Coaching update

So I've had 2 coaching lessons since the last time I blogged about a lesson. The first was on goal-setting and the next was on generative moments, or the 'meat' of a coaching session (one that's not the initial session) that leads to brainstorming. (I guess the generative moment stuff in an initial session would be the vision-building). The goal setting is pretty much the same for initial and non-initial sessions, though. As I mentioned before, I've been focusing on career-related stuff for my own goals. (We have to submit wellness visions and goals for ourselves as part of our certification to prove our authenticity as coaches). Is it really authentic of me to ignore other health-related issues? I've been pondering that, thinking that career improvement / fulfillment would take care of the health stuff. But I think I'm going to do some things directly related to my health because I'm not 100% confident that it will be taken care of and I also want to enhance my knowledge of certain issues so I can better help other people. It's just weird that the issues I have are pretty much the opposite of most people. Most people in the world are trying to lose weight. And it's not easy to be surrounded by that all the time. But I'm going to figure out how to help myself AND them.

There will only be 3 more lessons after the one this Sunday. The one this Sunday (on goal review and measuring progress) is the last one we'll need before we can start working with practice clients. So right now I'm getting all my stuff together to review and prepare for that. We have to submit documentation of at least 4 sessions with a practice client as another part of our certification. (The other 2 parts are the written exam and the practical where we conduct a mock session with the examiner role-playing as the client). So it's a lot of stuff. But I'm up for it. I also need to give notice at my job soon. And then start the process of getting myself work in my field, at last! I'm so glad things are picking up :)

Random thoughts about work and future work

I still don't know when my job is going to end, they've kept me and 1 or 2 of the other temps past the new year due to losing some people and still having some stuff for us to do. But now I'm on automatic pilot, not really having to think about what I'm doing. I do like getting to take breaks whenever I want and getting to work pretty independently, which makes me think 'why did I always hate / dread office work before?' Maybe I wasn't kept busy enough at previous office jobs, I don't know. Bottom line is that I've discovered it's not so bad. But I'm not wrong to be seeking more. To be aspiring to really make a difference somewhere. Because while the office work can be comfortable at times, there isn't really growth attached to it. You can't let yourself get comfortable. 

In my last learning partner practice for wellness coaching, I mentioned to my partner that I had sort of a paradigm shift over recent years. I used to think when I was growing up that any high-earning job would be boring and that if you didn't have a boring job, you'd probably make very little while pursuing fun stuff (the arts). It'd be a trade-off. Money vs enjoyment. But it isn't always the case. Why did I think the arts were more fun? Well, I valued creativity and being able to make people think or see the world differently. And I wanted to leave a legacy, make some kind of mark, be remembered. Along the way I realized I could still make people think / help people if I were focusing directly on what made them happy and healthy (rather than telling stories or acting...which can also contribute to happiness and health, but hey). In my own life, that's what I ended up focusing on anyway. What makes you happy and healthy? As I've mentioned before, I think it has a lot to do with your state of flow, having something you're kept busy and challenged by, etc. I guess there are other things that can contribute too, but that's such a big one, I think. So in aiming to be a coach, I'd kinda like to help people figure out what they might want to do in life / what their passion is (if they don't already know). Could I ever (and would I want to) help people with eating disorder issues? Wouldn't I want to help people dealing with stuff I personally dealt with? Maybe I only dealt with it a little, which is why I don't claim to be an expert on it; but it's one of those things I feel a connection to, and something I feel like I learn more about with time and experience. So we'll see. I think it's all kind of related, though.

Holiday stuff

After taking the wellness assessment and having my learning partner coach me, I focused my vision on career as the main priority because (a) it's easier to tackle and (b) the other stuff (weight, health, etc) might improve as a result. Maybe. I did it last weekend, the weekend before Christmas. I also got to relieve my mom of a piece of furniture she didn't have room for anymore – a bookshelf that fit nicely in front of my window and next to my desk. It was fun piling my books, DVDs, CDs, and textbooks / notebooks on it. It was kind of an early Christmas present in itself :) On Monday night Josh and I opened our presents to each other (which were also great). Wednesday was Christmas Eve and my dad flew in and we did family presents then. On Christmas day we went to see my grandma and just hung out. I worked yesterday and today I did the next lesson for my coaching (which still isn't for another couple weeks, but hey). I also watched one of my movies I got for a gift. Tomorrow my parents go up to see Pam, but I won't be going because I still have to work. That's okay, though. At least I can do video with her and them, hopefully. And work is starting to slow down which is good. And I'll have the house to myself for a few days. So there's still New Year's this coming week (and a little belated Christmas stuff), but then the week after will be a return to normal, non-holiday time. But it's been fun. Just wanted to do a brief post mentioning some of my festivities as a little break from my normal posts :)

