For the last two years, I’ve been in a professional coaching relationship with Rob Seidenspinner of Sage Circle Coaching. I wanted to share with you some of the insights that I’ve found through coaching and especially how coaching relates to my personal development in business, family, relationships, and health.

When I first started coaching, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I knew I wanted to make some drastic changes in my life and I thought it would be good to have some support to make that happen. Coaching typically takes the form of an intake session, which is about an hour in-person, and then weekly 45-minute phone calls, with a particular emphasis on goals, accountability, and an action plan towards achieving your goals.

I was familiar with the motto: “If you do what you’ve been doing, you’ll get what you’ve been getting!” and I had some ideas about what direction I wanted to move my life, but at the same time, when I first started the coaching process, I felt overwhelmed by the plethora of options and I felt a disconnect between my desire and my ability to actually move forward with a specific plan.

I’ve faced obstacles along the way (of course), where I didn’t understand why I was behaving in a certain way and needed some outside observation to help identify issues, or when external circumstances weren’t cooperating with what I wanted at the time, but coaching has also helped me approach these obstacles in a healthy manner.

When you do desire to make changes, I believe that many alternate things in your life also need to change. Self Made Chick has a revelatory article in her blog about “Lies I Told Myself that Kept me Broke and Lazy” link, and some of the things she talks about resonated with me: when one thing is going wrong in your life, typically multiple other things are also going wrong. One event feeds another, which feeds another, and so forth.

So if you’re in the pursuit of something better and something different, I believe this means making major changes to things like your diet, your attire, your exercise habits, your relationships, your household furnishings, or even your hairstyle! One positive change in one facet of your life will then start to feed another positive change in another part of your life, and so forth.

Typically if someone feels “broke” they also feel helpless, unable to participate, or unable to give anything away. Because of this, I always recommend that depressed people do some kind of volunteer work or community service: when I have been down, I’ve always found that “giving back” is a way to break my “woe is me” feeling.

Since I started coaching, I have made some major changes, including business changes (we work less but smarter now, and we have more revenue), family changes (developing closer relationships with my spouse and children), a location change (we moved to Hawai’i, a long term goal of mine), and a more holistic focus on how I want to live my life (instead of focusing on the short-term).

Because of the time and space that coaching has helped clear for me, I’ve had more ability to be introspective and think about ways to participate more fully in my community and in my sphere of influence. This has taken the form of doing more writing (like this blog and other publications), more volunteering (at the elementary school), more pro bono work (through my company), as well as more donations to causes I care about.

This has, of course, improved my self-image and my ability to feel like I am able to be a valuable part of any situation I find myself in. This has also opened up even more opportunities for me in terms of speaking engagements, referrals to more customers, an increase in my general health and well-being, and more quality relationships with others.

In terms of the coaching relationship, it probably will not work for you if you have deeper underlying issues and need someone to help you with therapy, behavior modification, or addictions. However, if you are looking for more of a support team, advisor, mentor, and equal relationship in pursuit of the goals you have for your life, coaching might work for you. A focus on business coaching is also ideal if you’re looking to improve your business process and flow: a business coach has many specific ideas and resources to help improve and expand your operations.

Some references to coaches:

Rob Seidenspinner, Balance, Fulfillment and Growth
Linkedin profile

Susan Kim, Life Coach and Professional Trainer
SusanKimCoaching.com

Akemi Gaines, Life Purpose, Passion and Entrepreneurship
Yes-to-me.com

Erica Ross-Krieger, The Wellness Coach
EricaRossKrieger.com

Whatever you think is possible, is possible.

When you adequately envision a particular idea, visualize how that idea will turn into a reality, do the research on feasibility, limitations, and needed resources, and then –slowly but surely– put that idea in action, you will most definitely be able to turn your vision into a reality.

