Standing Out From The Crowd

Standing Out From The Crowd

 
At sports day at my children's school recently I was reminded of how powerfully a coaching attitude can completely change our way of looking at life. 
 
As we parents were all standing watching our children competing in the various races, a wave of whispered gossip spread through the line.  It appeared that one of the children’s parents had committed the heinous crime of buying their child a sack so that she could practise in their garden before the sports day.   The comments came rapidly from the group ‘How unsportsmanlike.’ ‘What bad form.’
 
 
The assembled parents were as one voice, condemning this act and preparing to join together as mass judge, jury and executioner. 
 
A lone voice in this wholesale condemnation, I pointed out that we didn't actually know what had happened. These judgements assumed one particular scenario - competitive parents, a pressurised but also very physically able child, a family intent on winning at all costs. I  heard this clearly and intervened saying ‘we can't know that this is the case, there are lots of different possible scenarios.’ 
 
So I posed a few questions to the assembled parents:
 
‘What if one of our children struggled at sports day and came to us asking for a sack to practice beforehand? Would we refuse? Or would we help?’ 
 
‘What if last year the child in question had a really bad experience at sack race and was worried about this year? Why shouldn't that child get help from interested and supportive parents?’’
 
‘What if the child had issues academically but sport was the one thing that they excelled in? Does that change things?’
 
There are so many possible scenarios, but often we are quick to judge based on a snap assumption. I realised that a few years ago I would have been likely that I would have joined in with the condemnation and possibly even enjoyed it. Revelling in the shared experience of belonging to a like-minded group of women.  
 
Standing there, listening and really hearing what was going on, I had the realisation that I have fundamentally changed in recent years. As I have undertaken my coaching journey I have transformed my attitudes and rewired the way I think. I remember taking my first steps in my coaching training and finding that these new skills required my conscious awareness. Remembering to think differently, to be aware of the consequences of how I thought, what I said and what I did required conscious effort in the early days. 
 
At that moment, standing on a field surrounded by shrieking children and cheering parents, I experienced a moment of clarity. I understood that gradual changes had taken place and my coaching behaviours were now a part of me. They are in my core, I wasn’t just doing coaching behaviours, I was living them, being them, and they have become a big part of who I am. 
 
 
Coaching is an amazing skill. The behaviours it instils in us become ingrained helping us to become the people that we aspire to be. When I started to train as a coach I perceived that I was learning new skills to use in a work context and yet I now find that Coaching is so much more than that. It has enhanced every aspect of my life. It has allowed me to understand myself, stand in my own shoes, reflect my own values through what I hear and how I respond.  Coaching has brought so much to my life and that of my family. My coaching behaviours have rubbed off on my children, what a privilege to have this as a gift to give them, it is a legacy beyond price.
 
I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
 
Fiona x