By Allison Iantosca, PCC
In terms of executive coaching, is change really possible? Can a well-intended member of the C-Suite actually understand and modify their own patterns of learned norms? Is a middle manager able to make headway in performative adjustment to feel more centered and capable?
Yes, change is perfectly possible.
Here is a perspective: For some reason since the early part of this year I can’t seem to quiet the constant whisper that I am missing out on some terrific capability – some built-in mechanism that, if correctly assembled, would finally offer me that ever sought-after sense of being in the right place. Instead, I recurrently find myself surrounded by a deep sense of “not quite”.
Some would tell me it is a mindset issue. That it is a well-worn habit devised to keep me plugging along. As familiar, to me, as taking a breath. But, unlike oxygen, I don’t actually need it to survive…except letting it go feels about as safe as limiting my intake of air.
Every coaching client – and indeed every human I have ever known shows up in a similar state.
We learn and adapt early on to what is our best behavioral shot at handling life. It doesn’t matter if we were born into the best, most supportive of childhood circumstances or the worst. We were once vulnerable beings packing our bags with the best tools we could find to set out on a lifelong journey fraught with every peril ever conceived. And then we practiced that survival every single day. Looking for any validation of success, locking in what worked. Creating habit.
Coaching is about developing an awareness of these habits and, in fact, scaffolding them while exploring their downside and dismantling their overreaching potency. Coaching gives us a sense of range, an ability to see ways to accept and use our other capabilities that may need nurturing. Coaching offers a sturdy platform to try new behaviors.
Trying new ways can be powerful. An actual experience of a wholly different option. An explicit action to debunk the idea that our original habit is the only way. A way to feel differently in a same-old situation. And a coach can assist in developing a trial “experiment” just for us.
Here is a made-up example: Sarah is beleaguered by the same perfectionist tendencies as I described above. She will never be “quite enough.” This perfection habit has driven her since her school days and, for it, she has excelled in every environment. Sarah lives at her edge, constantly looking for the next thing to conquer, always saying yes, always pleasing the hierarchy.
Sarah comes to coaching exhausted and burned out. Even for this she feels like she has failed, unable to be the superwoman who can also hold all her pieces together. She knows she is losing herself, her husband can’t keep up with her, and she is beginning to resent her CEO. She feels like she has tried everything she can think of to get better but none of it seems to quiet the hum of the engine that drives her.
Over the course of our sessions, Sarah and I build awareness for and deep appreciation of her perfectionism. We put it in the spotlight it seems to crave and lovingly accept all that it has done to get her to this point in her life. We acknowledge gratitude for keeping her safe and alive and thriving.
We also talk about ways she imagines being different. Tapping into parts of herself that have lived in the shadows. Imagining what it might be like to love herself for being more than for all she is doing. We create ways she can begin to experience this part of herself. Not by saying external truisms like “you should act this way” or even “just let go”, but rather little everyday tries at something quite different.
- Noticing in a meeting when she is the first to speak and seeing what it is like to wait for someone to speak before her.
- Not responding to the general mailbox PTA email asking for baked goods.
- Accepting an emotional outburst from her CEO as his work. And, in the moment, imagine building a wall that disconnects herself from the responsibility for his emotion.
- Write in a journal every day and every night to gather her thoughts about what matters most to her and identify small examples she noticed throughout her day.
- Say “Not this year” when her mother-in-law calls about hosting the holiday dinner.
- Sit down on the couch as soon as she walks in the door. Ten minutes doing nothing but settling into home for the evening.
In other words, trying new approaches – tiny shifts that sound simple and easy but just plain aren’t for someone who only trusts her habit of doing and excelling.
Sarah comes back to our coaching sessions and explores what these experiments were like for her. We note the shifts and create ways she might continue to self-support now that she has tangible examples of what that even means. We allow these changes to take hold inside her being, from the inside out. New experiences that now belong to her. Offer her being loving language that quiets the other voices of survival.
And over time, yes, small, incremental change happens. Over time, change is “perfectly” possible.
Allison Iantosca, PCC is a Gestalt International Study Center (GISC) trained coach certified by ICF with extensive leadership and management experience. She is an Executive Coach and is the Owner and President of Boston based FH Perry Builder.
*Photo Credit: Milad Fakurian, Unspalsh