Nothing Changes if Nothing Changes
💪 I have a gym shirt that says this.
It’s a mantra of people living in recovery from addiction.
And it is a great synopsis of my philosophy of behaviors based developmental coaching.
When I work with clients on career transition or executive leadership topics, the first order of business is to decide the developmental goal for coaching. That is, what about the client do we want to grow or develop over the course of our time together? The second order of business is to find behavioral changes that the client can make to help drive them to their developmental goal.
Notice the development is in the client, not in the client’s situation (e.g. a promotion, retirement, the magical removal of a toxic boss). And the behavior changes are the client’s to make – what to start doing, stop doing, or change – and not changes in behavior that we hope others will make.
In my work the behaviors often are actions that others like family or team members, bosses or colleagues will notice. But we also identify behaviors that are more inward focused, self-reflective, and might never be directly observed by others. Taken together, these behavior changes will bring about sustainable development that will leave a client more capable than before. This growth can be in any number of areas – emotional intelligence, self-awareness, influencing skills, confidence, adaptability, etc. based on what matters to the client, now.
It can be hard to rise above the day’s annoyances or challenges presented by difficult colleagues or a troublesome employee situation. Instead, it is easy to get sucked into reactive problem-solving mode or to hope that others will change so you don’t have to. But the path forward is through realization of our own developmental needs and initiation of behavior changes that will lead us there. As a coach, I can help with that.
What changes are you making in your behavior to develop further this year?
To discuss more, connect with me here or at john@aconnectedcoach.com