A Coaching Power Tool created by Nicki McClusky
(Life Coach, USA)

What are UAC’s?

In the coaching world, we often refer to and explore concepts that are powerful tools for living. We are primarily in search of that which will empower our clients and ourselves to design and live a life we truly want…one that is delicious and magnificent. International Coach Academy, an outstanding coach training program, created the concept, Underlying Automatic Commitments or UAC’s to describe one of the most powerful elements governing, facilitating or prohibiting change. It is built upon the following basic premise:

Whatever a person is truly committed to they will experience.

(See www.InternationalCoachAcademy.com)

The acronym, UAC, could also be thought to mean Unconsciously Accepted Concepts (N. Mc.). When we unconsciously believe or accept an idea, concept or philosophy as truth, it will have an enormous impact on our lives. It is the invisible engine that powers the boat, so to speak. This “engine” may function beautifully, allowing us to steer and navigate our lives toward enchanting islands of success and gratification. However, non-beneficial UAC’s will work against our best efforts; no matter how hard we work to steer into optimal waters, we don’t sail or anchor well. We may feel adrift or wind up getting stuck on a sand bar, over and over. And try as we might, we cannot figure out how to change; we keep producing outcomes that are consciously unwanted.

As we know, coaching is all about change, growth, desired life design, building prospering businesses and creating joyful, spirit-filled lives. Sometimes we work with ease (or effort) to shift mindsets in order to live our life purpose(s), live from our values, and let our spirits soar. However, none of this is possible if we continually experience forces within that render us unable to manifest the change we say we want. Sometimes we cannot understand why we produce results in our lives that we say we absolutely do not want yet seem powerless to change.

We, of course, are far from powerless. And yet we need the beacon or lighthouse of awareness to shine fully and illuminate that which trips us up.

We open ourselves to inner inquiry, devoted to finding and seeing whatever it is that produces results we do not want and keeps us stuck.

The place to look is within. That which we accept automatically and unconsciously will become a habitually acted-out commitment. Especially when we accept that which may be untrue (or may not have to be), we’re probably functioning in an area that needs both truth and light for accurate seeing. With clarity comes the possibility of profound change.

Automatic/Unconscious

No matter how we define UAC’s, they are thought to be largely unconscious. Once we become aware or conscious about that which keeps us from manifesting the best and brightest in us, we can then choose to either work through that which sabotages changes we wish to make or stay stuck.

Our UAC’s are commitments we’ve been encouraged to make throughout our development by words and deeds of others, or ones we hatch up by ourselves along the way. These commitments or concepts shape our mindsets and emerge from deeply held beliefs that have usually been heretofore unexamined. We don’t even know that the “river” of commitment lies deep in our consciousness and runs a course contrary to that which serves us best.