Are you REALLY Coachable?

Are you REALLY coachable?

I know you believe you are a learner and growth-minded, or why else would you be here? You may even believe that because you are spiritually-minded, you are automatically coachable. I don’t want to burst your bubble, and you very well may be highly coachable, but I work with so many women who are in fact achievers, growth-minded, love learning, and consider themselves spiritual, and yet they have actually come to realize they are not quite as coachable as they thought. 😲 So I thought this could be useful information if you are feeling stuck.

In my 25 plus years of working with women and their personal, spiritual, relational, and professional development, the points below are critical to creating real change…without each piece, things end up being harder than they need to be. 😔 And quite honestly, it’s something I must be on guard for always if I am to become ALL God has intended.

The below thoughts are not all mine, but have been excerpted (and adapted in places with the parentheses) from a fantastic article in Forbes magazine entitled: Are You Coachable? The Five Steps to Coachability by August Turak. (link included below) But in short.

If you are stuck, do a little inventory…

1. The first trait is humility – an understanding that there are things we need to do that we cannot do on our own.
2. The second trait that coachable people share is they have an action bias meaning they are action takers. (Confucius: I hear, I forget. I see, I remember. I do, I understand.)
3. The third trait is purity of purpose. (Within the coaching relationship…to be coachable is the goal and that goal allows for you to become changeable not just an information gatherer but to truly transform into all you are intended about who you are being.)
4. The fourth trait is a willingness to surrender control. (Ok, I can feel the resistance through the internet.) Even when we do find a mentor, we often put her / him in an impossible situation. We implicitly insist that we will only give up control once we have seen results. In fact, we only get results if we are willing to give up control. Unwillingness to surrender control is the single biggest reason for the lamentable fact that most authentic change is precipitated by a crisis. Ironically, the reason why most of us need a coach in the first place is to learn how to give up control. (This one is particularly difficult for me.)
5. The final trait is faith. The problem with life is that it must be lived forward and only understood backward. In my own experience, this is especially true when it comes to working with a coach. The benefits of change are often only obvious after the change has occurred. An alcoholic only truly understands the benefits of sobriety when he becomes sober. In fact, as my golf lessons painfully revealed, usually things get worse before they get better. Only hindsight is 20/20, and that is why we so often hear someone exclaim, “If I knew then what I know now, I would’ve changed years ago.”

To read the whole article:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/augustturak/2011/09/30/are-you-coachable-the-five-steps-to-coachability/?sh=52eadc8924f6
(It’s worth the read.)

I hope this helps. It has really helped me to take inventory particularly when a certain area doesn’t seem to be changing as fast as I’d hoped. I can look at the list and go, “Ahh, that’s what’s missing…” and then make the adjustments.

To you being the best YOU.