On the other hand you can also choose to stay inside and just observe, and learn from others, and try with all you can to live life through others.
- How can you know what you are capable of if you choose to observe only?
- How will you know your strengths and limitations?
- How will you test your will power and your own power from this safe space?
If you choose to observe, you will definitely gain a lot of knowledge, you might be able to sort some of your own situations based on that knowledge, but what if a real challenge comes along, a challenge that requires real experience, real insight, without Understanding it’ll be very hard. If you open yourself to experience you will gain empowerment, let me clarify this word, according to the Free Dictionary by Wexler, it means “to equip or supply with an ability, to enable”, when you are able to experience and come out with a result, empowerment is just part of that result, part of knowing that you can achieve and that you can always try again.
Life is short and there’s only one, let’s allow ourselves to understand as much as we can, let’s experience, lets feel.
Knowing vs. Understanding in Coaching
- How can I create the awareness to differentiate something that I know versus something that I understand?
- Here’s a simple test that can take us right there:
- When facing change what do you usually do: you move forward or you get paralyzed?
- If you move, do you do it using your own tools and previous experience?
- If you get paralyzed, can you identify your feelings and fears?
- Do you find easy to take action and achieve positive results?
If new situations make you fearful and you get stuck in your mind then it’s probably that you just know, when you understand you trust in the flow of things, you allow yourself to move forward in your own time and trusting completely on your resources to accomplish it.
As coaches we need to be very open and receptive because the answers of these questions take the clients to deeper levels of themselves.
Let’s remember that in coaching we’re working with resourceful people, so:
- How can we take them from Knowing to Understanding?
The best way is to follow your instincts and trust in your own Understanding as a coach; leading someone to the key answers within themselves through powerful questions and bringing back experiences of empowerment and achievement, so the client can use that “win” experience or feeling and take it to the next step of trusting their own process and resources. The secret is never forgetting that all that the client need, the client has, we are just here to walk with them through the search of those answers.