Coaching: The value is in the value

What do you value?

What are your values?

Being a coach has been both a professional and personal journey. I have learned a lot about who I am, what my beliefs are both personally and professionally and how I am choosing to work. My values are interwoven each day.

On my website you will see my values listed:

Honesty

Transparency

Respect

Trust

Appreciation

Commitment

So what do these words mean? These word, are the core of my belief system and how I determine my actions each day. I am honest with myself and in my personal and professional relationships. I believe in being transparent about how I feel and welcome that in others. I believe I need to respect myself, mind body and spirit, also respect others and be respected by others. Trust is key! I need to trust myself. I need to believe in myself. That is something I have learned over time. Others will trust me more if I trust myself. I need to be trustworthy, show up and be consistent. I also value appreciation. I value appreciating myself for what I have accomplished and all I do to show up as my best self each day. I have learned to share my appreciation with others both personally and professionally and that brings me joy. I have always valued commitment. Earlier in my career I was given a framed poem “Commitment “ from a parent of a child. It was the most impactful gift I have received. I felt seen in my value of commitment.

When we are out of alignment with our values we feel distracted, confused, and are not present with our intentions. Have you ever been in a meeting and someone asked you to do something that was not in alignment with your values and you said “OK” just to get the meeting to move along?

Have you eaten food that is bad for you just to hurry and fill that urge for comfort. Have you withheld information from someone because you were embarrassed or feeling unsure, but deep down you knew that information would help the situation.

Don’t get me wrong, we are all human. We are all swayed by outside forces and want to “belong” so we do things because that brings a sense of belonging. But if we do things that go against our values, in order to belong, we pay for it later. We wind up in a place where we are unhappy and can develop challenges with attention and presence.

Our values are our compass. They help point us in the “direction” that is right for us.

I came into coaching because my work as a speech therapist was bumping up against my values. I valued transparency. Talking with parents about a child’s early development and discussing the hard topics, like early adversity, trauma and relationships. I knew that they were impacting the children that I provided therapy for and was constantly asked “not to talk about it”. That made it hard for me to make informed decisions about the direction of my treatment and the best ways to collaborate with parents and team members.

Eventually I discovered Coaching which allows me an opportunity to explore an individuals values and goals and support them in aligning the two. What a difference it makes. These are the Aha moments. The brain is so much more powerful when it is aligned with the heart and the gut.

How are you feeling about your daily work, routines and relationships?

What is getting in the way of you having a good day and being in a flowing state?

So I consider Coaching to be a Valuable Profession. I feel that it provides a present and focused partner for others to develop trust and respect and a level of commitment to oneself. Many of us did not have healthy nurturing relationships growing up so we have taken a very left brain, go to college, get a job, get married, path of life without stopping along the way to check our compass and sit with our decisions a while and get clear with our values. “Relationships are the agents of change” says Dr. Bruce Perry and Coaching provides an powerful relationships.

So contracting with a coach to gain that clarity and have a present person to reflect and plan with can shift your life into a direction you might have not realized was possible.

If you are feeling “stuck” or “bored” or “disappointed” in your life, try out a coaching session and see if you feel more in alignment and free to move forward toward those actions that feed your soul.

What’s it worth to you? How valuable is it to “be in alignment?” That is up to you and your values…