Very often in coaching, leaders, good leaders, are in pain.

They are not performing to their potential and they know it.

Something is holding them back.

And it’s tarnishing their personal brand, their chance for promotion, their relationships with others, in fact, their overall wellbeing and happiness.

Everyone takes a different journey while walking the path of coaching. Yet when it’s successful it always ends up in the same place.

People take responsibility for their own behaviour and results.

 Results not only in their business but their personal lives as well.

They stop giving reasons why something won’t, doesn’t, or will never work; and start thinking about how things could work.

They give up blaming circumstances, the past, others, timing and an array of other imposters and truly look at themselves.

They give up reacting and start responding. They realise they can’t change the past, the situation they are in, their boss, what’s happened, and yet (and you’ve heard it so many times before)…

THEY CAN CHANGE THEIR RESPONSE TO WHAT HAPPENS

And once they get this, there’s no stopping them.

They become open to the change in mindset that’s required, they relish feedback as a precious gift, that is they…

GET COMFORTABLE WITH BEING UNCOMFORTABLE.

And they grow, they truly grow. The results follow, not overnight, sometimes it takes a little longer but the results do come. And so does their positive self-talk too:

“What am I trying to achieve?”

“What are we trying to achieve?”

“How can I help?”

“How can we help?”

They own the use of their skills, their experience, their knowledge, their attitude to truly respond.

They start to dramatically develop their ability to make a difference.

BINGO! EVERYTHING CHANGES BECAUSE NOW THEY PRACTISE RESPONSE/ABILITY.

What about you? Where are you blaming others?

Where are you diverting responsibility by finding others to blame rather than looking at yourself?

I once had a counselling client at my clinic in Mosman, Sydney. He had been married three times and came to me because this time he wanted to get it right.

As much as I tried, I still feel I let him down. He could never accept or see that the only constant variable in his marriage failures was him.

What about you? Have you ever noticed that every time you have a problem, there you are?

Small Tweaks

1. Look at why things are happening initially.
2. Then explore whether you are “reacting” (often destructive emotions) or “responding” (moving to logic and constructive emotions).
3. If you can do something about it, do it.
4. If not, develop the ability to do something about it in the future.
5. Give up justifying, blaming, denying, diverting, attacking; it will get you nowhere, in fact, it could even make you sink, and make things worse.

No, it’s not being paranoid, you’re not blaming yourself, you’re simply committing to take responsibility for making yourself, projects, places and people better than you found them, irrespective of what has happened in the past.

Until next time…

Find the passion.
Develop the skills.
Make the numbers.
Make a difference.

Paul Mitchell
“APAC’s most respected transformational leadership performance coach”

Paul Mitchell (@Paul_S_Mitchell) is a speaker, author, transformational leadership coach and founder of the human enterprise. Through leadership coaching, leadership development programmes, keynotes and facilitation, Paul works with organisations to build cultures where everybody leads.