Coaching is Like Gardening

"A garden in the early stage is not a pleasant or compelling place: it's a lot of arduous, messy, noisome work -- digging up the hard ground, putting in the fertilizer, along with the seeds and seedlings. So with beginning a story or novel." --Ted Solotaroff

That's like the beginning of coaching, too.

ARDUOUS WORK
This is when the client starts working on getting rid of tolerations. These are things we put up with that need to go -- a messy car, torn wallpaper, a negative 'friend,' a bad job, an impossible marriage.

It's typical to have a year's worth of work. It looks awesome at first, but just getting the first things off the list gives a lot of momentum.

HARD GROUND
This is getting rid of obstacles. Sometimes they're self-imposed, like pessimism, or low self-esteem. Or maybe the inability to generate options, or financial obstacles.

For one of my clients, Jen, it was getting over her obsession about her ex-husband. "You told me that was the obstacle," she said. "You can't believe the energy it freed up once I got over him."

SEEDS
These are new plans and goals. Here are some of the goals my clients have had recently:

• Become a coach -A. L.
• Declutter my house. - M. M.
• Get balance in my life. - T.J.
• Find a career I can stand. - J.D.A.
• Make a new life. - J. H.
• Get organized. - L.S.

FERTILIZER
Often the coach supplies fertilizer for a while - encouragement, so the client can grow. Helping the client gain a sense of empowerment. Working on emotional intelligence competencies, and optimism, the facilitator of all those competencies.

THE GARDEN
These are the goals achieved - when AL becomes a coach, and MM declutters her house, and JH has her new life.