How I got here!

I spoke to another Performance coach, Ian Sanders recently, who encouraged me to write about ‘How I got here.’

I know from working with individuals how often we replay the patterns of thinking or behaviour that we’ve had for years. The groove of the familiar gets well worn and it’s easier to fall into these patterns than to act in more novel, helpful and different ways. That said, our individual experiences shape us and what seem like minor changes you make can alter you profoundly without you realising.

Ian in his Do lecture talks about what he was like when he was a teenager, what his aspirations were and how they compare to his life now. At 19 I came to Manchester to study. As well as being very green and naive, I was passionate about music, psychology and learning (I was a student who went to lectures!). 21 years later I still have same passions.

Whilst in my 2nd year at University, I had the spirit (and initiative) to chase up a course colleague who was involved in setting up the first student radio station in Manchester. I got involved and did some business development, trying to understand the technical aspects of what was needed to broadcast & get a licence in the mid-90s. We were young, enthusiastic and technically clueless! Eventually having given hours to endless meetings, ideas, and possible programme commissions, my studies were suffering and I got bored of trying to do things by committee. I left the experts to what they had to do and got back to my books.

An important lesson

Always try new things, but realise what your strengths are and don’t lose sight of what your end objective is! In this case, it was to get a good Psychology qualification, discover lots of new music and continue my learning in different realms!

What it did give me was an insight into the amount of effort it takes to start up a new venture; the realities of working with other people and when to leave things that can veer you off your course. I did get to work on radio shows and gave really passionate people an outlet to express themselves and their creativity. This was probably the biggest lesson I learnt from the whole experience.

My Principles and Philosophy

Though I now work as a Psych and Performance coach, my principles for who I want to work with remain: Passionate, open minded people, who are hungry to learn and express what’s on their mind in a creative, fun way!

I loved my studies; learning about the human mind and all its foibles, when it works, when it doesn’t and how to help get the best out of people. But I wasn’t ready to go and start advising people when I had barely started shaving! I felt I had to go and get some ‘real life’ experience. I was lucky enough to get a job in digital tech just as the internet was taking off. I learnt enough about the web to have some expertise and coupled with decent people skills, I started managing teams of people to deliver websites, apps and business solutions. I didn’t like the constraints of a lot of the organisations I worked for and half way through that career, went freelance. This gave me a great chance to work for different organisations in both public and private sectors to see how they operated and the different kinds of people that thrived in those environments.

But the Psychology came calling again. I felt I’d taken the technology route as a Project Manager as far as I could or wanted to. I was enjoying my athletic endeavours and found I was drawn to Sport Psychology. I achieved an MSc in the subject and eventually got to work in a great role with Professor Steve Peters and Chimp Management with individuals and organisations where I could use my Psych skill training (and existing business skills!) to help people in their individual endeavours. Sport being sport, I was called on to help with performance and outcome, but found that in a lot of cases, it wasn’t about helping people run faster, leap higher, or shoot more accurately, but to delve deeper beneath people’s bonnets to get to the cause of their obstruction or limitation.

Lessons Learnt in the field

I learnt that avoiding the obvious questions, or not asking more challenging ones, ultimately didn’t help people with what was needed to help them achieve their best. This took me out of my comfort zone being a check and balance and at times making people feel uncomfortable. I got it wrong sometimes. It wasn’t a pattern of thinking or a line of questioning I was comfortable with, but I persevered. You have to go back and review how you practice, how you could do things differently next time, and continually work at your relationships with those individuals in order to push progress.

I worked in a number of elite environments with individuals at the top of their sport — in Olympic and Paralympic squads, professional football and netball. In fact I still am working in these fields! But now I’ve moved sideways and have gone back to working independently. I am concentrating on running my own operation as a freelancer; applying the principles I’ve learnt about the brain, performance and improving mindset and emotions from the sporting world, back in the business arena with individuals passionate about getting the best out of themselves. As Ian said more succinctly to me:

“You’re at the intersection of a number of Worlds… Business, Sport and Personal Development.”

I’ve learnt from my personal experience about change and individual growth, how to help channel ambition, to succeed and fail, to make sense of what is going on inside people’s heads and how to build stronger resilience and coping skills. On top of this I’ve developed the ability to see the world through both Human and Chimp eyes! If you don’t know what I mean by that, then take a look at this video of Steve speaking, or read the highlights of the Chimp Paradox book. The approach is a succinct method to understand the brain through neuroscience and get the best out of it via a blend of the core psychological therapies.

So what’s at my core now?
I’m older, somewhat wiser and working independently. What differentiates me from other practitioners is that I work with you to help identify the things that stop you from achieving what you want! Usually this is from very well worn but unhelpful behaviours or ways of thinking. You can have the best of intentions and plans, but if you don’t take into account which (usually emotional) behaviours may trip you up, you’re more likely to not achieve your goal.

Other practitioners often miss this point. Through my experience and skills, I work with you to help you understand and identify your purpose, what it is you specifically want at this point in your life and equip you to become more emotionally skilled in order to manage the journey, overcoming those unhelpful emotional barriers that you consciously or unconsciously have in the way.

But, I hear you ask: “What do you actually do if I come to see you?”

When I work with someone, I spend time getting to know about them, their history and how they’ve ended up at this point in time. Through careful questioning, I get to know what a person is all about and what it is they really, really want. We then work together as a team (non-judgementally and confidentially) to refine this, try and trim down the distractors or things which will prevent success and set benchmarks towards your personal goal.

Fundamentally I teach about how the brain works and help apply the skills to try and get the best out of the person in front of me! Everyone is unique, with their own history, with well worn patterns of thinking, but those who succeed tend to have an appetite to want to make change and will take these principles and apply more helpful ways of achieving their goals so they become habitual, well practiced and second nature.

I then work like a personal trainer to check in every couple of weeks to see that you’re staying on track, not going back to any bad old habits and hold you accountable, to the point — it may be after 1 session or many — where you then feel you are then able to manage yourself.

If you’ve got any questions or feel you may benefit from getting guidance on a dream or goal with someone supportive, independent and who will tune into your language and the way you work, then drop me a line to find out more with an initial chat.

focusedmindcoaching @ gmail.com
http://www.focusedmindcoaching.co.uk