Goings-on

So last week was another practice session and tomorrow we move into the actual wellness assessments that clients fill out for us prior to the first session. And working on our interpretation of them / preparation for first session. We were provided a sample (filled out by a client) in our materials. It had so much stuff on it! Nevertheless, we're supposed to figure out what the client's successes are (in addition to noting what areas they want to work on). That's a key thing I have to keep in mind. It's really easy to get caught up in some of the other things we've been taught, like staging the client with the TTM and seeing if they have motivation and if they know their barriers and possible solutions, etc. Can't forget about figuring out what worked for them before! It's also really easy to paint a picture of the person in your mind based on what you read on paper (like I did with the sample). But then the experience of talking to them turns out really different. (I say that because we had to listen to another recorded session and I'm pretty sure the session was with the client whose assessment we looked at). It's getting intense now! I say that because our materials this week included a section on setting up a practice client relationship. I guess we're up to the part now where we find actual people to practice on. It's scary to think about - like taking the training wheels off the bike. But I'm sure I'll be able to do it. I guess our assignment after tomorrow night will also involve filling out the assessment for ourselves and giving them to our learning partners so we can coach each other. I've been really curious to take it for myself (and to figure out what my own vision statement will be) so it should be interesting.

I believe tomorrow is our last class for like 3 weeks because of Christmas and New Year's. I haven't talked about the holidays or work lately. I had a nice Thanksgiving in which I surprisingly didn't have to work the Friday or Saturday after. They kept saying we'd have all this overtime, yet I only worked 2 Saturdays the whole time (the second one was last week, the day before the last day of open enrollment for medicare). I guess that was good considering how the job usually takes up so much time anyway. What's crazy now is that open enrollment is over, yet instead of the workload slowing down, it's skyrocketing even worse than it was DURING open enrollment. And it's so frustrating when you feel like you push yourself to the limit and still don't make a dent in the work that's piled up. Why isn't management freaking out? They put the pressure on before, and now that the work is worse, we're suddenly taking it easy? Weird. And Tuesday I'm taking the afternoon off to go to the annual conference for the Tampa Wellness Council. And Friday we're having a gift exchange and potluck. And on the 23^rd the company is providing a holiday lunch. Sounds like a lot going on when the work is crazy. But I guess I'll leave it at that. Oh – and how long are we seasonal employees gonna stay? That's another thing I haven't found out yet. All I know is that I'm really ready for it to be over. Really ready. I've got some wellness coaching to get serious about.

So one more weekend before Christmas and Dad coming. I'll spend it with him and my mom and grandma. Not sure if I'll see my sister or not (mom and dad are driving up to see her right after). Have to figure out a time to see one of my bffs too. And my bf hopefully a short time after. Busy, busy!

Branching Out

Last week's coaching lesson was on building self-efficacy. The next one is on the TTM (Transtheoretical Model of Behavior Change). I was introduced to the TTM in school, but now I'll actually be delving in deeper and applying it, so that's cool. One interesting thing I did last week, though, was email my assigned admin person (not part of the faculty but still trained as a coach and working for Wellcoaches). It was about my side interest that hasn't directly related to the material but which I've talked about at length on this blog. How the mind affects people physically. About whether being challenged in life could be a cure to certain problems. She emailed me back some articles to read which have been kind of interesting (on mindfulness, meditation...I have one left right now). But before she even emailed me back, I started to think to myself – am I attempting to say that health and happiness is as simple as merely having an enjoyable, meaningful, and fulfilling career? Can you have a career you love and not be happy or healthy? I don't know. I think it's so relevant to me simply because getting a meaningful and fulfilling career has been a lifetime's worth of effort for me.

Anyway, career counseling is sort of a separate path than wellness coaching (and an alternate one I keep pondering in the back of my mind. What if I'd pursued that instead? What if I'd majored in psychology instead?) But there IS some overlap that I'm learning about through wellness coaching. Wellness coaching is about behavior change and helping people set goals to become their best selves. Doesn't career factor into a person's wellness? Sure. Some of the faculty have been saying they did executive coaching or life coaching...and it all sort of blends together in a way. So maybe it doesn't matter if I majored in one thing or another. Maybe I'll still arrive at the same place. Come to it from another direction.

