case, rhetorical question. One morning I woke up completely knowing that everything was ‘thought’. I had understood this as an idea way back in the seventies when I first learned about Buddhism and meditation. I had read the idea over and over without it becoming any more than an idea. It’s a theme that has become one of the underpinnings of transformational coaching in the style of Michael Neil, and now I ‘got it’. What did I get?

My experienced understanding of life is that it’s all mind, and impressions in the mind. Success, failure, wanting, not wanting, elation, depression. All mind stuff.

Now there is a relevant story about an intellectual who was explaining this idea to a more pragmatic friend. The friend remarked that if everything is in the mind, then the speaker must be imagining the pain in his nose…and then punched him on the nose!

It’s all in the mind and it’s all real. It’s just that ‘it’ does not mean anything unless I decide it does, because it is all thought. It also means that whatever ‘I’ am, is malleable… The world of success and failure is the world of the mind, no more, no less.

Where does this leave me with regard to goal setting? As Michel Neil and Steve Chandler advocate, I now understand that I want something because I want it, (and there are things I don’t want, and that is just because I don’t want them). Goal setting has become a play, a creation, a game to engage in because it is an interesting challenge that lights up my energy.

I don’t need to achieve my goals in order to succeed, be happy, or anything else. My goals are like a garden. I choose to plant it in the way I want. No right, no wrong. It is a creation and none the less wonderful for being that.

So I have let go of goals. I have thought carefully about what I want and what I don’t want in my life and I have planned my garden. Now I do what is in front of me to do and notice whether that takes me towards what I want or towards what I don’t want, and because it’s my creation I am actively engaged.

There is nothing magical about this. There is no ‘ultimate purpose’ bestowed by the Universe, in this. There is knowing the nature of the mind and doing what needs to be done. For example, I want to write. I want to earn most of my income through writing. I am not passionate about this, I am committed to this as a goal. It’s something I want and because I want it I take action towards it. So I write everyday. It’s a routine I have in place now.

One of the valuable exercises I have found in The Coaching Academy Personal Performance Coaching Course is in the Advanced Grow “GR” module. It is part of the long ten step goal setting exercise and is the part where you make two lists for each of your goals. One list is what you need to do and one for what you are prepared to do.

What a totally brilliant exercise! I saw instantly why, previously, I had not been achieving my goals. The disparity between the two lists was incredible. I was simply not willing to do what was needed to achieve my goals… now, was that ok, or not?

Wanting, not wanting

When I came to understand that I am exactly as I am and any judgement is just a story, wanting just became wanting, not wanting just became not wanting. They are very real feelings, and at times require great mindfulness and awareness not to act unwisely on their basis.

And they are just feelings: wanting is just wanting, and not wanting is just not wanting.

So where does this leave me with goal setting?

The first point is that I want something and it is completely ok if I get it or don’t get it. It is not my purpose or destiny. It is something I want, and that can be, really, really want!

If I want it I can choose to create it. I can work out what needs to be done and what I am prepared to do. If what I am prepared to do matches what needs to be done, it’s a goal worth working on. If there is no such match, it’s just a want and I am not going to do anything about it. This decision takes out all the frustration and illusion of failure out of ‘not achieving a goal’.

Doing what needs to be done

Choosing to create an outcome, and choosing not to create an outcome. Dealing with what is in front of me to do. Success, failure, ‘it will make me happy’, are all stories, all part of the mind stuff that we create our lives out of. I am learning to hold an awareness of wanting and not wanting without being compelled to move in to fight, flight or fright.

Then, when I am prepared to work on a goal, it’s a choice, a garden to cultivate. It’s an enterprise of joy and work and joyful work and work that leads to joy later!

Recognising wanting and not wanting as feelings rather than judgements on my level of achievement saves me the heartache of frustration. When I feel quite strongly, (Monday morning?) that I don’t want to go in to work, I don’t have to take it to heart. I don’t have to let the feeling build and slip in to fantasies of having a really bad day and how many really enjoyable things I would do if I didn’t have to go into work. They are thoughts and feelings and I can allow them to come and to go and get on with what I have committed to do, by which I mean, have installed in my routine.

The feelings can (come and) go because I have already planned my day to create what I want to create and I am taking action. The heart of goal setting is a creative awareness and action. Doing what needs to be done, that is right in front of me to do. Being right in front of me means that it is available to do right now, (not only if I didn’t have to go to work, or do the washing up).

Commitment = Passion?

I recently had the chance to put a question to supercoach, Steve Chandler. The question was essentially, is there a difference between commitment and passion? Do all our goals have to be 10’s in order to have a chance of achievement? His answer was that there is a distinction between passion and commitment. Commitment takes action whether I feel like it or not. My goal is scheduled in to my day and I ‘just do it’. I don’t have to be passionate about it, or highly motivated. I don’t even have to ‘get myself in the mood’. That just makes my goals depend on how I feel. Commitment takes action (and trusts that the good feelings come later through my action, not before it). Commitment does not wait around for the muse to arrrive, (I could be busy creating, taking action, now).

So, don’t be a victim of goals. The goals are just a skilful means, not something to be attached to. Know that the power of a goal is in engaging and sustaining you as a creator. The power is in you doing what needs to be done, today, now. It is your creativity and the action that flows from that creativity that takes you where you want to go.

by Richard Ingate