This month we have been discussing the interesting proposition that your clients have all the answers to their questions and the coach\’s role in helping clients bring those answers to the surface. Once clients have found their answers and are ready to proceed with a clearer vision of who they are and what they want, they begin to live with more intention.
Living intentionally generally means knowing and understanding your core beliefs and values and then actively living in a way that is consistent with those values. When we live a life of intention, as a result of working with a transformational coach who has helped us to know our selves at a deeper level, then living intentionally takes on new meaning. It is a life filled with joy, peace, clarity, direction, and purpose.
As clients take on the challenge of living with intention, the changes they will need to make may be subtle or enormous. In today’s world everything is fast paced. In such a faced based world with distractions everywhere, intentional living can be a challenge.
Rather than taking purposeful action, our schedule or to-do list becomes the compass that directs our activities and results. Living intentionally means turning this equation around: deciding on what purposeful action means to the individual and then creating a schedule and to-do list that supports it.
Living with intention means clients live the life they have imagined based on their own expectations. Allowing the expectations of others to influence their life, will prevent them from making the quality decisions that are critical as they pursue their goals.
Once your clients have tapped into their own wisdom and uncovered their path towards the future, you can guide them towards living intentionally by coaching to these behaviors. Here are a few ways to help them move forward with grace and ease:
Manage Emotions: Emotions play a significant role in the decisions we make and the actions we take. Our thoughts, behaviors, and actions are impacted by our emotions and learning to manage them is critical. Making life changes can be overwhelming, especially in the beginning, and feeling emotional is a normal result.
Here are a few topics to discuss with clients who may be feeling emotional about change:
- Are they creating unreasonable expectations for themselves?
- Does their life feel out of balance? If so in what way?
- If they stressed at the magnitude of change, have them list their accomplishments
- Remind them that these are big life changes and results come over time
Make Good Decisions: The key to intentionally living our best life is knowing how to make good decisions. Encourage your clients to consider the following when faced with an important decision:
- Always make decisions that are aligned with your values
- Give yourself time. Don’t make decisions when you are stressed or under duress.
- Make a list of pros and cons
- Think through all the options
- Talk things through with someone you trust and count on for good advice (your coach??)
Stay on Track: There will be moments when your client feels as if their plan to live intentionally isn’t working, and they don’t know what to do next. This is the point at which so many people without a coach give up.
Here\’s how to keep your client on track:
- Tell them it’s OK to feel this way. Don’t fight it
- Have them list and review everything they have done right in working their plan
- Ask them to recount all of the qualities and skills that have brought them this far
- Review the client’s goals and make sure they are still excited about achieving them. As clients change and grow, their goals can change too.
- Make sure they are working in bite-sized pieces to avoid overwhelm
Practice being Mindful: Mindfulness is the ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not be overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us. Being mindful helps engage the client in the world around them and helps to shield them from negative or random thoughts that can be draining.
How to Practice Mindfulness:
- Live in the moment
- Remain open and curious, receptive to new possibilities
- Accept and trust yourself
- Focus on your breathing
- Remain impartial and non-judgmental
- Practice meditation. There are many forms of meditation. Find one that works for you.
With a good coach at their side, clients can shift from simply existing to living with intention. Coaches can help their clients identify exactly what they want from life. What a gift! They know it takes fearlessness, hard work, and consistent effort for anyone to arrive at a place where they can live their dream. There\’s no shortcut to helping your client achieve their dreams. It\’s all about patience, commitment, hope, and collaboration.
Look for more information on this topic in our upcoming book, The Passionate Coach, due out in May 2022 on Kindle and in paperback. Our readers will be among the first to know when it is ready for purchase.
Thanks for reading and see you next week.
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Living A Purpose-FULL Life, an eBook and Workbook. As your clients begin to see the power and genius in knowing who they are and what they want, the natural progression is for them to ask, “What is my purpose?” Be ready to help them answer that question with our workshop-in-a-book.