Purposeful Growth

If you’re serious about your purposeful, personal growth and development, get a coach. A well trained and experienced personal coach will accelerate your advancement, helping you get where you want to go faster and surer. Whether your growth goals involve greater career success, improved relationships, fulfilling work, or financial solvency, there’s a coach with the appropriate expertise.

Not sure what a personal coach is? Maybe your only exposure to a coach is through athletics. If so, you’re in for a very pleasant surprise. A well-trained personal coach will bring out the best in you without yelling, screaming, and berating you and your family tree.

Did you ever have a goal or vision for yourself that really excited you? But then you got frustrated or discouraged and gave it up or “put it on the back burner?” Most of us have done that. That’s  where having a coach really helps by keeping you motivated and energized toward the goals that you want to achieve.

Personal coaching is a growth profession for a reason. People find that a coach helps them clarify their goals, stay on target, and advance toward their greatest vision of success. And it’s fun to be coached.

Have you ever had a great teacher? One who challenged you, believed in you, and was always looking out for your best interests? Coaching is kind of like that–but better.

A coach is always on your side. He or she has nothing to gain, no other agenda than to help you get where you want to go. Your coach works for you, no one else. You hire your coach and you can fire him or her at any time.

Hiring a coach is not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength. It’s a sign of confidence and an intention to grow, with recognition that two heads really are better than one, especially when they’re focused on the same goal.

Athletes, performers, executives, and Hollywood and TV actors have coaches. But you don’t need meg a-millions to have your own personal coach. Coaching fees can be negotiated and kept within your budget by varying the frequency and duration of coaching sessions.

You can meet with your coach face to face or over the phone. Coaching by phone is surprisingly effective, at times even more effective than meeting face to face. Most coaches will give a free initial coaching session, giving both parties the opportunity to evaluate their comfort level with each other.

Coaches are not regulated by government agencies. So look for a coach affiliated with the International Coaching Federation, ICF, which sets the code of ethics for member coaches and accredits coaches and coach training organizations.

Coaching can help you if you want more for yourself than you’ve been able to accomplish and if you are motivated to grow. Being coached is fun, exciting, energizing, and challenging. You will work hard, but you will see results with the right coach.

You don’t need a coach to grow toward the best you can be. But you may want a coach, because you’ll probably grow faster and more effectively with the support and expertise of a coach.

If you’d like more information about coaching drop me a line or review the coaching page. I’ll be happy to discuss my experiences both as a coach and as someone being coached. If you decide to experience coaching I can help you get started with a referral to someone appropriate for your goals. I have access to many coaches from my training classes at MentorCoach.com, an accredited coach training organization of many years experience.

God shows her wonderful sense of humor as she provides just the right circumstances for my growth. (I use the female persona here just to shake you up a bit if you’ve always thought of God as a father figure.)

Check this scenario:

late September, 2006: I pick a writing theme for October–Tranquility–for my two writing venues, this blog and Suite101.com.

September 27: I write There Are No Bad Days, the story of a young woman whose life is changed forever after miraculously surviving a very serious brain aneurysm with only minor after-effects. In telling her story to my wife she says she no longer has bad days–all days are good because she’s alive. I write that we must learn from her experience to appreciate the gift of life, even when things don’t go the way we want.

October 2: My toolkit (a weekly feature on Suite101) for the week is Serene. What it means to be serene with a challenge to be serene during the week; there are helpful tips included.

October 4: I publish Tranquility: A choice place to live on this blog and What is Tranquility on my Suite101.com site. Both articles describe the benefits of being tranquil amidst surrounding chaos and turmoil, with helpful tips to use when confronted with this situation.

Oct. 6: My computer crashes–big time. The blue screen of death pops up but I don’t feel panicky because that happens every once in a while–no big deal. I’ll reboot and all will be well.

Not! This time all is not well. The blue screen repeats with every start-up, even when I start in fail-safe mode.

After exhausting my scanty toolkit of PC solutions I re-load the XP operating system from CD. After all, my critical files were backed up just a few days earlier. I don’t anticipate losing much.

After a few suspicious false starts re-loading the OS I finally get a basic XP system, way out of date, but operational. Now to restore my files from the recent backup and I’m all set. Wrong! Restore can’t read the backup DVD. Again, many machinations and manipulations of the DVD, including trying several programs designed to restore faulty backup files.

All to no avail. The backup data is corrupted, probably because of hard drive problems when it was created. My earlier backup is way out of date. Bottom line–I’ve lost several months of files and have a flaky PC to boot .

Do you see the irony here? My theme is tranquility. The articles I write describe the benefits and how to be tranquil in chaotic circumstances. So God, in her wisdom and using her terrific sense of humor says, “Experience tranquility despite the frustration and inconvenience of losing the tool of your occupation.”

Some might see this as a test or a lesson, or even a punishment for my audacity at telling others how to be tranquil in difficult situations. I don’t see it that way. I see this set of circumstances as a delicate and intricate tapestry woven to provide the perfect opportunity for me to personally experience my theme. Or not.

Thankfully, the difficulties did not include loss of life, serious injury or illness, or major property damage. Just the minor chaos of losing my PC and all the precious stuff stored there. But how often do we go bananas over just this type of problem?

Once I saw the irony and humor, I had to smile. What a terrific opportunity God presented. I get to take my own advice and experience tranquility in the midst of chaos. I get to start fresh with a new PC and new tools, file systems, etc. And I get the reassurance that God is really out there watching me and helping me to grow.

There really are no bad days.

Thank you God.