This week one of my clients messaged me the day before our planned session to ask if we should postpone as she hadn’t managed to do what she said she was going to do.
How do you think I replied?
- Sure. When would you like to rearrange it for?
- What do you mean you haven’t done anything?
- It’s totally up to you. If we met we could talk through what’s stopped you making progress and it might help longer term.
*hums countdown clock music*
What did you go for?
1) is perfectly viable. 2) Is just downright rude. 3) is exactly how I played it.
And after a little thought she decided to stick with our arrangement and we had a good session.
Yet this isn’t a one off.
Clients often apologise to me for not making it through their action plan. What they have to understand is that their goals are exactly that, their goals. And not mine. The only person they're letting down is themselves.
I care passionately about the coaching process and how working with me makes you feel. I’ve lost count of the number of times a client has arrived feeling rubbish and leaves with a real skip in their step. It’s my job to make sure you feel as excited and energised and ready to tackle your goal by the end of a session but the responsibility of actually doing it lies 100% with you.
Of course I want you to succeed.
I absolutely want you to see you learn and grow.
But I’m your coach. I’m not your teacher who might give you a detention if you don’t do your homework. I’m not a parent who might express disappointment if you don’t do what you say you’re going to do.
I’m your sounding board and cheerleader. I listen. I show you how brilliant you already are. I help you become the most resourceful person you know. And when things don’t go to plan I’ll pick you up and brush you down, help you understand what went wrong and what you could do differently if it happens again.
What was most interesting when we were unpicking it all was that my client had actually made loads of progress on some other, related, things but she just didn’t recognise them as positive steps because they weren’t towards the specific goal.
I’ll end this little story with a few gifts.
My client realised she needs to work on prioritising her priorities and I shared this grid with her, which I find so useful when I can’t work out where I need to focus my attention.
You fill it in according to how urgent and important each task is.
- If a task is both urgent and important then this needs to be your priority and you just need to do it.
- If it's important but not urgent then you need to find a time to plan to do it.
- If it's urgent but not all that important then delegate it. Who else can take responsibility for it?
- And if it's neither urgent nor important then just forget about it (for now).
Bear in mind this grid works best when you're feeling overwhelmed. One day those things in box four might make it further up the to do list but for now they just don't need your time and energy. See if this works for you the next time you can't work out how to tackle an enormous to do list.
My client is also going to start an empowerment diary. At the end of every day she will write down three positive things that have happened in a bid to shift away from all the things she hasn’t done, which is where she currently focuses. We all do loads of great things every day and it’s amazing how different you feel when you actually acknowledge them.
So next time you think you’re letting someone down because you haven’t done something, ask yourself honestly who it is who has been let down?
And then maybe do something about it…
