Is it worth it?

Have to confess that the title has a negative connotation… Being a question… And one that is often asked with a lead towards the response for being a no.

But that is not what I meant to do…

I just came out of a 2 day offsite coaching where we brainstormed a lot of ideas on increasing executive presence… Whilst most of the techniques were known to me, I had never really implemented some of them for I felt that the behavioural changes it asked for, meant being not myself anymore… The core values that I take pride in and have brought me this far…

One of them was adapting communication style always based on the style of the reciepent… Using yes, and… Never yes, but… And so on…

I discussed with the trainer how I felt that this concious adapting makes me feel that I cannot be myself – direct, objective and honest… That those have been the qualities that have lent me credibility and established my integrity in my business so far… And that I just felt really uncomfortable beating around the bush (and in my mind almost borderline manipulative) to do that…

She heard me for 5 minutes and gave me a very wonderful insight… She said… Ask yourself the question first… What are you aiming for… What do you want? What will this implementation achieve? Do you really want it? If that purpose is really of value to you, only then will you go through the real process to make a behavioural change… Otherwise no matter how much ever you know, you will never be inclined to put to practice…

And it was so true… For going through a behavioural change that is so outside of natural instincts will be extremely uncomfortable… needing time, patience and dedication… Which wont come at all unless I really felt that something was important enough… was worth it…

A lot of times most of us go to training programmes and learn new stuff… Most of it does not see the implementation – conciously atleast in our normal lives… sounds nice and fun in the training… but thats about it… And its really down to the drive in us… Do we really want that something which we want to get coached for? Is it worth it…

I also told her that maybe it comes down to the fact that I have not suffered any real failures being myself so far… And maybe thats why I don’t feel the need to change… And she has given me another wonderful insight… Read the book what got you here wont get you there (Marshall Goldsmith)… The qualities that got you so far may just be the ones which could stop you from going ahead… If going ahead is what you want…

She also pointed out that it’s not a personality change… The co-coach also mentioned that you cannot be someone else… Or it won’t ever be authentic… Not natural at all… We have to take the ideas and blend them with our personal style… It’s a behaviour change, not personality change… Let’s not make it anything else… More harder than it really is… Hard it is… More difficult it becomes if we misconstrue it to be…

Just thought of putting this out there… For evey one who does not follow through on implementing on anything that they learn… It might be time to ask yourself the question… What does that learning bring… Do you want it badly… To make the effort to change…