Thoughts on motivation and exercise

In preparing for tonight's coaching lesson (reviewing the material I read last weekend), I've gotten inspired to write down a few things I didn't think of when I wrote my previous post Fri. night. We're covering motivational interviewing (which I described briefly in another post but which we didn't cover at the time, it was a little premature). I think my nutshell description of it would be 'What is the reason for a particular behavior change?' 'Why do you want to do it/ why is it important?' It's about change talk, determining how ready people are to change, and perhaps increasing their readiness. This afternoon I was thinking about how I've brought myself to make certain changes in my life and what motivated me to make them. Sometimes it's a matter of dissatisfaction with the current state of things. I wasn't satisfied with what I did for a living, so I went back to school for something else. When it comes to physical habits (which constitute so much of what people seek counseling or coaching for), sometimes it's dissatisfaction with how you look or feel. Sometimes physical symptoms/ailments or actual health problems serve as the trigger to change (which I think are stronger/ more urgent motivators). I had physical symptoms which may have resulted from my body control issues, and they prompted me to go to doctors and attempt to make changes. Sometimes necessity makes you change a habit unconsciously or involuntarily. For example, my job demands didn't allow time for certain rituals I used to do and it may have been for the better. (Which leads to a side note about how being busy / challenged can help certain problems in life that result from NOT being busy or challenged).

I happened to listen to another recorded coaching session as part of my lesson preparation. There wasn't anything particularly extraordinary or different about it, but after contemplating again and again how common the issue being discussed was, I just had to blurt out my feelings on it. The issue was feeling like one should exercise more. A lot of people feel they should. There are guidelines for how much exercise people should get (which you learn on like day one of majoring in exercise science). Now here's my take. If you play a sport, you don't really need to worry about it. The nice thing is that sports have a higher goal / aim besides the exercise itself. (That is skill, excelling at it, etc). Exercise is just a by-product. You happen to get it because it's built in. I used to participate in a sport. Sadly, though, sports fall by the wayside for many when they grow up because careers that are not professional sport careers tend to take up a lot of time. What's the alternative? There are people who don't play sports or even exercise for the sake of exercise but who still manage to stay thin because of NEAT: Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis. I learned about this in school. It's basically expending energy by being busy with daily tasks (tasks that don't involve continuous sitting). Even if you have a mostly sedentary job but still take breaks throughout the day to run around the parking lot / get your heart rate up a little, wouldn't you say that it would allow you to stay at a healthy weight? (In addition to coordinating your food intake to match what you're expending). That's my idea of staying healthy. This so-called third option of setting aside time to 'work out' that people talk about? They might think they need to do that. Maybe some people do. Maybe for some people it's hard to manage their daily energy balance without specifically setting aside time to 'exercise.' But I'm just saying there are other possibilities. Like eating right and having the bits of activity like I was mentioning above. Has there been any conversation about this anywhere? Because it's one I'd really like to participate in if I could. (Or start, lol).

And then I could combine that conversation with one about how being busy and challenged in life with anything (whether it involves exercise or not) can make it easier for you to stay healthy, period. Because if your mind is engaged, your body is probably engaged in some way too. It's not being passive the way it would be if you were bored. And if you happen to be sitting but are still engaged with your mind, it's probably gonna prompt you to want to take a break at some point to increase your blood flow because that's what you'll naturally crave. If you're being mindful, that is. Mindful of how you feel. That's important.

Goings-on

Last week in coach training we had a practice session where we split into pairs and did another exercise with empathy reflections and an exercise with the 2^nd step in appreciative inquiry (the 'discover' phase). The topics we coached each other on were challenges in our wellness journey and our best experiences with wellness. I made my area of challenge about control issues with my body. But I have to say this week has been better. Being busy at work has helped with that, I think. My whole theme that I've been trying to repeat to myself ever since I first went back to school is that being healthy mentally (or being in a flow state) is something that contributes to physical health. And that in whatever way my physical health may have taken a hit, it was likely due to not having mental fulfillment. I know I may have questioned that before, but I'm coming to re-embrace it a little. I want to have some kind of signature thought or contributing idea to wellness (or simply an area of interest?) and I want that to be it. But I haven't gotten to talk about it much yet in the coach training. I'm hoping there might be opportunity for it soon.

Also, it's cool to hear about the backgrounds of all the different instructors we have from week to week. A trend I'm noticing is that they all make their living from both teaching the coaching classes and working their own private practice. I like the idea of having different sources of work that are related. I guess I'll see what happens for me.

As for my day job right now, I've gotten comfortable with the main task assigned to me that I trained on. When there is a large amount of it to do, that's when I'm happiest. On Wednesday there was a large amount that kept me busy the whole day. But on other days there wasn't as much. That's when they sometimes have me do other things. Yesterday I shadowed someone on a task I didn't get as well, so I hope I don't have to do it later, lol.

I guess that's it for now. Really looking forward to when the day job ends and I finish coach training and get certified and then get a job coaching!