This is Your Damn Life
“What would you like to work on?”
As a coach, I usually ask this question or a version of it in the first five to ten minutes of every coaching session, after devoting some initial time to connect with the person I’m coaching. My goal is always to help the person make progress in the most important areas of their life.
Yet there are still people who join our sessions not having thought about what they’d like to focus on, or simply not knowing what they want to work on even after thinking about it. I understand this response, and I think it can happen for a few reasons:
The person is unaware of the areas of their life that need attention
They’re aware of what those areas are but they still don’t completely understand the scope of coaching (which is partly my responsibility as the coach) so they’re not bringing those areas to our coaching
They feel that “life is good” right now and therefore they may not be in touch with what needs work (false presumption: if life is good, that must mean there’s nothing substantive to work on)
They simply didn’t take the time to prepare
I understand these reasons because I’ve been in all of these positions before when I’m being coached myself.
In contrast, there are other people whom I coach who join our sessions knowing exactly what they’d like to work on. Some of them have been gathering topics since our last coaching session. Some of them block time in their calendars prior to each session to think about what they’d like to focus on. Some do both! And others are simply always in touch with what they need to work on so there’s not much preparation necessary. That’s where we all want to get to ideally, and we can.
There’s a sincerity and a substance in these coaching sessions, and thus in these coaching relationships, that is strikingly different. These people are bringing the most important areas of their life that need attention to their coaching sessions. They’re sincere in wanting to work on them. And they believe that coaching can help.
Recently, I’ve been thinking about how the way a person approaches their coaching sessions is indicative of the way they approach their life…
An Ideal Mindset
There are people who know what they want to work on, and there are people who don’t. And then there’s my Upbuild partner, Hari Prasada, whom I would classify in a category by himself. All of us at Upbuild receive coaching, and Hari and I coach each other every two weeks, switching off which one of us is coaching the other. Hari is the extreme case of knowing what he wants to work on.
Not only does Hari know what he wants to work on, but also he joins every coaching session literally wondering what little nugget will emerge that will change his life. At the end of each coaching session, he confirms exactly what actions he’s going to take. Afterwards, he takes copious notes on everything he wants to take away from the session. And before the session is complete, he’s already looking forward to our next coaching session and envisioning what further transformations await him.
I know all of this because I’ve observed Hari in action for years, and I’ve asked him about it. He deeply believes in the transformative power of coaching. He knows he’s receiving something that others pay a lot of money for and honors that value. And if he’s not following through on what he’s committing to, he understands that he’s only cheating himself. He’s also seen the impact of the coaching he receives, on himself and on his life. And those experiences have further strengthened his conviction to approach his coaching the way he does.
Expect Miracles
Assuming each coaching session has the potential to transform one’s life is a big expectation. Most people would think, “Why would I carry that expectation into a coaching session? Isn’t that basically a recipe for disappointment? Why not expect less and then be pleasantly surprised when transformation appears?”
One of my dearest friends from business school used to joke about how he set really low expectations for the types of gifts his girlfriend (now spouse) should expect to get from him. And that, he joked, was one of the keys to their happiness. Setting really low expectations, and then just barely exceeding them. And he extended this strategy to numerous other parts of his life.
For many years, I thought it made sense. Expectations management leads to a higher likelihood of (at least temporary) happiness. But as I’ve observed Hari Prasada, another premise has replaced it. I’ve been thinking about this premise as: THIS IS YOUR DAMN LIFE.
Sure, you can keep your expectations low, but those are also the expectations for your life. And our expectations affect what will happen in our lives. When we’re looking for transformation, we’re more likely to find it. Much more is possible than any of us can imagine. When we lower our expectations, we’re also limiting what’s possible. So, setting low expectations isn’t a free strategy. There’s a cost. And that cost is extremely expensive when it has anything to do with who I am and who I am becoming.
What’s Possible
For me, Hari Prasada serves as an important benchmark for how I aspire to approach my own coaching (when I’m receiving coaching), and by extension, how I aspire to approach my life. What would my life look like if I were to approach every interaction asking the question how might this interaction change my life? And every experience desiring to learn what I’m meant to learn, even when it’s difficult? And every moment conscious of what I’m working on and progressing towards becoming my best self? That sounds like a lot of work, but to me it also sounds like a magical way to go through life (as long as I’m also taking rests among the sprints to make this higher level of consciousness sustainable).
While I’m not quite there, I can see the impact of sincerely working on myself over the past ten years. As a few examples, I was able to make a career choice for the first time that was driven by a higher (inner) calling instead of being (externally) consumed by what other people would think of me. (The subtlety is that I thought I had been coming from that place before only to realize how much I had deceived myself having not done the work.) I’ve learned to become more self-accepting, and more truthful and vulnerable with other people as a result, which has enhanced my relationships. I permanently changed my diet and became a vegetarian after one coaching session in which I was able to gain clarity on what was important about it to me philosophically. And perhaps the most striking change I can see in myself is that I’m on a spiritual path with daily spiritual practices, neither of which existed for me ten years ago.
These are all changes I wouldn’t have made without continuously asking myself what areas of my life need attention and pushing on the boundaries of my comfort zone. These changes also wouldn’t have happened without having people in my life to help challenge me in encouraging ways. Whether we have a formal coaching relationship or not, we all need people in our lives who can help mirror and guide us and ensure that we don’t lose our focus amidst the chaos of life. And then of course, there’s also grace. So, I know it hasn’t been all my own doing, and at the same time, I have an important role to play.
My Work From Here
I’m desperate for the changes that lie ahead because there’s so much more for me to work on. What are the areas of my life that are in need of attention now? I carry a lot more anger than I’d like to admit, and my kids are too often on the receiving end of that anger. I’ve lacked patience all of my life, and this shortcoming is also most visible in the context of my children. My self-worth remains tangled up in my achievements and my success. And I continue to prioritize those achievements and successes over the most important relationships in my life.
Will these areas of my life change without me intentionally working on them? No. Or at best, in random ways rather than in a specific direction. And there’s a lot at stake here, especially when I consider the impact on people I love. Why would I leave that impact to chance?
What about just keeping my expectations low and being happily surprised with any transformation that happens? The people I know who are models of what transformation truly looks like are also exemplars of intentionality and focus. They’re always aware of what they need to work on, and how they’re going about it.
An Invitation
We each have the opportunity to live with such awareness, intentionality, focus and fulfillment in this life if we take it seriously. And if not, it’s easy — without any conscious choice at all — to pass up the opportunity of becoming our highest selves. We can be bystanders to the course of our lives or we can actively seek to shape ourselves into who we’re meant to be.
So what do you do if you want to take your development seriously but don’t know where to start? How can you move from low expectations and out of touch with your struggles to a state of clarity about the work to be done and expecting miracles? What is one simple, bite-sized step in that direction?
Whether you work with a coach or not, start by making the time and space to identify what you need to work on. Prioritize that. In what areas of your life are you unhappy, or affecting others negatively? In which of your relationships is trust breaking, or broken? What dreams have you given up on? You can start right now just by investing five minutes thinking about one specific issue in your life that you really need to work on. Explicitly identifying what needs attention is an important first step in the right direction.
This is your damn life. What would you like to work on?