Reflections from a Coaching Workshop
20/6: updated to include my reflections and notes from part 2 too.
I attended a Performance Coaching Workshop by SingaporeWorks on 13 and 20 June! We learnt about various useful distinctions between managing, leading, counselling, teaching and coaching. You can find my notes here for part 1 and part 2. Pre-workshop homework reflections are here, may be good to read both to get a better grasp of the context of my sharing. Or feel free to dive right in!
What stood out for me most were these three things:
1) The intangible aspect of goals I often forget;
2) My experience in coaching N, my groupmate who is from Cambodia
3) My relationship with “challenge”
1) Intangible aspect of goals
When we set goals, we often think about the achievements we want, such as mastering a skill, or getting a degree, or house for example. These are the tangible aspects of a goal.
What we often forget, is what do these goals mean to me? The intangible aspects of our goals. It may become and endless chase for achievements after achievements if we don’t pay close attention to it. Actually, I do feel like social expectations and society’s definition of success ‘pushes’ many people into this direction. I’m not saying that it’s wrong.
There is no connection between the tangible and intangible aspects of a goal, one can feel rich, but empty.
It is worth questioning: what do my goals mean to me? For one, i think i get distracted by what fancies me at the moment. So these questions help to to re-focus on what matters to me most.
Think about your goal - you are actually not after the material aspects of things. If your goal is to earn a million dollars, perhaps what you are after is actually the feeling of financial freedom. If your goal is to save enough for a holiday, perhaps you are looking for the experience of novelty, rest, or relaxation.
I invite you to think about what your goals mean to you:
What is the experience you are looking for? What is the feeling you want to create with this goal?
If I had a magic wand, and you had these achievements you wanted - what would it be like? Where else would you want to experience this?
When i think about this, I think the experience I want is to feel deeply connected with people around me. To feel loved, to have open, meaningful conversations with each other - conversations about our dreams and building each other up with our words and actions. I would like to experience this in my family, and also with my friends and in workplaces.
This is why I really believe in the power of communities - humans are fallible. No one is strong all the time. (That would be borderline psycho)
When we fall, who catches us?
Who are the people we think about? Who are the people I want to surround myself with?
Who do I want to catch when they fall?
We can’t catch everyone. That’s not the point. The point is that even when there is just one person who reaches out, it makes the whole difference to someone’s world.
I want to build strong communities that hold this healing space, so that we can all grow to be more whole and live the lives we truly want.
This is your Why. This is what powers your commitment.
Coaches are powerful not because they impart knowledge. If it were just knowledge-based coaching, the person can only become as good as the coach. Knowing and doing are two different things as well. Americans have the best knowledge in losing weight, yet they have the highest obesity rates as well. Finding out how is not as easy as doing it.
Commitment-based coaching - It’s about doing the practice, identifying what is blocking you, and taking action. With that, growth is infinite!
2) Noticing myself - my first coaching experience
During the workshop, we had the opportunity to get to coach in 2 sessions.
I noticed that when I am focusing on the coachee, i am most in flow. I think about what questions i can ask to support him, and do my best to be a clear mirror that reflects him, asking him if that’s something he really wants to work on. Without judgement, or assumptions. Moments of ‘purity’ i call it.
But there are moments where I notice my own fears, did i catch what he said right? I notice myself feeling the heaviness as he shared his problems - as if it was my responsibility to solve them? The coachee is responsible for doing the work, to continue playing in the field; it is my responsibility to have him reach his goals, and take intentional pauses to reflect and ensure we are aligned to those goals. I notice the tendency to jump in and i want to do this to make myself feel better, instead of holding space for uncomfortable emotions. I notice the feelings of uncertainty, lost - there is comfort acknowledging I don’t have the answers. No one knows, anyway.
3) My relationship with “challenge”
One of the homework given to us after part 1 was to seek feedback from people around us, on whether we are more relationship-focused or challenge-focused.
(Invitation for you to take a pause: which is your dominant muscle?)
Largely the feedback i have gotten is that I am more relationship-focused, though i think in my family i could be more challenge-focused haha.
Through the coaching session with S, I realised this resistance to challenging people comes from my misconception of what ‘challenge’ meant. I realised i narrowly interpreted challenge as being assertive and direct, which could potentially cause conflict. I have the tendency to be conflict avoidant, withdrawing is how i usually respond to tension.
But what I realised when S challenged me to a bigger goal, it gave me more confidence, it felt good. Challenging need not look intimidating; a relationship of growth is when we challenge one another to do better. :) Underlying the challenge, is the belief that ‘I believe you can be bigger’. ‘I see something in you that you may not be able to see right now.’ So the role of a coach is to help people see that potential in themselves too, which otherwise they might not have.
Like what I mentioned in this blogpost:
Believing is seeing. Choosing to see. Helping people to see something beautiful within themselves that they don’t see. Sometimes we forget our own beauty within and we just need people to remind us. We need to remind each other the beauties of our existence, for none of these paths are “by chance”.
Ultimately, what i learnt is that when we focus outwards, these fears become less important. People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. If the intention is to want to care for and help someone, we realise these fears which come from the focus on self will begin to dissolve.
Final thoughts:
The power of noticing and observing are what differentiates good and great coaches perhaps. Noticing what is going on within themselves, and noticing what is going with the coachee.
In fact, if we slow down and notice what is happening within and around us, we may be pleasantly surprised at what we can find.
I noticed that I tend to complain about the feeling of boredom which comes with frustration. This week i notice that if I tried to sit with the boredom, and not jump in to use my phone to distract myself, i become curious about boredom, and how my body feels, what is this boredom trying to tell me?
