I will be kidding if I ask you whether you know what is inner conscious? Let me ask you all a different question: Have you ever thought of converting this Inner Conscious into your best buddy, i.e., your Inner Coach? Every leader; be it at a junior level or CXO level can convert his/her ‘Inner Voice /Conscious’ into decision making guide and more importantly can transform that into an Inner Coach. We as human beings are gifted by this unique gift, our ‘Inner Conscious’ which is part of us throughout our life’s journey, in the thick and thin of our life. It continually speaks to us, be it negative or positive.
Converting our Inner Conscious into Coach
aving understood the definition of coaching, let us look at converting our ‘Inner Conscious’ into a Coach. We all know that no one can access our inner thoughts except for us! I would call it our private voice. I want to take it a step further. How helpful is that private voice? Is it a voice you would be proud to have displayed on the wall, particularly during tough times? How does it speak to you? Is it a coach that is giving you powerful positive messages that help you? Alternatively, is it working to break you down, to cause you more grief, more pain, more stress? Moreover, once you begin to realize that voice is almost always saying something, then start taking more responsibility for how that voice is speaking to you, and recognize that this voice will be the only voice that’s with you until your death. We want that voice to be someone who is a contributor to your life.
I want you to put yourself in this situation – you’re in a crucial meeting with your whole Team, and your seniors and peers are watching you. Things are going wrong for you; things are going crazy for your team. What if at that moment, the thoughts that
you were thinking scrolled across the bottom of the screen on which you were presenting to everyone in the Boardroom to see, how would that make you feel?
Tips for Success
There are no shortcuts. There’s no magic pill. Nobody’s going to give you anything. lso, whenever it is that you do have an opportunity and you will be given a chance, you have to be prepared. Because you don’t know when that opportunity is going to come, you have to make for that every day. One thing I would strongly recommend is that success should be part of your daily agenda.
“Our identity is wrapped-up in a result. So if you had a bad day at the office, you feel terrible about yourself, and you are only as good as your last performance”
Force Behind Driving Process
You may be wondering if there is anything else that is driving the process. That’s interesting, as there’s something else that’s driving the process. Also, that’s your character. Now when I say so, that word means so many different things to so many different people. Moreover, there are two types of characters.
The first type is what we call performance character. Also, these are character skills that govern your relationship with yourself. These are the things that will make you get up at 5:30 AM to prepare for your urgent meeting. The second kind of character is what we call moral character. These are character skills that govern your relationships with others. These are the things that make you a great professional and a great leader.
Let me now summarise and bring all this altogether concerning building our inner coach. Imagine if you use your inner coach to help you create all of these things. How much better would you be? So how does all of this tie-in together? We want to develop our inner coach. Also, great coaches begin with the end in mind.
So the first thing you want to ask yourself is what am I trying to accomplish? Is it to improve your profession, money, relationally, with your outcomes? Once you have that, you then move to the process and ask yourself, what’s my plan? How am I going to make that happen? After you have that, you then ask yourself what are the character skills that I’ll need to use and develop?
Turning Results into Learning Experiences
We need to turn results into learning experiences. What we typically do? Our identity is wrapped-up in a result. So if you had a bad day at the office, you feel terrible about yourself, and you are only as good as your last performance, as long as you are on an emotional roller coaster.
So how can we turn those results into learning experiences? Here is an exercise which you can do after an extraordinary meeting, excellent review with your senior, great sales call, successful client visit, or whatever it is. When you have your result, you can ask yourself this question: What did I do well and why? You can take the success and focus on the why because when you focus on the why, you can then repeat that in the future.
Conclusions
What I hope now is that you have a better understanding of how important it is to build your inner coach. So you focus less on the results and more on the process. Moreover, you use your inner coach to develop your character. Winning is not a result. Victory is a process that’s driven by character.