Photo Ronaldo de Oliveira, Unsplash
Recently I decided to get tested for food allergies. I just had this feeling that there might be some kind of blind spot that could be working against my lifestyle efforts. Guess what? My choice of what I thought was a reasonably clean alcohol, vodka, tested as very bad for me. I mean, through the roof! 15 on a scale of 1-10! There was my answer, along with some of the usual culprits (yeah, no wheat Denise, fare thee well pizza … ). I never would have guessed that this was it, but with some help identifying the problem, I easily cleared it.
Coaching can help clear blind spots that keep you circling, that keep you confused, that keep recreating patterns you thought you were done with. Here are four of those common blind spots coaching can clear.
1) Being too hard on yourself
An early hurdle on your path to self development and expansion is the tendency to be hard on yourself. This common blind spot is not only a joy killer, it sabotages any momentum. You take a step and do something courageous, but you remember the challenges or flaws first. It’s like a beautiful day with a couple clouds, and you keep glancing back at the clouds, forgetting the brilliant blue sky. “Looks like rain”, you think.
Good news: Coaching enables you to keep a balanced perspective which you’re then better able to hold yourself. Meanwhile you keep moving and growing because you can better assess what does need to improve. Overall, you appreciate yourself for the awesome effort of extending yourself toward the dream. This is big courage, but easy to forget with the cloud cover. (**see resource to help with this blind spot)
2) Unrealistic expectations
Having high standards, or not-fully-informed expectations, is another blind spot. Going from an idea to the nitty gritty of creating it – Hell, a lot of unknown and surprising details arise with such experiments. At the end, you might think, “This didn’t work” or that it was a failure. Cloud cover again.
Another way this shows up is when you worry about how a project or work might be received. You alternate between visions of glory and feeling the work totally sucks. Hmm, perhaps it’s somewhere between the two.
Good news: These waves of grandiosity and fear are part of the journey. No worries there, and coaching helps even that out. Plus, doing the work brings delicious aliveness back to you, and may just lead to the next brilliant step, project and life changing collaboration.
3) Getting outside of your own head
Don’t you love how things shift when you share your thoughts and conclusions outside of your own head? That’s another way coaching, or talking with a close friend or writing in a journal, can clear dross. That’s why getting support super powers your efforts. Hearing yourself out loud – anything outside of your well worn grim thought grooves – well it’s as if the BS gets highlighted. Oh really? Wait a minute… run that by me again. And the BS gets super fragrant… I think you follow me. Then it just falls away, or gets corrected.
Good news: Even preparing to hire a coach, preparing for a session, accelerates you far beyond the circles and BS you might usually not question. The fresh air of updating your view follows. Then before you know it, you’re taking right action. It changes everything. Huge relief!! Lot less stinky!!
4) What ifs
You can wonder endlessly about what might happen. I’ve had future tribe leader who had been wondering for years about starting to write a newsletter. Sacred space support helped him take the next step – lot more simple than he was thinking. Or the employee who knew she wasn’t getting paid enough, who finally asked for the raise… and no, she wasn’t fired for asking. And that led to the next better gig. Then there are those who get stuck on the wrong side of the “comfort -versus- risk of changing” equation. Hint: Don’t just discuss this with the very people who might be invested in the status quo; they are most threatened by the idea of change! Take that question to sacred space, and the cost of staying comfortable is seen in its true light. Safety and security are oh so relative – especially when seen from the “and when i die” perspective.
Good news: There are always small steps that help you lean into the new experiment, without having to abandon all stability. And it doesn’t take that many small steps to totally reverse the inertia that has been going on way too long. Hey, sometimes you realize you don’t want to continue the project – good to know! One more important ‘what if’ answered and satisfied. Because that gets cleared, you move on to bigger and better options.
Conclusion:
Coaching helps you examine additional angles and get needed reality checks. It lightens those harsh interpretations of your efforts to expand. Highly sensitive persons can really harangue themselves on imperfect-seeming experiments.
While it’s true that you can sometimes self correct the clouds and blockages these common blind spots create, you can lose a lot of time and energy. You can lose the path completely. And the FUN and excitement side of the journey of life can disappear fast.
Yes, coaching is an investment, but leaning into getting help can be a needed step of self growth in your evolution. Let’s lose the stigma that needing help equals deficiency. So old! I love how the Millenials jump into coaching and therapy without any of that second guessing. Imagine that – a revision to the “pick yourself up by the bootstraps-independence at all costs” myth. It is so not true that anyone actually does it alone!
No. The new story: you get to ask, receive, and set up, sacred collaborations that benefit you and the world. Because when you rise above these BS blocks and blind spots, and you’re doing what you came to do, ahhh. You arrive. Life is back on track. And everyone gains, grows and grins. And then we’re creating the world we all know is possible.
Doesn’t look like there is any time to lose on that one, eh?
Think you might have a vodka allergy or some other hidden blind spot going on in your life? Is something working against your efforts to be all you can be? Keeping you from doing what you came to do? Check out the current coaching program.
Take advantage of the 2019 spring special, especially suited for healers, creatives, sensitives, and entrepreneurs and professionals making a difference in our needy world.
Apply for the program here (see bottom for a spot to apply and/or ask questions).
You can also email me with questions – mdenisebarnes at gmail. There is no obligation with these conversations. Hugely helpful either way. Blessings on your path.
BONUS**
**Try this resource for the tendency to harshly criticize your expansion efforts or lose perspective when completing a project: This worksheet, the post performance eval – was devised to help. It’s an amazing tool to evenly weigh the positive results of your efforts with the things to improve or tweak. You leave with a sense of appreciating the overall effort taken, and knowing what to try next.
CAN YOU RELATE to these blocks? Or did I miss any? Share your thoughts below.