Most of the products in your home originally started out as an idea. Most of the services you may use, like electric currents, telephones, computers, cell phones, media players…. all of these started out as an idea (with a lot of research and development thrown in). We take certain things for granted, like running water, the International Space Station, and iPhones, but at one time each of those were a high goal, or even something straight out of fiction.

I have seen the power of visioning come to fruition in my own life with my family, my work, my creative projects, my location, and my personal goals.

In 2001, I sat down and wrote out a vision statement for what I wanted to happen in the coming decade. Here it is almost 2008 and most of those items have come true: my job, my marriage, my children, and my house are all things that I had envisioned and thought about, sometimes with wistfulness, sometimes with purposeful action, but always with the idea that they *were* possible. And here they are! I look back at my journals and think about how something that seemed an unimaginable goal for me at one point is now a daily reality: I realize I could even set higher goals because the sky/outer space is the limit!

For the next year, I encouarage you to specifically identify goals “I affirm that I am ________” or “I am living _________ and doing the following activities for my work _____________” or other specific statements.

Consider doing a goal in each of the areas of family, friends, relationships, health, job/career, education, philanthropy, and community.

For added benefit, break up your goals into mangaeable chunks (benchmarks) and add a deadline: “by April 30, I will have _____________.”

With this approach, you simply move to the next timeline and benchmark on your list. Over the long run you see the progression, but in the short run you see yourself changing habits and making small course adjustments in your daily life to reach those goals.

When you have an internal deadline and destination that you’re heading towards, you’ll find even more ways from this abundant universe to assist you in reaching that goal. Bit by bit, day by day, task by task, person by person, you’ll find the resources and relationships you need to sustain your vision.

However, the main point is to keep those goals in front of you. I keep my affirmations and goals clearly posted (I even carry them around in my journal). I e-mail them to myself on a regular basis and I check in with myself every month.

This next year, work hard, hard, hard on making your set goals become a reality. Also consider developing a 5-year plan, a 10-year plan, a 15-year plan, a 20-year plan, and more. How will you know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’re headed?

I invite you to sign up for my e-mail newsletter (links below this post) and I’ll keep you motivated with helpful tips, ideas, how-to articles and more for 2008. Happy New Year!

Futureme.org is part reminder service, part cheerleader, and part philosopher. This website gives you a way to email yourself, sometime in the future.

I use it to check in on myself with goals, ideas, or inspirations. The site is straightforward: you create an email message (it can be short or long), and then you send it to your own email address at a future date, as far forward as you like.

I have sent myself messages into the year 2012. It helps if you have your own permanent email address, that you know you will continue to use.

You may see other people’s public submissions (but you can tag yours as private or anonymous). These include gems like:
“-Own 99′ Camaro Z-28, Living on your own, Have steady girlfriend, Good job paying over 30 grand a year”

“Are you active now? Have you paraglided, yet? How long is your hair?”

and
“Are you tan? Do you have a job? Did hubby finish school? Are you in debt? Have you bought a house?”

The site is an excellent way to set goals and keep in touch with them as time passes, to delight in your success and to get feedback on what you want to change in your life.

As we all know, having accountability for goals is one of the quickest ways to achieve them: if you need to check in on a daily, weekly, quarterly, or annual basis to goals you have set, you see your progress against them.

I use this site to keep myself accountable for a number of goals relating to my family, relationships, health, financial, and creative endeavors.

I e-mail myself affirmations such as “ENVIRONMENT: I appreciate my peaceful, serene surroudings and my beautiful, organic gardens, flowers, and trees. I nourish myself through everything I see. My visual environment brings me joy and positive feelings.”

also:

“COMMUNITY: I actively participate in fundraising galas, receptions, and lunches that support women and girls’ education, entrepreneurship, and access to information and resources. I raise $500k annually for a nonprofit serving women’s entrepreneurship or something better. I support A Successful Woman with $3.2 million and work closely with a joyful, determined staff of 5 (or something better).”

What are your goals? Use the Futureme.org service to keep you on track with them, and send up a permanent email that you use for this service.