3P Random Reflections Blog

The truth is, I'm passionate about training. I love working with a class of participants over several days, having varied conversations about the topic at hand. I love facilitating exercises, asking questions, digging into the responses, making connections to their work, pulling out stories whether from the participants or sharing my own, and watching the occasional "ah-hah" moment happen.

There's also a fascinating set of dynamics in reading the audience, gauging the energy, handling objections, working with challenging behaviours, as well as getting to laugh and "just play".

And I have an equal love for developing training curriculum. It allows for the interest in research and learning, and the creativity in organizing the content, arranging the design, creating a flow for understanding and delivery, and discovering "just the right" language and components to make it work.

In fact, the time spent around anything training related, whether in my office or in the classroom, often feels like my playground.

A big part of effective training is coaching, and since I very much enjoy the coaching and consulting that comes along with the training function, it made sense to consider a professional coaching course for both my personal development and a potential career... although I held back doing this for a number of years due to a variety of insecurities. And so, a few months after awakening to the Three Principles, and seeing through the illusion of those insecurities, it was easy to choose to invest in Michael Neill's SuperCoach Academy (a truly amazing adventure).

After completing the 9 month intensive program as well as spending 16 months immersed in the Principles understanding (including 7 trips to places in Canada, the U.S., and the UK), it seemed like a good time to take a breather and just "live life" for a while, and see where the coaching took me.

Unfortunately, the 3 months (so far) of "just living" weren't quite working out the way I had envisioned.

My expectation to have the same passion for coaching that I have for training, was not happening. Instead of ease and passion and fun, and just relaxing into a regular routine of my work life (as a corporate trainer), my home life, and 1-3 coaching sessions each week, I was feeling irritable and out of sorts.

Even though it was an incredible privilege to hear my clients' hopes and fears, and rewarding to help them see through their illusory thinking, and amazing to learn so much in the process, it never seemed to come with the same ease that I had around training, despite the fact that the work has many similarities. And everything else about creating a coaching business appeared to me as difficult and unpleasant, and for which I had no passion to overcome.

However, with my understanding of the Principles, I "knew" that all my difficulties were just made up thought, and that I simply needed to wait for a moment of clear thinking on where to go next. I also guessed that my feelings of discomfort around life-coaching were a temporary block, that would eventually go away... Surely with a bit more practice I could expect to feel more confident, natural, at ease, and find my groove. And so, the decision was to just "keep showing up" and see where it took me.

Unfortunately, every time it came to facilitate the coaching, or consider how to best make this work as a career, nothing "flowed" for me, and there was more personal struggle than ease. This was in sharp contrast to when I first went into training, which I was incredibly excited for, despite whatever scary challenges were expected.

And then in a single clear moment, it occurred to me... I don't want to be a life coach. And the thought of this made me laugh (a good sign for me).

I like doing training, and have already been incorporating the Principles into my facilitation, as well as into the courses I've been writing. And, my desire to bring the Principles to my community could easily be done through workshops or hangouts or working in some way with a local community service. And wouldn't it be fun to bring this understanding to other trainers or training teams through classroom sessions and mentoring-coaching?

All of a sudden it was easy to come up with a number of interesting possibilities for next steps in what to do. And so I discovered that the resistance I was feeling was not as much my insecure thinking, as coming from a deeper knowing that life-coaching was just not meant for me at this time. And with that realization, a load of weight I had unknowingly been carrying, fell away to be replaced by laughter.

And so this was a great lesson learned in more clearly understanding the signals that my feelings send me. I see another level of the difference between acting against resistance (what I felt with the life-coaching) versus a passion for action, and an ease and willingness to face whatever challenges may arise (what I feel with training).

That's a helpful thing for me to know... At least until the next time I get completely confused again. After all, the incredible power of thought and consciousness has a sneaky habit of making my personal craziness very compelling. 

And by the way... How reassuring to know that no matter what I would have chosen to do, I would have been perfectly fine. How grateful I am for the Principles understanding.

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