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When Anne walked into our coaching session, I barely
recognised her. She was radiant. She had an air of confidence about her, she
walked tall, held eye-contact and looked very smart and professional: she
glowed!
This was our fifth session. I could hardly believe the
transformation she had achieved in just six weeks. When I met Anne in April,
her head was downcast, she spoke quietly and barely made eye contact. Her
clothes were baggy and dark.
Anne had been through the mill in the past year. She was
working full-time and studying part-time. She was also working her way through
depression. Her confidence and self-esteem had plummeted. There were also two
members of her family seriously ill. She was burnt out and had no energy left
for work. She struggled to get out of bed in the morning: she had been off sick
for a day every week in the previous 17 weeks.
Looking back, her remarkable transformation had two turning
points. During a two day in-house programme, Anne was put in the Hot Seat. She
heard each and every one of her colleagues tell her the values and qualities
that they appreciated in her. Anne had lost sight of all her positive qualities
and was visibly touched by such powerful, positive feedback. She began to
change the way she saw herself. To support this change, her company suggested
six coaching sessions as a follow-up.
Back at work, it was still a struggle. Anne had changed a
little but she found it hard to sustain. The second turning point happened in
the second session, when Anne found a challenge that inspired her. She realised
her transformation would be real when her line manager said to her, “You’ve
really turned yourself around.” She wrote that quote on a card and put it by
her bedside locker. That quote, that vision of who she wanted to be, got her
out of bed on the mornings when she would otherwise have stayed in bed. Her
absenteeism dropped to zero after that day.
Over the weeks, Anne began to realise that work actually
helped take her mind off her problems at home. And the more effort she put into
her work, the more her colleagues began to appreciate her, support her and give
her bigger challenges. Just four weeks after writing out that quote, Anne had a
meeting with her line manager - who told her exactly what was on her card!
Once Anne had a vision that inspired her, she unleashed her
vast potential to make that vision a reality. As she put in consistent, daily
effort to achieve that goal, her opinion of herself changed and, with it, so too
did that of her colleagues. She began to see the support that was always there
for her. And to understand that effort to achieve a goal which inspires us is
much easier than struggling aimlessly, with no guiding vision.
"In that moment when our desire to do and be the best we
can grows stronger than our fear of failure - in that solitary moment -
greatness rises up within us to take command and we may dare to do the
impossible. It is in that moment that possibility is born."
"If
you can imagine it, you can achieve it. If you can dream it, you can become it."
W.A. Ward |
