by Stephanie Bickel
Breakthrough: A sudden, dramatic, and important discovery or development
People come to us looking for a breakthrough, and we have witnessed hundreds of them. What helped them surface? Here is what we have identified as key ingredients to creating your own personal hockey stick growth. Whether you are working with a coach or doing this on your own, these are good guidelines.
1. Identify your personal transformation goals and your business goals.
Don't keep them separate. As a coaching firm, sometimes people only want to work on the formal feedback they received. We encourage people to look beyond that, too. Who do you want to be 5 years from now? Then, we shift to their business goals. What do you want to build, learn, teach, and experience in your organization?
2. List out your short-term and long-term activities.
What are the top three things you need to do this quarter? What are the big actions that you want to take this year? Sharing this information with a colleague, coach, or mentor helps them advise you on priorities. Maybe there are new skills and mindsets to work on now. You can more easily jettison the tasks that are not aligned with your personal transformation goals and your business goals. Cutting out the clutter of your day is a great way to accelerate your breakthrough.
3. Gather models, frameworks, and systems that have led to success – and teach them.
We saturate our clients with models and frameworks on communication structures and strategies. We encourage them to teach them to others to further ingrain the tools. You can learn a great deal from asking others about their systems. Ask those you admire to share what they have studied and what tools they use for project management, decision making, negotiating, and time management. Offer your systems, too. We know the best way to master a concept is to teach it.
4. Be a builder.
Shift your mindset on your value. Those of us in knowledge fields often think our value is in our ideas. Your value is even greater when your idea solves the problem and becomes an asset. As asset is a tangible item, like a working process, a system, a strong team, an invention. What intellectual property are you building? We approach every coaching session like a builder. What content can we build? What message can we develop? How many ways can you leverage this presentation?
5. Document progress and goals constantly.
Keep a journal. Write down your progress, goals, and decisions. We send out summaries within two days of every session, knowing that the refresher of reading what we covered is always enlightening. Often the other person remembered items you did not, and reviewing your takeaways and commitments keeps you disciplined in the work.
6. Know where to go for a pep talk.
Having a personal breakthrough usually involves some pain. It takes courage to put yourself out there and sometimes you face the heat. Seek out those people who know how to give a good pep talk. Inspirational people know how to acknowledge the pain, encourage you to be strong, and have full confidence in you.
Think of a person who looked at you as greater than you see yourself.
Your coach sees the potential.
Your coach sees the path to reaching your potential.
Your coach sees the fake ceiling you have put yourself under and will lift that ceiling.
That is what a coach is.
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