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In the News
South China Morning Post
Saturday 6th June 2009
Signposts: Balancing ActWhen Carole came to me for coaching, she said the one thing she wanted to accomplish during our time together was a sense of balance.
After a few sessions, Carole learned she was afraid of being seen to be incompetent, so spent her life trying to prove she was not. She was responsible, driven and focused on her goals.
She wanted to be acknowledged for doing a great job, and she had to do the job properly, according to the rules. At work she was a great asset. Intensely dedicated, she had a reservoir of skills and was driven by perfectionism.
She wanted to be seen as capable, a grown-up, and did not want to be questioned. She had little fun and no spontaneity, put a lot of stress on herself trying to create the perfect combination of work, play, taking care of her health, body and friends. She wanted her life to look perfect.
Bill came to coaching saying that he wanted to find his purpose. After six sessions he became aware that he had a fear of being ordinary, so his life was driven by a need to feel special.
He needed to be different, in fact he was attached to being amazing. He was optimistic, resilient, creative and, boy, did he dream big.
On the downside, he had no work ethic, loathed structure and discipline, and rarely got things off the ground. He was not consistent, unwilling to do any dirty work, yet would want credit even though he hadn't worked for it.
Karen, like Carole, was desperate to find balance in her life. She liked to be busy because she was afraid of being labelled lazy. Empty time to her was scary. A multi-tasker, her to-do list was always expanding.
Everything in life for Karen was time-related; she was a poor planner and didn't know how to set boundaries. She complained of feeling overwhelmed, resentful and exhausted. She never seemed to have any sense of balance.
All three clients became aware of how their emotional fears were keeping them stuck and preventing them from being their best. They had some work to do on prioritising life's demands.
Balance is great in theory, but how do you achieve it when life is constantly changing? I asked each client to decide what mattered to them and to prioritise.
When we focus on our commitments, it's easier to do what we need to do, and an internal sense of balance will be the result. So I asked them to look at nine areas of their lives: finances/money; health/fitness/well-being; career/business; intimacy/romance; family; social life/friends/community; personal growth; home/environment and spirituality.
What was most important to them?
I invited them to ask themselves the following questions:
- What are the top three commitments in your life?
- Who are you committed to?
- How much quality time do you spend with the five most important people in your life?
- How much time can each commitment take each week?
- What's missing in your life, and what are the reasons (excuses) that you use to explain to yourself why this is missing?
Their homework was to keep a log of how they spent their time over the following week. At the end of the week, they could see whether they had spent time on what they said mattered to them, or on low-priority things.
The life log took away all their excuses. They went further and looked at whether what they did was a choice or a ‘have to’.
If they discovered they were not spending time on what they said mattered, they had to reflect on whether they were being authentic about their commitments or whether they needed to re-evaluate them.
If we want to achieve a sense of balance and live lives as who we want to be, we need to use our commitments as our guiding light and follow through on them, trusting we can recover from any frustrations or setbacks.
Glynis Ferguson is founder of Freedom from Fear Coaching™ and a member of the Hong Kong International Coaching Community
Copyright 2010 Glynis Ferguson