I’ve been set some homework by my coaching mentors this week and it’s a tough one. I think it’s a pretty good illustration of how coaching is always a work in progress, even if you’re a coach…
The homework is centred around the idea of Allies and Saboteurs. Allies are a personification of your own inner strengths and resources. Saboteurs are personifications of the voices that hold you back and make you feel bad about yourself.
Like most people, I’ve found identifying the “weaknesses” or villians so much easier. It’s like they were lined up, ready to all have a dig at me. The People Pleaser (she looks like me but tired) , the Judgemental Crone (she has a lot to say about how rubbish I am at things), the Procrastinator (she’s avoiding eye contact) and the Silencer (he’s the only bloke and he keeps shutting down my feminist thoughts by telling me I’ll never win that one).
See? Easy. They were fully-formed before I did this exercise and they’ve been around forever so I know what they say, feel like, look like. I’ve worked on all of them through various efforts and identifying them has been a massive step forward, because I know who to tell to shut up.
Identifying Allies has been an entirely different experience. Firstly, I am a person whose upbringing and gender (and nationality even) makes me actually squirm when I say things I’m good at out loud. The arrogance! The conceit! It’s pretty ridiculous and yet I bet it’s true for so many of us. If I honestly believed I was terrible at everything and an awful person, I’d be pretty miserable, as anyone would. And yet we can barely choke out the words “I’m really good at…”.
I crept around the issue for a bit – “what am I ok at?”, “what have I done that didn’t go horribly?” – and it wasn’t terribly successful. So I went and got a Diet Coke from the fridge, put on five minutes of loud music and wandered around my house and looked at the pretty sky outside. I sat back down at my desk with more determination and a hint of caffeination.
And I got there in the end. I identified things I liked about myself and that I am good at. It wasn’t a huge list but it was full of things that are genuinely important to me and make me who I am, like my sense of fairness or my close friendships. I realised that when I had first tried, I’d had the same feeling of dread I used to get when I wrote a CV, and that this was a totally different kettle of fish. This wasn’t about Career Sophie, it was about all of me. Values, relationships, things that satisfy me, things I contribute, things that bring me happiness. Those are things that should never be undervalued in any part of our lives if we really want to be our most brilliant selves.
Now I’ve completed this I can see it’s a really useful exercise – knowing and naming things is a big first step in how we as humans deal with them. It’s also a perfect way to get into the right mindset to coach and be coached. So whether it’s your Inner Artist, the Resourceful Problemsolver or the Empathetic Big Sister who’s in there driving you, see if you can give them a wave and think about what they can do for, and with, you.
If the idea of this appeals to you, why not drop me an email to book in a chat? I’ll be your ally on the outside whilst we find the ones inside!