A note of gratitude
Gratitude can be life changing. I have been recipient of many people’s kindness and generosity over the years. One fine day, I started to acknowledge and express my gratitude and appreciation over email. I learned something beautiful from the whole experience.
1) I was reliving the joy of having received the kindness
2) I was appreciating the goodness and selflessness in the other person
3) I was expressing something deep that came from my heart
It gave me patience, humility, and wisdom. No wonder gratitude has the reputation of being the ‘mother of all virtues’
“Gratitude is fertilizer for the mind, spreading connections and improving its function in nearly every realm of experience.” – Robert Emmons, The Little Book of Gratitude
Trusting yourself
Here is a message that hit me hard – “Trust yourself. Give up the habit of being a trainee forever.”
There is a sense of false safety that one feels by being a trainee. However, being a trainee also means one feel less resourceful and lack faith in their abilities to find their own answers. As a result one is seeking answers from outside. They operate with an attitude that ‘others know best’ about who they are, what they are capable of or where they need to head next. All of this stops one from exploring, embracing ambiguity, or willing to make mistakes. Only letting go of being the trainee, we evolve as learners.
“As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
What is going well
Every coaching session is a learning opportunity for the coachee and the coach. One of my clients came to the session feeling overwhelmed and unsure of himself. The client’s narrative was focused on what he was lacking within himself and how the external circumstances amplified and made him more aware of what he lacked. However, when I nudged him to see what was going well, he soon realized he had completely missed seeing the strengths that he already had in him and which he brought to the table. His focus now shifted to how he can leverage his strengths to make things happen for him. Shifting the focus to what was going well, helped my client appreciate his abilities to deal with his challenges.
“We need to discover the root causes of success rather than the root causes of failure.” – David Cooperrider, Pioneer of Appreciative Inquiry Model