Probably one of the most frequent reasons we hear for not having coaching is that ‘now is just not the right time: I’m so busy I’ve barely enough time to think’. It’s a variant on ‘there aren’t enough hours in the day’. This is, of course, a matter of prioritisation – everyone is blessed with the same number of hours and most people somehow get by with them.
I’m not about to tell you that coaching is the most important thing you could possibly do, and that is should be top of your priorities. Of course we all have busy times and emergencies when we just have to be heads-down and deal with the matter at hand. But, equally, we all know instinctively that we each need a balance – between tackling present concerns and taking a step back to look at the bigger picture.
This is what I mean by saying that coaching is not just for Christmas (as well as shamelessly writing a seasonal blog post!).
Coaching can’t just be for the good times, when you have plenty of time and space to think, and no crisis to avert. After all, coaching is precisely about understanding what is important and should capture your full attention. It’s also about doing the right things so as rarely as possible do you find yourself fire-fighting a crisis!
So it’s no use endlessly postponing getting a chance to consider these things by promising yourself you’ll get to it just as soon as you have plenty of time. Hint: that time might never arrive!
Equally, however, many readers might be thinking ‘Christmas? Holidays? Time to think? No way: it’s our busiest time of year!’
And again, I’d suggest coaching isn’t just for that sort of Christmas either. Here at We Coach You Grow we don’t believe in ‘remedial coaching’, which someone gets sent on to ‘fix’ them after the latest crisis. Coaching isn’t just something that people need in the difficult times when there’s a problem someone wants to solve. It’s about being the best you you can be, and we’ll be there to help you achieve this whether you feel times are tough, or you’re raring to go and excited to see what the next step will be.
It’s a present that you can give yourself, or your employees, that will give and give throughout the year. As your company develops we hope you’ll trace some of the successes back to the learnings and development you’ve gained from coaching.
But most of all, we hope you can look yourself in the mirror and think ‘Well done, I did that!’. And that’s the best present of all!