How to Have Your Best Year Yet Part 2

In the last post I started with three questions to ask yourself on your path to having your best year yet.

1.What did I accomplish in the past year? Or what did I accomplish in the last 12 months? You can start having your best year yet at any time.

2.What were my major disappointments?

3.What did I learn?

In my practice, which for the most part is as a personal business coach in The Woodlands, there are different roles I must play to be effective for my clients. Part of what I do is collaborate with them on purely business challenges. That is the business coach role. I may also collaborate with them on personal challenges that can lead to breakthroughs in their business. That is when I do self-improvement business coaching or what some call personal development business coaching.

When focusing on how to have your best year yet all these roles come into play. After all, I believe you must look at the whole situation. It is easy to develop strategies for the business but maybe those strategies don’t fit the leadership style or the person. Then adjustments need to be made as we discover what needs to be addressed. The exciting aspect for my clients and me is that they are not the same person today as they were two weeks or a month ago. When you are involved in the business coaching process, regardless of who you collaborate with, you must be willing to stretch.

So, you have answered the first three questions. I find that these are relatively easy for most people to address. Based on your accomplishments, your disappointments and what you learned, here are the next three.

4. How do I limit myself and how can I stop? This question, to me, is one of the most challenging. You have to take a deep introspective look at yourself and come to an understanding of how you may limit yourself and how can you stop.

5.What are my values? As with the other questions, there are no right or wrong answers here. If is important to define your values. It will give you a mirror into how you conduct your business and your life. It will show you your priorities in how you accomplish things.

6.What roles do I play? This is critical. Identify all the roles you play in your life. Most people are fascinated when they discover all the roles they play?

Once again, write down the answers to these questions. In the next segment we will start putting together the goals to have your best year yet.

Are You Willing to Stretch?

Since 2005, I have been a personal business coach in The Woodlands. Whether you are in The Woodlands, another state or a foreign country, all business coaching is personal. Good business coaching is always about a person or persons, in the cases where I collaborate with and support teams.

Today, there are many different types of coaches who can fill various needs. There are health coaches, financial coaches, life coaches and the list goes on and on. Regardless of the type of coach you are, all business coaching as well as coaching in the other disciplines does include some aspects of self-improvement business coaching, self-improvement coaching or as some call it, personal development business coaching or personal development coaching.

All coaching is geared in some way to your self-improvement and personal development. The one foundational principle behind all types of coaching is this. It is your willingness and ability to stretch. When you stretch you are looking for ways to grow, learn and develop. And when you hire a coach, whether it be a personal business coach, life coach or some other coach you are saying that you are willing to stretch and, most importantly to be held accountable for the results of your stretching.

When you decide to stretch you are saying that you no longer want to be the same today as you were yesterday. Only when you stretch and bring more value to others will your business and life change. It will change because you have decided to improve yourself.

You are like the rubber band. As a rubber band, if you choose to stay in the box or the bag as a rubber band, you are worthless. The only value a rubber band has is when it is stretched. Unlike the rubber band, you have some inherent value. It’s only when you decide to stretch that you become of more value and can hold more of the good things that business and life have to offer.

No matter what type of coach you collaborate with: business coach, personal development coach, personal business coach, self-improvement business coach, life coach, health coach or coaches in other disciplines, be ready and willing to stretch. That’s what the coaching experience is about.

Are You Ready to Work with a Personal Business Coach?

Are you ready to work with a personal business coach?  Or, another way to say this is, are you going to be receptive to self-improvement business coaching?

Over many years of coaching I have observed that those who do well with my style of personal development business coaching, have a good personal foundation.  They have many things working for them.  They are now at a point where they want to take it to their business and life to the next level.

What is the next level, you ask?  It is a good question.  There are hundreds of paths to self-improvement and they all lead to the same place.  So, it really doesn’t matter which path you take.  What matters is that you take a path and commit to it.  That’s where I come in to support others in going on their chosen pathway.

I am not here to fix anyone.  I am not here to help anyone.  Yet, I am here to give others my unconditional support.  A fix it mentality in coaching or the “I am here to help” offering, for me, is starting from a negative.  The implication is that something is wrong.  The truth is there is something wrong, or that can be improved in all of us.  That includes myself.

To me, the best path for self-improvement business coaching has four key elements.

  1.  Unconditional support
  2.  Accountability for the things the client wants to be held accountable for
  3.  Collaboration:  This is not about me and you.  It is about us.
  4.  Co-creation of pathways to accelerate the process of the client’s successful

performance.

Now that I have listed the components for successful self-improvement business coaching I want to get back to the original question, “What is the next level?”

The next level for virtually everyone is greater peace of mind and happiness.  You may say, and rightly so, this doesn’t make sense.  Don’t most people want more success in their businesses and lives financially?  Yes, in a sense.  No one has ever hired me and said, “I want to earn less money and have a diminished lifestyle?  All of them would like to earn more, sometimes it is very little, sometimes it is a great deal more.  Yet, the one thing they almost always agree on is that they want a better lifestyle.

And a better lifestyle, which comprises your business and personal life comes from understanding who you are and what can bring you greater peace and happiness.  Very often, when we focus on what the ultimate goal is, greater peace and happiness, we end up doing things that improve our lives and lifestyle significantly in other areas.

Ultimately, if you are looking for a better lifestyle and identifying steps to accelerate the process of your successful performance, you are a good candidate for collaborating with a personal business coach.