Change is hard.
Posted on August 12, 2022 by IRINA Gritsevskaya, One of Thousands of Executive Coaches on Noomii.
My approach to holding my clients accountable.
Change is hard.
It really is.
Imagine somebody who has been on a fast food “diet” all their life. They are not proud of it, they know it’s not doing them much good, they want to change.
Yet, they will not switch to a perfect clean diet over night.
Transformation takes time. Involving all parts of our human structure: body, mind, emotions.
That’s when people often seek help of a professional who will help them stay motivated and focused on the goal, who will hold space for them to share their struggles, successes and failures along the journey, who will support them with tools to process all that is coming: resistance, fears, doubts, shame, ups and downs, emotional or energy swings. Who will sort of lend them an “aqualung” to deep dive and explore what’s at the bottom of their personal emotional iceberg, show them how to swim around without getting lost.
Who will help them to acknowledge the rising determination, hope, confidence, power within themselves and will hold their hand swimming around or gliding on new surfaces – maybe for the first time in their life ever.
You will often hear that the coach is also somebody who “will hold you accountable”.
How is that? How can somebody hold you accountable?
Is it maybe by reminding you of your promise to yourself or your commitment? (As if you don’t remember it yourself)
Or is it by shaming you that you promised to do something and you didn’t? Asking you why why why or pointing out that somebody else would have already done it in your place long time ago?
Thankfully, the answer is NO. Or the least I can say – I am NOT that kind of coach. I find that approach of little help for somebody who has already “beaten themselves up” hard and long enough. In fact I find it can even be counterproductive.
The way it works for me and my clients is to not be afraid to dive deeper, getting an honest glimpse of at what’s at the bottom of that “iceberg”. What can be real deep-hidden root-cause of their procrastination or resistance or self-sabotage.
It’s true that it takes time… Well, it took us time to gather around and contain within ourselves all those unsupportive ideas about ourselves or all those hard-to-process emotions. I find it rewarding to spend some time on clearing that stuff out. And I love the challenge.
