Milestones and meaning…

This week in coaching…

This week I finished my coaching week by completing my 800th session since I began counting at the start of 2020. I had many thousands more uncounted coaching interactions before this. I used coaching less formally as a tool for over ten years prior to starting to count things. After my initial coaching training I used open and curious questions to help different people move forward positively. Doing this both in my professional and personal life (as a leader, a creative, with friends, my teams, colleagues and students). 

The count began when I started training for my second coaching qualification at The Animas Centre for Coaching; we needed to log coaching sessions as a part of gaining the qualification. Needing 40 formal coach and client style sessions before we could get our diploma. 

I kept counting as I became aware of the work of the ICF - International Coaching Federation. They are the nearest thing we have to a regulatory body in coaching, (although there currently is no mandatory regulation). Working to the ICF code of ethics and aiming to deliver coaching in line with the ICF core competencies is a choice all coaches have. Standards and ethics are important to me and align with some of my core values. So I became a member of the ICF and began working towards their first rung of professional accreditation (ACC associate certified coach). Part of gaining that credential is to have the experience of completing 100 coaching sessions. So after my first 40 I kept counting…

But I wanted to ask myself what having done 800 sessions actually means to me? It isn’t really about the number. It is about what is inside it…

There is a hidden story in there of having a goal to build a successful coaching business. Starting small and struggling with how to find a way forward. Wrestling with marketing and finding work. Feeling like I just wanted to do the thing that I loved and that inspired me - coaching and not really enjoying any of the other parts of building a business. Accepting help in the form of financial support for a little while from my husband - I’ve been fiercely financially independent since I was about thirteen. So as grateful as I am, this period was very hard for me! Struggling with being an introvert and uncomfortable with showing up and talking about myself, my skills and achievements. Finding myself in thought traps of feeling like a beginner or not being good / perfect enough. Figuring out what works and what doesn’t in terms of my business through trial and error. Some eventual lucky breaks and synergy that meant that most of those 800 sessions happened in the last 18 months.

So part of what those 800 sessions mean is a journey, one step at a time, a slow and sometimes challenging journey! But also a journey with lots of highs in it, those moments when much of what is important to me is happening and it feels really good!

The coach in me is listening to my own words and has a hunch I am not quite saying the thing I need to say. I’m pretty good at picking up when someone is wriggling around getting to the real thing… so come on, what are you not saying?!

This week with a client the topic of motivation came up in our conversation. I suggested that part of maintaining motivation is to recognise what you have already done, celebrate small wins, notice the little steps. She paused and said, ’I don’t really do that.’ Interesting… I asked ‘how might you do that?’ (yes, this could be regarded as a leading question). She paused even longer and said she really didn’t know. I shared that this was ok, but invited her to think on these questions a little more. 

This took me back to a conversation about twelve years previously when my coach at the time asked me exactly the same question. I was in a very challenging and stressful leadership role and trying to find a way forward that was more fulfilling and less likely to end in significant health issues. My first thoughts on her question were ‘I don’t have time for celebration, there is far too much to do.’ My second thought was ’I don’t have the first idea how I might even do that… I have never done that’. My coach encouraged me to explore the question and then shared what she did (which was probably a mistake) as she told me she and sometimes her, her husband and children would all do a ‘happy dance' each time they had a small win. As soon as this particular example of celebration was shared with me, I was backing away very, very fast from the concept of celebrating things. With a very determined - absolutely no way, no way ever, no way over my stressed and burnt-out-dead-body, are you EVER getting me to do a ‘happy dance’ - kinda look on my face!

Although this particular example of celebration of progress perhaps didn’t land in the way my coach intended… the principle underlying it is very important. I found my own way to celebrate the small wins. It is often more of a quiet and intentional personal note of things. A noticing. A little smile, a pause, a few breaths and a purposeful bit of eye contact and nod of acknowledgement to myself. For me, this is progress from old behaviors of denial and relentless pressing on! The space between noticing, acknowledging and accepting and what was… is a big space to have crossed. 

So what I’m really saying in my share with you of 800 sessions is a story of lots of small steps and what they can add up to over time. I still feel there is much to learn and more skill to build. But that’s ok, because I have chosen to see this particular thought a little differently these days. I see it now as a sign of how important this all is to me, a good sign that I care. I take the lid off the thought and look deep inside it and see so many of my core values at play and it makes sense. This little reframe allows me to step back and observe things in a more compassionate way. Compassion was a tool that ‘old me’, showing up in front of that coach twelve years ago, could use with others, but had no idea of how to use with herself.

So what do 800 sessions mean? From where I’m standing… a pause. An acknowledgment. A journey. A warm nod and a quiet smile to myself.