The Year In Curiosity

Ready for a recap on this year’s journey? I know, you have only been privy to about 250 of these in the last week.  What’s original about mine you ask? Let’s be curious together and find out.  As I write this, I have no idea where it’s going to go…

2017 has been a very interesting ride.

When I began exploring coaching in 2016, it was connected to my job and the hope and dream I had that we could change the conversation within the financial marketplace.  Though I started as a reluctant participant in the learning process that Coaches Training Institute (CTI) had created, I slowly began to see, hear and feel the power that a coaching conversation can have and how it can serve others with great results.

What emerged for me was an awakening.  What it was like to be curious.  This was my big take-away from the entire journey.  To truly tap into a client’s agenda, one doesn’t have to be an expert at the thing that they do, the job that they have, or the life that they lead.  You have to be curious.  With that comes the requirement to shed judgement.  Absent your opinions and prejudices, a curious person can be quite powerful.  The more you tap into your intuition and creativity, focusing on the person and not the thing, your ability to explore and uncover energy and repurpose it for forward movement is not only possible, it works!  You just need a clear lens.

So, indulge me in yet another end-of-year wrap-up: my biggest learnings from my journey to becoming a professional (and certified!) coach.  I invite you to consider them.  Choose to do what you want with them; that’s perfectly fine.  And maybe, quite possibly, you will stick a toe in the water and reflect on them.  And a shift may occur when creativity engages and you nudge forward even just a little bit more from where you were standing just minutes ago.

Be on the journey and in the journey.

So many times we experience only the route to the goal.  We take the interstate instead of the backroads so we see only minimally and in some ways repetitively. We completely ignore what’s happening to us while en route. Along the way we think of the past and worry about the future.  And once we arrive, we spend about two minutes recognizing our accomplishment before we start to focus on the next thing on our horizon.

Tap into your Appreciator.

Your Appreciator is the one inside you that appreciates everything you do and experience.  Darkness and light, wins and losses, failures and successes — all without judgement.  Find your Appreciator.  Name it.  And embrace its ability to acknowledge all that you do.

Do what you love.

This isn’t new.  You’ve heard it before: “If you do what you love you will never work another day in your life.”  Are you experiencing this right now?  As you read this are you working?  Find a way out of it.  Be the person who really excites you.

Be who you are.

Authenticity.  The new new.  And it hasn’t lost its kick.  Know who you are and if you don’t know it yet, get a coach and find out.  If you do know who you are, then honor yourself by living a fulfilled life.  Explore, dammit! Quit playing it small.

Connect.

As in connect to each other.  Whether you are a seller or buyer, client or provider, husband or wife, brother or sister, friend or neighbor.  Our ability to connect effectively with each other isn’t necessarily easy and yet today, more than ever, it is necessary.  Reach out and connect with the next person you meet in your life.  The results will amaze you.

Be curious.

If you have not been in touch with this skill yet, you are really missing something.  Being curious was one of the things I had to work on the hardest during my learning journey.  As human beings, we’re doers.  We want to do stuff and fix things.  It is our inclination to offer up answers and advice without really knowing the person with whom we are talking and listening to because we have all the answers.  Pump the brakes and land a couple of truly curious questions that are open-ended and transformational with no personal agenda attached. Discover what you don’t know about them. What would you like to co-create with (not persuade) them?  This person may have never been asked that question in their entire life.  Their answers will surprise you.  Be the person who shows them what real curiosity is all about.