Maria Connolly, LPC
Learn how to focus on the soft skills, the people skills like good communication, effective leadership, positive motivation, and managing your emotions.
We are all coaches. We coach ourselves by correcting or cheering ourselves on toward our dreams. We coach others as we give them advice, support, and encouragement. But most people come to a coaching role without training. That’s why it’s so important to have some go-to resources that help you clarify your WHY, because once you know why you’re doing something it’s easier to see if it’s helpful or not.
You’re either born with it or you’re not. Is that how you feel? Born with what? We used to think that people were born to be leaders or speakers, to be influential, to be people persons, and to be skilled at getting things done. But even worse, we also thought that characteristics like artistic talent, creativity, honesty, or emotional openness came easily to special people born with those characteristics, and the rest of us were destined for dull, ordinary lives.
Has this thinking tainted your life and happiness?
This may startle you, but many of the excellent behaviors that help women rise in their field will eventually become the behaviors that keep them from further advancement. How can that be? When can excellent behaviors hold you back? Have your strengths become your weaknesses — how can you determine that? And then what can you do about it?
Usually, we face January with the resolve to “do better this year”. Yet, that’s starting from a very judgmental and negative space, isn’t it? What if, instead of setting lofty goals this year, we work on cultivating a more robust base on which we can build healthy systems for life? Imagine setting the intention of “nurturing yourself” as your only goal knowing that doing this will bring real improvement to all areas of life.
Making a commitment to deeply care for yourself and to engage in daily practices that come from a place of compassion, love, tenderness, and gratitude is a very unselfish thing to do. A committed practice to uplifting and honoring your own needs makes you better able to honor others. When you embrace the power of nurturing your heart, your world can be transformed at every level.
“Why did I do that? Sometimes I don’t understand myself.” During a coaching session, has your client ever said that to you? Or perhaps you’ve felt that way yourself. If so, you’re not alone. Even though we live with ourselves 24/7, we don’t automatically possess total self-understanding. Just as it takes work to understand someone else, it takes time and effort to understand ourselves.
Oftentimes, we’re so busy and our lives and thoughts become so cluttered we get into a reactive mode rather than staying in a calm place of choice. This mindlessness makes us forgetful and causes us to feel separation from self, which creates a sense of merely existing rather than living a full and purposeful life. So how can harmony be restored? The answer lies in developing the skill of mindfulness. Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D. explains that