Tag: learning

Relax

The most important thing

is to relax.

Everything else is a distraction.

–

I write these words as a reminder to myself.

I had forgotten recently. Caught up in a whirl of ‘what ifs’. What if my contract at work is extended? Should I stay? Should I leave? How / when do I build up a coaching practice if I’m still working? But what if my contract is not extended? I’ll be out of work…blah…blah…blah. Well, I won’t bore you with all the details but I’m sure you know the kind of thing I mean! Repetitive circular thinking, as if running through the various options again and again is going to make a decision easier.

I’ve not written much here recently as I’ve been busy with work (we’ve just published formal proposals for a section of the England Coast Path and are publishing another section in March), and also coach training. My coaching course assessment is getting closer (also March).

This week, in an observed coaching class, I was nervous. I didn’t perform well. I am usually fairly relaxed when I’m working with clients one on one, but when I’m being observed it makes me self conscious and tense. I started to wonder if I’m actually ready for the final assessment.

Nerves and coaching don’t go together. Coaching reminds me so much of my tai chi partnerwork practice. To do both well you must be completely relaxed, completely connected to your partner / the client. Which is impossible to do if you are tense or nervous.

After a few days of thinking about it, I decided that my focus for the observed coaching sessions should be to relax and connect. To let the coaching competencies that I am supposed to be demonstrating sit lightly in the back of my mind. To give up the trying. To give up the idea that I should be doing it perfectly. To give up the habits of a lifetime. Well….I didn’t say it would be easy!

And then, as I did my evening tai chi practice the words came to me.

‘The most important thing is to relax. Everything else is a distraction.’

Thi is true for everything. The work stuff, the coaching, the future, everything.

Everything is easier if I relax. Life flows, unfolds. I follow. I know this. And I so easily forget.

Wishing you all the best for the new decade!

Fear of failure

Uneasy half dreams in

the dead of night,

fear, like a ghost, whispering

‘you are not good enough’.

Daylight brings clarity,

but fear grabs my arm,

pulls me back

says with authority

‘you are not ready’.

Fear climbs inside me

tenses my muscles

speaks with my voice

‘you must not get it wrong’.

Fear walks before me,

removing the risks,

smoothing the way

to conformity.

Ah, fear. I’m feeling pleased with myself today because I faced a fear, the fear of failure, of getting things wrong, of looking foolish in front of a group of people.

Since I signed up for a coach training course, I have been feeling very nervous about being observed while I coach. As part of the learning process, we attend classes where a student coaches another student and then gets feedback from the class and the teacher. It really is the perfect way to learn a new skill; listening to other people coach, being a client and also coaching and getting feedback.

I have to do three hours of coaching in these observed coaching classes as part of the course, all the while practising and improving the skills that I’m learning about in the other lessons. Then , when I’m ready, I have to do 10 hours of observed coaching in front of an assessor, as part of the assessment for the course.

So today, I dialled in to the beginner level observed coaching class, fully intending to be an observer, but when the teacher asked for someone to coach, it all went quiet. I waited a while, still no-one volunteered. Eventually, heart racing, I said I’d coach. Gulp!

It went OK, although nerve wracking. I didn’t do everything perfectly of course, there is loads for me to learn and practise. The feedback was really useful and I now know which aspects I need to work on next.

And it feels so good to finally have done it!

But it got me thinking about fear, particularly fear of failure.

For some reason I felt that I wasn’t good enough to coach in the class, even though the whole point of the classes is to learn, to make mistakes in a safe environment.

The teachers constantly remind us that we are learning and it’s normal to get things wrong, because we are learning something new.

But there is a perfectionist part of me that feels that I should already be good at it, which is ridiculous, why am I paying for a training course if I should already know how to do it! This part of me stops me from trying new things, stops me from stepping out of my comfort zone.

Fear of failure. Fear of doing something wrong in front of other people. Fear of looking stupid.

Of course, no-one else cared if I got things wrong, or thought I looked stupid, or thought I was a failure. The rest of the class and the teachers were there to support me. They were glad I’d stepped up to coach, because it meant they didn’t have to!

Fear is so good at holding us back, stopping us from doing what we really want to do. And the best way to deal with it? Well, I wish I knew! But one way to deal with it is to become aware of it and to do the thing you are scared of regardless.

This is what I keep telling myself. Allow yourself to fail. Allow yourself to learn. You don’t have to be perfect.

How do you deal with the fear of failure?