How I love a challenge! New challenges usually offer me an opportunity to think and test my assumptions, to try something new and stretch my creative muscles, and to learn and grow in some way. This week’s challenge presented in the form of a client’s unusual request. The coaching process started in the usual way when the client contacted me about two months ago following a promotion wanting to ensure a successful transition from “performer” to “manager.” One sub-goal was to improve self-care with action items such as eating a healthy diet and exercising regularly. My client is doing phenomenally well meeting the action plan milestones toward the successful achievement of his goals except in on area. Hence the unusual request: he wanted me to be his weight loss coach. My first reaction was “but I am a career coach.” The second was “I myself struggle to lose those last 10 pounds.” So I responded saying I wasn’t really qualified to address this particular issue. My client surprised me with an insightful observation. He said that he had followed the plan and met with the dietician and a personal trainer. However, he maintained that knowing what to do and actually doing it were two very different things. Those yummy chocolate donuts in the conference room or the mini Snickers at the reception desk at work were proving very hard to resist. He had fun buying super swanky running shoes, but lacing them up and getting out the door for a jog required higher order self-talking skills. My client concluded that lack of willpower was the biggest barrier to making healthy lifestyle changes, and he was hopeful coaching would help him stay motivated. Could I, a career coach, help him achieve weight loss? That's a very interesting question. At its essence, coaching is about setting and achieving goals. And as I help people set and achieve career goals, the process typically touches on many aspects of clients’ lives where they seek to make positive changes. Is coaching for weight loss, not my area of expertise, really different than coaching for career success? I’ve wrestled with this for some time. Upon reflection, I’ve concluded that I do believe that coaching can be used to achieve any goal by developing habits and strategies to help move the client toward the desired outcome. But as I thought about my client’s progress and how well he was doing achieving great results in every area except weight loss, it occurred to me that it was probably the wrong way to think about the issue. The original goal was to improve self-care by developing healthy habits in order to boost well-being. Narrowing the focus to weight loss may well be counter-productive in pursuing the goal of becoming an effective manager and developing an authentic leadership style. New managers tend to be overworked, overextended, and overwhelmed, so personal wellness and self-care are essential for optimal functioning to tackle new challenges and meet personal and professional commitments. Now my client may have a different perspective, but I feel that when we set the right goals and know what we want, we don’t need willpower; we just follow the plan. However, when a goal is not that important, we don’t make the effort consistently and fail to follow through on commitments. And when it comes to changing old habits, we may need to reject the all-or-nothing approach. A goal entails a future desired state, yet we like instant gratification in the moment (often at the expense of the long-term payoff.) Real life is not conducive to doing something completely. There are always too many choices for the all-or-nothing approach to work. We don’t need to do something 100% to get results. Improvement can be incremental. Small successes do count. It is when we start viewing our results in terms of “either or” that we get discouraged rather than appreciate the positive changes and the good choices we did make. And most importantly, weather losing weight or achieving any other goal, we need to accept that the path to success would include false starts and wrong moves. We need to forgive ourselves when we falter and keep trying to do better next time. The lesson is that change is a constructive experience providing endless opportunities to develop new skills and to continuously improve. Each attempt is a stepping stone as we climb the ladder of success, and persistence is the bridge between a goal set and a goal achieved. But we need to make sure the ladder is leaning against the right wall. A good example is my experience learning to ski. I learned to ski as an adult. My main goal was not to fall. I mastered the technique but could not muster up the courage to comfortably slide downhill. Being fully aware of the risks of falling, I was terrified. By contrast, my children were fearless speed demons, and even my husband enjoyed the thrill of downhill skiing. I was hopeless, and eventually everyone got tired of waiting for me to catch up. It was decided a private lesson would help me progress faster and have fun. My ski instructor said I had the technique to ski any black run if only I could stop being afraid. Easier said than done! But the real nugget was telling me that ski instructors are taught that their students need to fall in order to learn new improved form. Falling is part of skiing. Falling means you are pushing yourself to the edge of your ability. If you aren’t falling, you are not challenging yourself and you aren’t learning. Isn’t it so true for any field, any endeavor, and anything we set to do and achieve? Despite the many false starts, I eventually learned to let go and fall down, and then fall down again and again until I was comfortable enough to do blue runs. No, mine is not a story of becoming fearless flying down black runs. I was still cautious, slow, and far from perfect. But then I realized my ladder was leaning against the wrong ski lift. I fell in love with cross-country skiing and being in perfect harmony with the snow. Life is not the Olympics. You don’t get disqualified for false starts. Achieving a goal is all about setting the right goal to begin with and then changing our habits and behaviors. And that is no easy feat. We start out strong with the adrenaline and the clear vision of how our life would be when we reach our goal. And we may be really good the first week, or the first month sticking to the plan, but then old habits start creeping back. This is typically when we start beating ourselves up and convince ourselves we just can’t do it. Here’s the thing: when we focus on results we can’t change. But when we focus on small changes over time, we will get the results. When it comes to behavioral change, it is a marathon, not a sprint. We need to cut ourselves some slack and not get discouraged when we have false starts or make bad decisions. Set your ladder against the right building, and each step will get you closer to the top. Like the game of chutes and ladders, you are likely to climb up and slide down many times, but that’s what makes the game so exciting. Accept that it’s all part of the process and continue to make more future choices in support of your goals over the long run.
“Success is the culmination of failures, mistakes, false starts, confusions, and the determination to keep going anyway.” ~ Nick Gleason
