Coaching is aMAZEing …

 

 

On a family day out this summer, we were in an adventure park and working together to complete a maze. I was struck by some thoughts on how different people are in their approach to problems and we are what we do! 

 

My husband had a picture of the maze on the centre flyer and was using this to plan our campaign.  He was working out the big picture, where were we in the maze? What should our next steps be? Where did all the paths lead? What was the most efficient way to our destination? 

 

My son on the other hand was diving about randomly he had no plan but lots of speed. At each junction he rapidly chose a path and then ran down it as fast as he could until another choice presented itself. He had no eyes on the final destination, he just made a choice and went for it. 

 

My daughter had a more considered approach, she started off enthusiastically working out which way to go to head for the tower in the centre. Unfortunately as is the way with mazes the paths kept twisting round taking her sometimes nearer and sometimes farther. She quickly lost heart as her strategy wasn’t giving her any rewards and started focussing on a completely different goal (lunch!).

 

Meanwhile I was plodding on reflecting on where I had been, remembering past decisions, considering possible options and always looking towards my goal. Finally after a while the tower was in sight and as I turned a corner I was delighted to be right under it. Success! Or was it? I quickly realised that this wasn’t the end at all but another blind alley – I had made it to the tower but the steps to take me up to the finishing platform were on the other side of a maze hedge – so near but still very far away. 

 

In the end none of us made it to the top of the tower but we enjoyed trying to get there. It got me thinking about how, like life, the maze was. There was a goal to achieve and lots of different ways to go about it. There was no obvious route. It was hard to tell if you were on the right track and even when you thought that you had succeeded it turned out that it wasn’t the end after all. 

 

So how do you work towards your goals? Are you a big picture planner? An impulsive in the minute chooser? Do you get disheartened and change course? Have you ever planned and thought it through only to reach an impasse? What strategies do you use? 

 

So how can we work out where we want to be and how to get there? Coaching can really help us all with this. We all have patterns in our lives, patterns depending on our life experience, our personalities and the context that we are in. Coaching can help us to really understand these patterns and make the best choices in a given situation. 

 

Coaching has a lot to teach us about setting goals and achieving them. It helps us to understand ourselves, to clarify what we want in life and move towards that with purpose and determination. It gives us the route plan to support us in making each decision secure in the knowledge that we know where we are going and have all the resources that we need to get there. 

 

Isn’t that aMAZEing! 

 

Fiona x