How was your year then?

I switched to LBC in the car, just as James O’Brien was winding up his shift. Apparently his theme today had been Christmas Round Robins.

What he quoted from one went roughly like this:

“This year my wife’s dream finally came true and we changed all nine internal doors.”

I wasn’t about to be ROFL, well not at the wheel anyway, but I snorted. It wasn’t until I reached my destination, that the word bathos reared up from the depths where it has been languishing for a couple of decades.

And yet…and yet… Easy to sneer. That was the environment she wanted, that was her magnetic goal, which she’s now achieved. Just a pity it made it to the Round Robin.

You can listen to it, and other Robins, on today's Best of James podcast. Names were not changed to protect any sources.

Getting into the seasonal spirit

I've just been busy checking my database so that I can contact former clients to offer them a free coaching session as a New Year treat and a bit of a booster.

The nice bit for me will be catching up with their news and it's satisfying whenever we make contact to hear about the effect of the changes they have made in their lives as a result of their coaching.

This week I've started to convert some of my favourite coaching resources into pdf files so that they can be available free for download from my website. I'm using Cute PDF, which is available free, to do this.

I have really appreciated, in starting up a business, that some outstanding programs are available free. My PC Hero Providers are, in order of seniority according to their arrival on my desktop; Zone Alarm, AVG Anti-Virus, CCleaner (running the latter restored all the missing formatting in my Blogger posts), Skype, Blogger (bless its little betasocks), a-squared Security and SpyBot. (I'm a tad worried that AVG is about to do the PC equivalent of an NHS dentist going private.)

The files I've chosen are ones that anyone can use and they're also the ones that I use myself. It may be self-defeating from the marketing perspective, but I'm looking on it as my social contribution. Even better if my PC Hero Providers download them.

Note to self: Ask the web site's designer if there's any way of tracking how many files are downloaded.

Good at starting...hard to complete

Good news first. If "good at starting...hard to complete" describes you, you have at least something in common with Michelangelo.

The bad news is that, putting genius aside, you and I will have to stop scattering our fire, and focus on fewer targets if we are going to complete some of the unfulfilled projects.

If you have plans or dreams that you want to bring to fruition, ask yourself:

1. How magnetic is this goal? Is it what I really want?
2. Identify the hurdles. What's getting in my way? Who else is involved?
3. What have I done so far? What's stopped me taking action?
4. What can I do about these obstacles? Is there anyone who could help me to overcome them?
5. What are all the things I could do?
6. And which of them will work?

A Dream Board: Realising the 'vision'?

How’s that for inner circle jargon from someone who’s just been complaining about it? I just came right out with a detestable buzz word. What if I swear never to chime in with vision’s cringe-inducing smug little partner, ‘mission’? Here’s the deal: an hour’s free coaching if the word ever trips off my keyboard.

You only have to write down your goals once to accept that writing them down makes a difference. The written-down goals almost develop a little momentum of their own. And for me, it’s the writing down, the contact of the pen or pencil with the paper, the flick of the wrist, that’s critical. When I type up my goals, sure there are advantages. They look good —neat—they can even be printed out in a tiny font if I care to carry them around with me. But what about those for whom expressing their goals or writing anything down is often an issue?

Jonny Wilkinson has helped me win teenagers round to writing down their goals. I only have to quote his words, “Long before I ever started playing as a professional, I wrote on a piece of paper that winning the World Cup for England was something I wanted to do.” (I do tend to pass on the advisability of indulging in obsessive public rituals, certainly if you’re one of the millions of men and women in the street.)

Then follows the pep talk on the importance of written goals, while underplaying that 1953 ‘research’ carried out on those Yale students. It’s a good story for the materialists amongst them. (What I’d really like to know is, was “Have you written down your goals?” the only question they asked back then? What do we know about any other factors the successful 3% shared? I must find something on that research that isn’t also trying to sell a service.)

Recently I’ve been working with several non-native speakers of English and a couple of adults with ADHD. For various reasons, they can regard the idea of putting any sort of plan down in writing as something of a turn-off.

So it struck me they could benefit from an idea I use in performance coaching which has worked well with teenagers, and with even younger children. I invite them to make a dream board by creating a picture that will help them relax before exams. The idea is to give them something concrete that will help them with visualisation.

For the artistically challenged, the process can be as uncomplicated as paging through glossy magazines and cutting out images that make them feel relaxed. Other materials could be postcards, swatches of fabric, shade cards, tickets… They then create a collage with all these images. ‘dream board’.

Others might paint a picture or put together an audio ‘dream board’ of music that induces feelings of relaxation and reduces tension and stress.

If a collage on the bedroom wall is too public, a mini-collage on an unused page of your diary) would be pretty handy for furtive reminders of where you’re heading.

Wouldn’t this kind of practical ‘activity’ work with goal setting too?

If writing goals can link the hand that writes with the head that acts in an immediate, direct way, won’t you get the same engagement of hand and head with drawing, cutting, pasting? Why shouldn’t this result in an equally effective alternative to a written ‘statement’? And I haven’t gone into the multiple intelligences aspect either.

Why not give this technique a try yourself?

And while you’re about it—just humour me here—anticipate your wildest expectations.

Rebel in the ranks

From the vantage of the Coach House porch, I’m becoming a bit of a rebel. Just a bit.

See, I’ve trained as a life coach and as a performance coach and I do believe, with the conviction that comes from seeing changes—some small, some startling, some snowballing—that coaching can make a difference in people’s lives.

But I’m starting to be turned off by the entire self-help industry that’s developing. Take the outpouring of books and the promises in their titles and I’m beginning to suspect that something’s out of synch when the shelves are full of the same book— maybe the title’s different except the verb’s in the imperative.

And the jargon! That’s the crunch for me. I am always suspicious of movements that develop their own jargon, creating smug insiders.

I think it should all be a lot simpler. This weblog is me grumbling a little, reflecting on creativity in coaching and waiting for others to chime in on this conversation.