I just realized something: following an already established process, going step by step, is a whole different capacity than creating one.
I am weak at both, but I am literally unwilling to spend my limited energies to create a process.
The resistance is so strong, my neck and shoulders are hurting.
What is that about?
There are a lot of ways to analyze humans and their behaviors, and one of them is through conation, which is a, I guess, Latin word for inclination, or inner nature.
Kathy Kolbe created a few tests and she says that the amount of initiative, the amount of energy to start something is finite, and everyone’s can be divided to 20… so far so good, I hope.
The four drastically different ways to approach something, to initiate something are
- knowledge and research
- systems and processes. This is also where details, consistency, and follow up belongs.
- action… starting something.
- building something that is visible, bringing an idea into reality
You need all four to make anything happen, anything, including dinner.
If you have the energy distributed in all four modes, you may sit on your ass, in planning a lot.
If you have an overabundance of energy in starting, you may get stuck if you are lacking energy in the other modes, knowledge, systems and realization.
I have a definite overabundance of energy in action, somewhat capable in systems and research, and resistant to bringing an idea into reality.
I have been observing this, with dread, for more than 10 years.
Ultimately, this is why it is near impossible to be a successful one man band: you don’t have the energy, the desire, the expertise in everything.
We are all lopsided, and our lives, our results are documenting this lopsidedness accurately.
So, what should a person do, whose lopsidedness causes them a failure to launch? Get a partner who is strong on launching… or get a cooperative coach.
What should a person do whose lopsidedness causes them to run ahead without having enough foundation, enough processes, or maybe even a plan? Get a partner who is long on the missing energies, but on their own would have a failure to launch. Or get a cooperative coach.
One of the problems with regular coaching programs is this:
- You have to have a question… but only certain people with certain distribution of strengths can ask questions
- You meet once a week… and life cannot wait a week… not my life. And then it is an hour, whereas the issue needs only a glance and a short redirect…
So, regular coaching programs are largely ineffective and expensive: lots of hot air, few if any results.
This was my experience with the Path coaching, that is why I discontinued it.
The new type of coaching program, the Reclaim, is a lot more effective, because it can be as frequent as every five minutes, until the redirect can happen.
The most important job of a coach is redirect. Not to teach, not to talk, but to redirect.
You want to do one thing… but the coach sees the big picture for you, and recommends another action.
You hate that she did that… and you either refuse to do it, or you do it.
If you refuse to do it, you take drastic detours from the path you asked for, and eventually, guaranteed, you’ll quit, blaming yourself (not the action!) and the coach.
You do it half-assedly, belligerently… similar results are predictable.
Or you do it… until you get to a point where you clash…
At that point it can go either way.
The capacity that can make a coaching relationship to work
A coaching relationship that lasts is rare, because the capacity to see and appreciate alternatives is lacking. It is either/or for you… and that lack of seeing the “and” is going to fail you, or drive you to a result that is neither pleasurable, nor sustainable.
One of the admirable abilities one of my TV heroes has is the flexibility with which he arrives to a solution. I am watching it amazed: he will finagle until he gets what he wants.
Finagling is not in my nature. I could not even bargain in the Jerusalem old market… even though the starting prices were obviously jacked up. I needed someone to come with me who could do it.
It wasn’t that I really could not do it, by the way: I was unwilling.
Kolbe is about willingness and unwillingness.
I probably COULD create processes for my company, 1 so that I can hire paid help… I am just unwilling… and prefer to not grow, or to be a slave to my own creation.
Neither of those is ideal.
PS: most coaches coach because they cannot do it. Before you hire a coach, or a teacher, check their own track record, not their students’. They may have too few capacities, and they may have too few energy in the areas you need the most help.
One of my friends is a quick start, like me. He would be good for the first months of a project, but is unable and unwilling to coach anyone to take something to success: he hasn’t done it, and he has no interest in doing it.
Another coach I know is only interested in the how, not in the what. He actually cannot ask: what is there to do? He can only asks: how do you do that? If you are weak in the what, he is a lousy coach for you.
I could talk more about that… I hope you get the picture. A coach is a temporary partnership for a phase of a project, the phase where you are weak at.
PPS: I just had the insight: when something is blocked, or isn’t going, isn’t moving: you do not know how to say it to your coach. So you wait. and wait. and wait… hoping the blockage will go away. With the distinctions in this article, you may be able to pinpoint what resistance stopped you. It may sound misleading, or exact: I can’t, I don’t know how, I don’t feel good about …
All of them give the coach a chance to redirect
- this is a DNA capacity, being able to create systems… and I have it working. I am willing to do it for others, strange, but not for myself
