Previously, we looked at needs, wants goals and priorities. A personal business coach or a personal development business coach also has to bring an aptitude to help the person being coached to better understand themselves internally. As a business coach in Houston, I believe the following are areas that most coaches, regardless of the category, life coach, self-improvement coach, business coach or some other coaching discipline, use to benefit their clients. Interestingly, regardless of the type of coach, they are all focused in some shape or form on self-improvement tips that can accelerate the process of your successful performance. This is critical because in the self-improvement business coaching model, all progress starts from within. The first place to better understand yourself is with intuition.
Intuition: This is the perception of truth, facts, information, or other input not based on any reasoning process. It is the ability to have insight into something based on our own inner knowledge and truth, and not on external stimulus. Intuition is that “little voice from within.” Here’s what’s interesting. The “little voice from within” very often counsels and supports our fears. When our fears are affirmed, rightly or wrongly, they will keep us from taking a path to self-improvement.
The key to intuition and the “little voice from within” is to understand what we are truly saying when we talk to ourselves. With self-improvement our intuition and what “the little voice from within” is saying to us will change over time as we gain in self-confidence and are on a more certain path.
Discern: This means to be able to perceive and distinguish between things, usually through intuition or other internal knowledge. It means to recognize contrasts such as good and bad, right and wrong, timely and untimely, truth and untruth, real and false. Discernment is your natural ability to see at times what can’t be seen as well as what you can see and to take a course of action.
To move your self-improvement to the next level be aware of your level of discernment. For example, if you feel that very often you don’t see things coming or are often surprised in ways that are not pleasant, this is a call to up your level of discernment. After all, only you can protect yourself from you.
Solutions: The answers and/or solutions to a particular problem, situation, challenge, or dilemma. For example, a common solution to miscommunication is to clarify what you hear the other person saying. “Just to make sure I understand. You said that we are going to meet next Wednesday, not next Tuesday?”
Solutions bring clarity. Here’s a point that as a personal business coach, personal development business coach, or as a self-improvement business coach that I must always keep in mind for myself and my clients. An answer is not necessarily a solution. It is just an answer. If the answer is something that can be reasonably implemented, then it can become a solution. Very often an answer is the premise for a solution.
For example, a company wants to reach the next level. The answer is to increase sales. The solution is how to go about increasing sales. In this situation we have an answer, to increase sales. But, until how to increase sales is defined, we do not have a solution.
Environment: The environment we are in is critical to our well being and our ability to embrace self-improvement. In fact, one of the great challenges of personal business coaching is to support the client in creating the environment necessary for his or her personal development and improvement.
Environment can be defined as the aggregate or combination of surrounding things, conditions, and influences, including social, cultural, relational, personal, and professional forces, that shape the life of a person.
In conclusion, when you develop your intuition, you will discern better. When you do these two things you will come up with solutions more quickly and as you do, you will create an environment that will support your continued self-improvement. There are many self-improvement tips and ideas and my hope is that the above gives you some insights into how a self-improvement coach in Houston or anywhere in the world can support you in creating the business and life you desire.
In the next post, we will look at shifts, leaps and strengths. All of which are key markers on the road to your successful performance.