The trick is to always be positively dissatisfied

Q: I feel rather stuck when it comes to drawing up new and better ideas to improve my personal and professional life. For some people, ideas come flowing in when they are in meetings or even during ordinary coffee talks. Compared to them, I have only a fraction of their thinking ability. No wonder I lag behind many of my friends when it comes to career progress and promotion. My bosses often tell me that I am only an ordinary executive and have yet to reach a level where I can be regarded as among the better ones. I fear the day will come when I become too ‘expensive’ for the organisation if my contribution continues to be at this same level. They may kick me out or simply freeze my salary. I pray that this day will not come. What can I do about this? Where is my issue? 

Mental Block

 

A: I guess the issue may lie in a fixed mindset when perceiving the happenings around you. Perhaps you think that it is safer and more comfortable to adopt a common approach or keep to the status quo most of the time. Over the years, this leads to building a strong mental wall around you with fixed ways of seeing and doing things. Usually, people with this sort of fixed thinking can be judgmental, opinionated and strong willed; they believe that there is only one best way of thinking or doing things. Hence, it becomes rather difficult for them to have an open mind, let alone being curious and respectful of other people’s views, which are so important in expanding their horizon for new ideas to come to them. Thus, this explains why many of such people have little progress in their personal and professional life. 

 

The Bottom Line: ‘Vertical thinkers’ is what we call such people. They need to change to become lateral thinkers so that they are able to think out of the box. When they do this, they enter into an ‘exploratory’ mode all the time to think and find other new ways, ideas and methods, etc, without easily and quickly concluding that they have found the best way. The key thing is to be a calculated risk-taker who is positively dissatisfied. When you take this stance, you will tend to ask yourself challenging questions, such as ‘What else can I do? What more? What is a better way than this one?’ etc. This is where the search for excellence will take place that will lead to a life of excitement, satisfaction and fulfilment. Remember, nothing ventured, nothing gained! 

 

Powerful Questions: How do you describe the way you solve a problem? How happy are you with it, and why? What needs to happen for you to get the results you want? What is a fundamental shift you want to make to move forward permanently?

 

 

Differences between coaching and psychotherapy 

Q: I have been a psychotherapist for many years. Of late, I am exploring a number of career options as I want to bring my professional life to the next level. One of them is in coaching. This is a bold move as it is a total change in my career to a great extent. The other option is whether I should take a ‘middle road’ to be a sort of coach-therapist where I combine both these disciplines to make my work more effective. The last option is to stay where I am and continue with what I am doing. What is your view? 

Unclear Future

 

A: If I understand the role of a therapist well, it is about helping people understand their dysfunctional and emotional selves so that they can heal their psychologically destructive habits and relationships with their close ones. Illustratively, they help their clients to clean up their old ‘garbage’ so that they are ready for a new healthy future. Although, coaching has elements of therapy in it, it differs greatly in many areas too. This is where you need to know accurately what it really is so that you can ask yourself whether this suits your temperament, and most of all, your passion and competency in what you want to do for yourself in the next stage of your career. 

 

The Bottom Line: It is important to be clear about coaching. One distinct difference in coaching is, it goes beyond uncovering what is wrong and it has self-help ways on how the client is going to remove this independently, instead of doing it for them. 

So the coaching intervention also addresses the co-creation of a game plan that has a system, a set of processes, and mechanism on how to do. In psychotherapy, a great deal of time is spent focusing on the past and the present, and less on the future. 

You, therefore, need to ask yourself whether this ‘missing part’ in your current career is something you want to ‘fill up’ or you’d rather continue to leave this part out. This can be in the form of a complete change of staying put where you are, make a complete change or as you have identified earlier, become a therapist-coach that makes you more special compared to full-fledged therapists. Certainly, you know best what suits you. 

 

Powerful Questions: What is your vision in the next phase of your life? Deep in you, is this current career taking you closer to this? If not, what then is still missing? What will make it complete for you? 

 

Corporate Coach Academy is a coaching school in Asia to certify leaders of all backgrounds to become manager-coaches or professional certified coaches in this region. Log in www.corporate-coachacademy.com or email [email protected] for details.