I haven’t quite figure this out yet - let me sit a little more with it first.
What consumes most of your emotional energy?
Ontological coach Ellery asked me prior to our coaching conversation. Emotions inform us of our needs, he said. Emotions are a linguistic expression as we connect our sensations and thought to verbalise what we feel.
Work
Though I enjoy parts of my job, there are times I feel really bored by the tasks I need to do, and i can’t see how it’s meaningful to me in anyway. At times my heart longs for a space where i can have meaningful, transformational conversations as the focus of my job.
I felt this disconnection at times when everyone is just concentrated on finishing task after task, and the tasks never really end. It also seemed like there isn’t a space for informal, “vulnerable” conversations that truly build connection. I try to strive for this, but it is difficult, partially because of the organisation culture, and also because of my own resistance and judgements. This manifests into frustration, and resignation — until I find a space where I can externalise this energy, which is usually found outside of work.
Frustration, Ellery explained, comes with a sense of “stuckness”, and 99% of the time it occurs because there are missing requests. What are some missing requests that you may have?
Understanding the root of frustration - Missing Requests
I try to start small, by sharing my real thoughts with my colleagues and creating spaces and sharing circles for more reflective conversations. That in itself, was already me making a request, just that i didn’t have this distinction in my language.
Ellery asked me if I even tried to initiate such conversations with my boss. That had never really crossed my mind, there was uncertainty and a fear of looking ‘stupid’, or i may come across as i’m complaining? Which didn’t feel ideal.
He told me that if i felt this way, there is a chance that someone else may be feeling this way too. Holding space for my boss? Wow, that really never occured to me. (This still scares me; frankly not so sure what will my boss responds if he ever sees this post. LOL)
But yes, bosses are humans too, and all humans need connection. Connections are only built when people are open about themselves.
2. Family
Family is a complicated mess i don’t even know where to start or how to unpack this. There are thoughts like, ‘I want our family to be closer’ and yet I am resistant to doing the work. The hardest part comes in being calm in the automatic reactions which get triggered so easily — anger creates anger, and soon everyone becomes agitated. The thought that “things won’t change no matter what i do” sometimes feels deeply true and unsettling. Perhaps it’s where acceptance is most needed, and ironically enough, change comes with acceptance of the way things are.
Anyway, there is a story which I have been telling my closer friends, but not the person who needs to hear it most - my dearest sister.
We were much closer when we were younger, and we used to have many late night conversations; but my sister has been struggling with health issues in recent years. (I struggled with eczema too, and topical steroid withdrawal symptoms such as Red Skin Syndrome, which I had documented here.) Long story short, we grew apart as I went to university and i spent most of my time outside home.
There are times where I initiate conversations, but when she’s at her computer she ignores me, and i feel like there’s nothing else I can do to build connection. I told myself I will do this, slowly…there are better days and worst days.
“What are the moods you feel when you look back then and now?”
I notice that I began to tear. (bodily sensation)
I felt guilt. (emotion, which i had thought i had gotten over, but apparently not)
I also felt distant, disconnected. (thoughts)
And I felt sadness. (emotion)
Guilt meant that there were unmet standards I had. And sadness meant that I was losing something important; where one can grief for the loss or if possible, rebuild the relationship together.
Desensitisation (adapted from Gestalt Theory of Resistance)
Have you tried being more forthcoming with your sister?
Ellery described me as kind of tip-toeing around the issue, that I could be desensitising myself. I didn’t quite understand. But i had a gut feel that this is my blindspot.
He explained his observation: as i shared the issue with my sister, i would say that I have tried talking to her, thought many times it didn’t work, but that at least reduces my guilt. Then I would say that I would do this slowly….
As I reflected, I think I also desensitise myself from issues at work by focusing on the smaller things that would satisfy me; but not the elephant in the room. (ie. talking about it to my boss)
Have you tried having this conversation we just had with your sister?
He’s not the first person to point this out…and i hope he is the last.
A conversation about needs would create the container for the space. My needs - missing requests, remember? To be vulnerable and put myself out there, be forthcoming - that builds connection first. So that it creates the safe space for my sister to show up and share her most vulnerable emotions as well.
So, I will be having this conversation with my sister. I’ll update how it goes!
Some further reflections:
I was not aware that I am desensitising myself - it’s something some of my friends have pointed out, but this was the most apt word to describe it so far. I am now an expert in desensitisation. muahahaha.
I also asked Ellery some questions about coaching - he shared that he usually focuses the conversation on pain (layman terms). He further provides a distinction: Pain is meaningless. Suffering is meaningful. That’s why the root word for passion is, to suffer. If there is no pain, or if the person is unwilling to go deeper into the pain, there’s nothing much to coach. The person needs to be willing to do the work, and the coach will do best to support. Hence, coaching is a really intimate experience.
So I asked, is it the job of the coach to make people feel the pain? He said that’s a pretty crude way of putting it (haha, my inner sadist) and patiently explains that the coach is one who shines a spotlight/provide some awareness of where and what the pain is about. It usually starts off with exploration, then going deeper. In an ideal coaching conversation, the coachee will be doing 90% of the talking - the work! Coaching is about being, and it provides the person to explore a different way of being, and change comes when one translate that to their lives.
How a coach behaves in a coaching session is likely how he/she behaves outside the conversation - the triggers, how to center self after being triggered, and the coach learns a lot through the session as well.
I also asked another question, on how do you ensure that you are “clean”? He was abit bewildered and asked me what I thought haha. I answered coach need coaches too, to shed light on their blindspots. He also meditates using headspace, so that it helps him to slow down and be more aware; and with awareness comes the power of choice.