Self-Coaching Skills For Midlife Career Change.

Inquisitive workmates, friends or close relations have mostnlikely asked anyone involved with Personal Development:
"What are you doing all this for?"

Have their questions ever made you stop and think for anminute or two? And did you flunk the reply because you werenlost for words, felt embarrassed or just didn't want tontalk about it?

I've had similar experiences. Some of the most cuttingnquestions even had me regretting all the time and money Inhad spent on personal development. Especially when I wasnsometimes not so gently reminded that "real life" was outnthere waiting to be enjoyed. And so I sometimes found it anstruggle to resist the temptation to start looking for whatnmight be "wrong" with me.

I must admit that I seriously considered getting rid ofnmost of my personal development courses and books and gonjoi
"real life"...

As luck would have it, I was able to make positive use of anfresh perspective to reframe the vast majority of thesenconce
s. And that particular perspective was grounded innmy belief that Personal Development is no more or less thanna useful tool to discover and experience more of my ownnlatent potential. I found myself no longer unduly lingeringnon perceived character defects or lack of "God-given"ntalent!

This new attitude really became embedded after I made andecision to study at the International Coach Academy innlate 2004. At the time I had a demanding IT career in anGlobal financial services Corporation and was notnanticipating a full-time coaching role. Some part-timenmentoring of junior staff was a possibility.

My self-proclaimed objective throughout the 1.5 years itntook me to complete the Certified Professional Coachingnprogram, was to find out how to use my personal developmentnexperience in a self-coaching context. During the program Inmade the following two life empowering discoveries:

Number 1: A growing awareness that any situatio
I amninvolved with can be both frightening and uplifting.

Number two: I am free to choose my level of responsibilitynfor some or all of my actions.

'Constant change' is now almost a cliche in many westernnmultinational corporations. So, while I was in the middlenof the coaching course, it came as no great surprise tonfeel the first waves of a global outsourcing project beginnto lap around the base of my career role!

With the knowledge that outsourcing was about to make annappearance in my world, I decided to concentrate onnapplying my two discoveries to help coach myself smoothlynout of a 20 year employee mind-set and into the new andnuncharted waters of Internet business ownership - and allnthis in under two years! This PD-coaching stuff rocks!

Concurrently with the outsourcing project, I also made it andaily habit of asking myself this question before the startnof almost every major task: "What is the point of doingnthis?" This felt weird but I soon got used to it. Whatnremained tricky was to remember to pose the same questionnwhen the task was completed!

If you attempt this you might be amazed to discover hownlittle you were aware of the "why" behind doing most of thentasks given to you. And once you find yourself querying thenreal reasons for engaging in probably 80% of the itemsndemanding your attention - the desire to change your gamenhas probably arrived!

In time, the replies I received from regular use of thisnquestioning technique led me to see that it was possible tonactively choose to take more or less responsibility for anlot of this stuff. That is a tremendously liberatingnfeeling.

My encouraging results with this self-awareness techniquenmade me keen to delve deeper into the exploration ofnadditional as yet neglected capabilities - especially as Inhad passed the halfway point of my 4th decade. I of coursenknew that I could make some additional progress on thisnjou
ey within the known boundaries of my current employeenstatus, but I was more interested in following whateve
path the new role of "Business Owner" would take me.

All this pondering concluded with the emergence of a simplenbut subtly effective self-awareness tool I refer to as "thenBio Map".

The tool asks you to carry out 8 specific tasks that younmust give only a one-word "answer" to. Grab a pencil andnnotepad if you want to have a go.nn- Write down your given name.n- Write down your place of birth.n- Write down where you are residing now.n- Write down your existing job role.n- State one word that describes a successfully achievednmajor goal in your life.n- Write down a major goal you want to achieve.n- Write down the date.

Well done! You just produced your success Bio Map. Now herenis the decider. Use the list of words above and construct anshort spoken or written autobiography of what these wordsnare implying about your current reality. And if you'renfeeling really adventurous, go say them to the bathroomnmirror!

This marks the start of the goal creation process.