From: kim@gregorycoaching.com Sent: 30 April
2006 21:10 To: kim@gregorycoaching.com Subject: *** SPAM ***
Self Sabotage - Coaching Insights April 2006
Self Sabotage -
Coaching Insights April 2006
Welcome to April’s newsletter. This
month we're looking at:
* Parent Coaching - watch this
space. * Self-sabotage - some suggestions if you ever
suffer from this. * A plea to return all loaned books
that you've finished reading please.
Parent
Coaching
I’m delighted to say that we are almost
ready to launch our new offering - Parent Coaching.
Essentially it's about using coaching skills to help parents
become the sort of parents they want to be. Several of you
have regularly asked me "when are you planning to offer
this?". Well, interestingly, I (eventually) noticed that I was
harbouring a self-limiting belief about it. I noticed that I
was telling myself that before I could call myself a Parent
Coach then I'd surely have to be the perfect parent? Clearly
that was never going to be the case; and "the perfect parent
can be really hard to live with" (Lord Robert Winston)! So I'm
choosing to cast aside that belief and officially launch this
new offering in May.
In the meantime I seem to be
lending a lot of parenting books
to clients so - in the right hand panel - here are my
favourites.
Self-sabotage
Current
and past clients will know that we ask all clients to complete
a pre-coaching questionnaire
about themselves before we start coaching; and some questions
attract more attention and query than others. A particular
favourite is, “how might you sabotage our coaching
relationship?”. Many clients respond with the reply, “it’s
taken me months to find the right coach / budget / time, why
would I sabotage it?”. Good question…and yet it happens often
enough…clients who “don’t have time” to do their homework,
“forget” to read that book, keep moving their appointed
coaching session (so as to avoid addressing what’s really
going on)!
Daily sabotage can become so familiar that
we don’t see it for what it is: the vitamin tablets we
“forget” to take, the sales call we “overlook”, that e-mail to
the boss that we’re hoping he's forgotten, that networking
event we never signed up for?
Sometimes self-sabotage
becomes a way of life. John is a man who feels his life hasn't
started. Just as he drifted from college to college changing
his course each term, he drifts from career to career. He's
barely on speaking terms with his parents. One thing’s for
sure, he’s spending more energy avoiding his life than
participating in it...
Take a moment to ask yourself -
How might you be sabotaging your relationships, your career
right now, your income? Have a think about it…If you suffer
from self-sabotage, the following tips may help:
1)
Be gentle with yourself. We all have lists of things we
ought to do. Change is an easy thing to decide and a tough
thing to do. It's the day to day challenge of it that makes
people give up. Expect this. Worry only if you fall into them
too often.
2) Ask yourself, “How much support do I
have in my life?” and “How much reassurance and
affirmation do I have?”. Where can you get more of what you
need? What would it take for you to ask for more of the right
type of support?
3) Ask yourself "Do I really want
this?" and “If I could have this would I take it?”. If you
aren't moving towards your goal, ask yourself what's a really
easy first step and then “what would it take to move me onto
the first step?”.
4) Ask yourself, “Do I really
believe I deserve this?” and listen to the answer. If the
answer’s “no” then read this previous newsletter
"3 steps to improving your self-esteem". We have many more
ideas on increasing self-esteem - and this is a good place to
start.
5) Visit the Your Needs
tool and uncover what your needs really are. As my coach
once said to me, “it’s no walk in the park!”; but it’s still a
great tool for uncovering what you really need, how it’s
driving you and how you might reduce it’s negative power.
6) Ask yourself what’s really going on here? A
history of self-sabotage is almost always a key that we have
some central conflict with our identity - a problem accepting
who we are, our real needs and goals, and working with them,
not against them.
7) Contact us
for a free trial coaching session. Here's a recent comment
from one client who became increasingly aware he was
self-sabotaging,
"I trust myself now Kim, in life and
in love, and whilst there is always more “work” to be done – I
believe that so far, “the boy done good!”
Thank you so
much for your truly wonderful gifts: listening, support,
compassion, inspiration and patience(!) during the past
months". DH, Surrey
Loaned
Resources
If you've borrowed any books
(and have finished with them) but haven't yet returned them,
please would you do so ASAP as I am notoriously bad at noting
down to whom I'm lending which book. And we've plenty that are
unaccounted for...Thank you.
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