As a coach, coach supervisor and mentor coach, I am professionally curious about what makes people tick, specifically around raising awareness about self, others, context, and what enables people to affect meaningful and lasting change. It is no great surprise that this is also a significant point of curiosity for me personally. This smacked me in the face during my first coach training programme, which championed the approach that you become a coach rather than learning to do coaching, as well as your first client is yourself – meaning it is part of the course to learn about yourself.
Through my ongoing studies, I was introduced early on, with delight and horror, to David Kolb’s work on Experiential Learning detailing a cycle, among many fascinating aspects. Seeing a continuum of preferences made me stop short, with “thinking” on one end and “doing” on the other. My comfort zone was clearly in the deep dark corner of “thinking”, with much effort required for any “doing”. This catapulted my awareness of self and triggered a fascination with finding the necessary balance on the continuum and bringing movement into my cycle. This fascination has driven my curiosity and approach to life and work, culminating in my tagline of finding and living into your best personal flavour of life.
Recently, I have been playing with an idea to do a more focused exploration into the key points of finding and living into your best personal flavour of life. I know countless others have gone here before, and I am curious to ground my own flavour of this. Along this journey of exploration, learning and research, I would like to share with you what stands out for me. I am doing this in the hope that there are useful bits for you and a request for feedback and suggestions on where to look next.
I have captured a few initial major points as a guiding light to begin, and I am sure things will shift along the way – I will be disappointed if they don’t. As I scan my original list, I notice my “stuff” sneaking in already with “taking actions” lower down the list. This tickles me and prompts my realisation of how multifaceted and interlinked all these concepts are.
At the outset, my intention is to have a monthly point of focus, recognising that many may need more time, others less, and sharing highlights along the way each Monday and Thursday. These sharings could be anything from short LinkedIn posts to blog articles, maybe even a video, ending each point of focus with some form of consolidation. One more proviso for good measure: I do enjoy a good break from time to time, which may impact my cadence but will by no means indicate an abandonment of this project.
So where to start? For me, this is a no-brainer, a phrase that has been following me for years, hiding behind many a piece of theory, around the corners of experience and finding its way out of my mouth with reckless consistency – “Know Thyself”. I’ll be looking at the origins, who else said something similar, what makes this important, and hopefully, how to start knowing thyself.
Please keep an eye open for my upcoming posts, and please feel free to share and connect (LinkedIn and Twitter). I look forward to sharing and connecting with you and many others along the way.
All my best,
Andrew