One of the very first books on coaching I read was a book written by Timothy Galway, ‘The Inner Game of Work’. This book is full of wisdom and brilliant ideas for coaches. I want to share with you a couple of these ideas today.
The first one I would call the magic formula of coaching. Are you intrigued? Well, here it is:
Performance = Potential minus Interference
To reveal the full potential of a coachee, we together need to understand what contributes to their interference. What is the main contributor?
Timothy Galway refers to two Selves living within each of us: Self 1 and Self 2. Self 2 is that of pure potential. This is all the knowledge, understanding, and abilities we have. It is what we sometimes call intuition. This is what sports people call ‘playing in the zone’. Or when we are in a state of flow. If we always could perform in Self 2 without any interference involved, we would perform at our very best. Interference comes with Self 1. Self 1 is that who is constantly judging and criticizing, who does not trust themselves, and is lacking self-confidence. The problem is that the voice of this Self 1 is quite loud and therefore we listen to it and follow their ‘instructions’: “If you are going to ask this question now, everyone will think you are stupid, so just shut up!”, “Gosh, you cannot do this job, you are just not good enough”, “Who are you to ask for that promotion, surely there are people smarter than you in this department”. And so on… How many opportunities were missed? How many chances to demonstrate your real talents and gifts were not seized? Listening to the constantly whispering self-criticizing and self-doubting Self 1 makes us feel smaller and performs at only half of our real potential. What needs to be done is to turn down the volume of Self 1 and to thereby reduce the level of interference. The quieter the voice is, the more space we release for potential, the better we perform.
The role of a coach is together with a client to find a way to minimize his or her interference, to free up space for potential so that they can perform at their very best.
Being a coach, first of all, means to be able to deal with your own Self 1, to minimize its power, and to give a lead to Self 2, so that during a coaching session you can be fully present with your client, trusting yourself and your ability to be the best coach for them.
In BeCoach Academy you will learn how to reduce your interference, reveal your potential, and perform at your best as a coach. And then to take your clients on the same journey towards revealing their full potential so that they can become the best they can become.
Learn about our professional coach training.. And get in touch if you have questions or want to make any enquiries.
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With love and gratitude,
Elena
