I trust people to make decisions based upon either moving away from something they don’t want or moving towards something they do want. When my life is full of the situations and opportunities I do want and has nothing in it I don’t want, I am not motivated to make any changes. But as life has a tendency to change without asking you first, I have to accept that dealing with change will become a regular skill I need to develop. Clinging onto old ideas and concepts that no longer fit the current reality are often at the core of our difficulties and discomforts.

When we trust each other it creates the opportunity for cooperation. We can only successfully engage in joint activities when we trust each other to do the right thing. I use this idea in my work and in my life. I feel that people inherently know what they want and where they will find true fulfillment and sustainable satisfaction. When I see someone in difficulty in any area of their life I believe that I am seeing someone who has lost trust in their own ability to deal with the difficulties in life. When we feel that there is no way out of a difficult or uncomfortable situation, we find it tends to colour everything in our lives.

In my work I attempt to support people in creating a space where we can review their current situation in an environment of trust and respect. This helps us stand back a little from the immediate situation and take a wider view, enabling us to identify the skills and resources needed to deal with any situation and helping us to move towards finding a way forwards. This doesn’t mean we can always avoid painful situations and live in a state of permanent bliss, but it does allow us to learn to deal with the inevitable changes that life involves with the minimum damage to ourselves and those around us. Once we develop this ability, we can then start to take more control over our actions and reactions and make decisions based around the values that we find important.

If we base our life and our decisions upon sets of values that have meaning to us, then we have tools that work in all areas of our lives. If we react to each change as if it were not connected to the greater whole, we run the risk of repeating negative and inappropriate behaviours and causing pain and distress for ourselves and those around us.

So, if you have some spare time over the next few minutes, hours, weeks, months………… sit back and try and pin down the values you base your life upon. Once you have these in place you can start to move from the life you feel you should be living (often based upon values you receive from family, friends and society), to the life you could be living based upon the values you chose for yourself.

If you feel you can’t trust anything or anyone and that you are not clear about what it is at the core your life that you can rely upon, give me a shout and we can talk this through. Take care, Mark.

This same exercise will work out differently for each person, but I want to establish what I mean when I use the term “your values”. Rather than the things in your life, they are the feelings you get from having those things.

In coaching, setting and moving towards desired and defined goals is the basic aim of the exercise. Sounds easy enough. Someone says my goal is to be rich and we just identify some actions required to achieve that. The most lucrative industries are the sex trade, the arms trade, the drugs trade and gambling. So pick your role, pimp, prostitute, gun runner, drug runner or bookie? Maybe that goal of getting rich needs to be qualified. Maybe the feelings you imagine you will get from having enormous wealth can be acheived through some other route? The point is that if your goals do not fit with your values you will either find that you struggle to achieve them or if you do achieve them then they do not provide the satisfaction you initially imagined. So getting your values lined up with your goal is an essential early task in any coaching exercise.

I am always happy to see someone pin down and align their values with their goals, even though that can sometimes be a long and convoluted process. Once it is set, it is amazing how quickly and easily people move forwards. The whole process of coaching relies upon an increase in self awareness and adopting sustainable changes to allow each individual to access and use their true and natural talents. However that sounds to you, it is great to see it happen and that is one of the drives that keeps me practicing and learning as a coach. Thanks for reading this, feel free to leave a comment, Mark.

The aims of coaching are to help and support people to live a more fulfilling life. This is done by encouraging people to think about and pursue what they find most fulfilling. It deals with all areas of life and aims to support people who want live a value based and sustainable life style.

As a coach the tools I use to support my clients are listening, questioning and reviewing. It is never for me to tell anyone what they should do or want. The client always chooses what they want and what they are prepared to do to achieve this. I sometimes describe it as “thinking out loud.” You are welcome to think out loud anytime, and it may well be useful, but is often even more helpful when someone else is there to respond and keep you on track. Thinking out loud by yourself, if overheard, may also sometimes be mis-interpreted as early signs of dementia and you could end up in sorts of trouble!

If there is someone in your life who will actively listen to your thoughts and feelings without judging you or advising you, then you do not need a coach. Most people find it difficult to be totally open and honest with those who are closest to them as it is sometimes difficult to maintain the distance and objectivity required to be effective as a coach.

I have practiced and studied coaching for over two years now and am still learning. One of my favourite things in life is learning and as I understand more about how to live a fulfilling and sustainable life I bring this into my coaching work. I will continue to write about my understanding of coaching as I practice and learn. Feel free to contact me to ask or discuss any questions you have around coaching. Take care, Mark.

Each client is unique and has a wealth of resources and experiences to bring to the session. Each session is also different. Taking that into account there are some common steps to the coaching process. Many people are not sure whether they want to take on a coach as they are not sure how the process of coaching operates. So this is a brief description of the process within my coaching practice.

As it feels a bit cold to keep describing the people I work with as “a client”, lets call this client John.

When John contacts me we have a brief discussion around how the sessions operate, how long they last and when we are both available. If John feels that he would like to know more I will give him an agreement to read through and sign. This outlines my responsibilities and John’s responsibilities. A clear description of the charges and the payment terms is included in the agreement.

If John feels this is acceptable he will sign the agreement and return a copy to me. We can then book a suitable time for the sessions. They generally last for six sessions and most people find that once a week or once a fortnight gets the best results. I am happy to fit in with whatever John feels is best. We can block book these appointments or book them as we go along.

Lets say that John books six sessions to take place on six consecutive Tuesday evenings and that we are going to work using the phone. For the first session I will call John at the agreed time and we will start by John describing which area of his life he would like to concentrate on. It could be his work, his health, his social or family life. It is up to him to choose the area that is most important to him at this time. If he finds this difficult we can discuss some ways and tools he could use to identify which area of his life is currently most important to him.

Some of the clients I work with want to look at their work life and feel that they could get more satisfaction out of the time they spend earning a living. If John decided this was an area he wanted to work on, I would encourage him to describe his current situation and then to describe how it would have to look for him to be totally happy. 

I believe that whenever we want to make a change in our lives it is a good idea to start with a clear picture of where we want to be. What does it look like and how does it feel? It may be that the intial picture changes as we get nearer to it, but if we are not sure about where we want to be, it will be difficult to know how to get there. So I will encourage John to start with the end in mind. I do this by listening and asking questions. My questions are designed to help John be clear about what he wants. My questions aim to help John focus on what he wants and what he is happy to do to acheive this, as it up to him to take ownership of his goals and how he wants to acheive them.

At the end of the first session John may have identified an area that he feels needs attention and he may also have identified a goal. The pace will be set by John so he can get to this point in one or several sessions, it is up to him. He will also have made a note of actions that he needs to take to move towards his goal. Once John is happy with his goal and the actions he has chosen, we will end the session and he will take one or several of those actions to complete before the next session.

My job is to ask non-judgemental and pertinent questions and help John focus on his goal and the actions required to acheive it. Although I do not motivate John, he may find it helps to have someone there to listen to him, reflect on his answers and review his actions and thoughts. He may also find that this helps him to focus on the positive steps he needs to take to ensure that he is living a life that is fulfilling and sustainable.

I am always happy to discuss any area of my coaching work and my way of working, so if you have any questions use the contacts (on the right) to get in touch. Take care, Mark.