Focus, Pinky, Focus

I was reading a great blog by Kathleen Shannon reflecting on changes she's noticing after having her first baby a few weeks ago. Kathleen and her sister Tara Street have a fantastic branding company for creatives called Braid. I used Braid for some branding work on my tarts idea.

A big change like having a child, or changing jobs, moving, or losing a loved one, can bring forward the opportunity to reflect. Somehow in these times, our brains slow down and as Kathleen said, it is a little like when you travel and are more aware as you make your way through a new city. With the new baby snuggling, Kathleen was reflecting on her ability (or inability) to focus.

But what I noticed as I was reading this magazine is that my attention span is completely shot. I found myself skipping paragraphs and jumping pages. The equivalent of hopping from open tab to open tab in my browser. I was challenged to hold my focus on a beautiful magazine in my peaceful and picture-perfect breakfast nook. I found myself with a compulsive itch for the kind of chaos that only social media can seem to scratch these days. Now look, I don’t think the internet is bad (I mean, here I am). But it might be a problem when I’m 5 pages into a really great read and at the same time am habitually reaching for my phone to refresh Instagram for the 10th time in 20 minutes. (And on that note, I’ve also noticed that even TV can’t seem to hold my attention – I seem to mindlessly grab for my phone when I’m watching my shows too!) 

So I think I’d like to tweak my morning routine for a while and instead of absent-mindedly scrolling through my RSS feed and Pinterest I’m going to drag out all the magazines I’ve collected and practice giving real pages that I can turn my undivided attention.

This reminded me of exactly what Daniel Goleman was referring to when I listened to an interview with him on NPR recently. We are becoming attached to our electronics in a new and interesting way. You can read a lot more about that in Goleman's book, Focus. (Funny note: I recently got the Kindle app, but I will read this one in hard cover with a cup of tea by my side.)

Goleman's suggestion for developing your focus muscle: meditate. 

Aaaahhh. Namaste.

How Do You Know if You Have The Right Coach?

I've been debating whether to write this blog post for more than a year. I'm trained as a personal life coach. I've had a coach for 12 of the past 15-16 years. Not the same coach that whole time, but only two in that time.

How much progress should a person make with the help of a coach in 15 years? How do you know if the coaching challenges and advice are good or not?

My first coach was a woman I contacted when I learned about the field of personal coaching. Still a friend, many years later, I stopped coaching with SK when she started up a professional coaching practice and wanted to hire me into that model. What I got from SK during our coaching was a straight-forward and objective assessment of various personal and professional situations I found myself in. At the time, I was newly divorced, recovering from breast cancer and raising four rambunctious children on my own, while running my own engineering consulting practice.

I took a break after SK and I stopped coaching. I got through coach training and was coaching people myself and practicing self-management and a certain level of self-coaching.

After a couple of years flying solo, I heeded the recommendation that if you were going to be a coach, you should have a coach. I also had a deep-seated desire to branch out from engineering into art and become more of a professional artist, rather than a dabbler, so I sought a coach who could help me achieve those right-brained goals.

I worked with BZ for 10 years. In that time, I did achieve my goal of becoming a professional artist. I had shows, got a residency, and became firmly entrenched in my art community. All big personal wins. I also got fed up with corporate America and quit my well-paying job at the height of the economic wipeout in 2008-9.

Any coach will tell you - if not in a written agreement, at least informally - that your decisions are your own, as are your successes, or your failures. There's usually deemphasis on failures. Of course, you want your coach to help you win. Your coach wants you to win. Failure is discussed in terms of learning moments and you keep moving, after processing your disappointment, grief, anger, resentment.

I really hadn't thought much about the challenges my coach casually threw my way: quit my job, try being an artist, what if you did this or that? until another person coached by BZ - let's call him JT - shared his experiences with me.

JT's been searching for his path in life since finishing school a few years ago. He's a musician. Highly creative. Good degree. Wants to live in Seattle where there's a music scene, where he has friends, and where he went to college. But Seattle is economically challenging for him.  I see him making choices that are sporadic. Try this, then try that. Are these things he's coming up with, or his coach's suggestions? I'm not sure, but given my experience with BZ, I think many come from his coach.  And that's where I have a bit of an issue.

As a coaching client, you are paying your coach to, well, coach you. They are rooting for you and you are in love with everything they say. Every suggestion, coming from their subtle authority position, sounds like it could just be the thing to propel you to success, balance, whatever it is you are seeking. So you get a little sucked in to thinking that trying these things is going to be easy. Why not?

But then, after a few weeks or months of something not working very well, instead of spending time thinking about what could have been done better, you and your coaching are talking about the next big thing. Yay! You go! Sky's the limit! I'm being a little bit facetious here, like this vid of two gal coaches. But you get my drift.

A coach is a good thing. And being open to change is a good thing, especially if you are wanting things to change. But - or and as any good coach would say - steady progress toward a goal is important. A coach who is willy-nilly all over the board is not helping you. By choosing a goal and taking small, but consistent steps aligned with that goal, with the help of a coach, you will succeed and you will do it more quickly.  Why take 15 years when you could have taken only 5?