Coaching works!

Every morning after meditation, I write a 10-item gratitude list. When a coach first suggested it, I said something like, "Sorry, that's a little too Oprah for me."

Nowadays, that reply makes me cringe a bit. I did try the gratitude list, and I've continued it ever since. And that morning check-in has really helped me in a range of ways. While I might sometimes pause at No. 6 or 7, I ALWAYS find 10 reasons to be thankful — mostly by looking at my present, but often my past and sometimes ahead to the future. It helps set up my day. Sometimes, in fact, I squeeze in a No. 11 that occurs to me that I just can't ignore!

There I am at right, rehearsing for a small but transformative role: The Pedant in "The Taming of the Shrew." Why transformative? I decided the Pedant was an adventurer who absolutely, constantly, EXTREMELY loved his life. Some of it rubbed off on me. With Nick DeVita as Tranio. (Photo by John Yarborough)

Now I know this gratitude practice doesn't work for everyone. But it's working for me. And I found it through coaching.

Coaching is not therapy, as useful as that is. We aren't out to heal mental illness, though healing can happen. Instead, we work from the client's strengths, as well as the part that's showing up to move forward and grow. Sessions can help clients transform their lives through reflection, exercises, and action toward goals and dreams that are small and practical, large and expansive, and internal or external.

Just as in sports, coaches work with their client's talents and goals so they play better! And life is quite the playing field!

My own experiences being coached have helped me with several specific changes I wanted to make. It's reinforced to me that we always have the ability to not only invite change, but seek it out through transformational practice — even when (and maybe especially when) it takes us out of our comfort zones. It's helped me take more responsibility and agency in moving toward the person I want to be. And when I've been the client, I've enjoyed the partnership in a coaching session, which helps me center on what I want (a big process in itself!), examine any resistance or tolerations that are holding me back, and try experiments to move me forward.

And I love the dialogue! Lord knows, we've known how beneficial dialogue is since at least Plato, but sometimes we forget its usefulness — maybe because we're more geared to the small talk that's the way we lubricate our social interactions, or maybe because talking about our desires, interests, or values feels selfish or stigmatized.

But coaching can be a tool to lift you beyond all of that. As Coach Dave Buck, CEO of the CoachVille school, recently reminded me, coaching is not self-help (not that there's anything wrong with that!); it's a partnered, co-created experience that has been shown to WORK.

Maybe you won't start a gratitude list. Maybe you will. But I doubt you'll leave coaching without picking up some habit (or habit of mind) that touches you in a profound way. Because coaching works.