James, Calavar

The coaching adds the part of my business I do not have as self employed individual – accountability. However target-driven I may be (and I am) I am only accountable to myself, and when I try to do too much (i.e. do not have enough focus on the important stuff), reasons (excuses) are found for not achieving things as a result of too much else needing to be done – but these really are excuses. This means that no goal had much hope of being achieved – the investment in the coaching meant that the business was able to grow because my focus was in the right place and I could build the proper foundations. Coaching is not a cost – it is an investment.

David worked with me in the way that I thought – I am a very pictorial person in my thinking, so some guided vision thinking and unwrapping the real rationale/ reasons/ motivations for the goals and what they would achieve for me meant that I could focus on the important stuff.

As importantly, David was able to keep me focussed – and keep drawing me back to core motivations and the reasons why I was doing something – and helping me to keep the eye on the bigger vision and the medium term plan.

I was not presenting the easiest challenge – a combination of needing to clarify and achieve sporting goals, business goals, educational goals – and David was able to flex and bend, keeping me on course as challenges to these goals were met, and as the goals themselves needed to flex as opportunities presented themselves too.

Having a small business and getting goals and plans in place is important – but more important is understanding why those goals are important and what they will mean when you achieve them – and this is the part David was so good at bringing out. The goals became more a part of me rather than numbers on a spreadsheet.

Personal /Business vision alignment