I so often hear in my coaching sessions in the language from the coachee sat in front of me that they are struggling with adversity. What do I mean? When we all encounter adversity, we react by thinking about it.  These thoughts then rapidly congeal into beliefs. These beliefs then have consequences – they are direct causes of what we feel and do.

Some common comments I hear are - "I must be perfect, I must get it right, they think I am not good enough, am I good enough to do this, nobody ever listens to me so why bother, they are annoyed at me, If I don’t get this right my career will be over". These are just a few examples from coachees from every profession including barristers, managers, surgeons, graphics departments, team leaders. Just about every profession going, individuals carry these thoughts and I have heard them all plus more plenty of times.

In my coaching, I challenge the thinking, break the “self-imposed rules and assumptions that are all self-created. Because the beliefs may need to be changed, I create a paradigm shift which is usually needed for change; I challenge the beliefs.

Coaching is perfect for this, and it is just fantastic to break through some of these beliefs that are all self-created by plenty of us, sadly mostly negative beliefs. I will always create a safe place for coaching to take place and everything discussed is entirely confidential.

What is hugely important is that as a manager you need to fully understand how to deal with adversity in your staff. Your language as a manager may have created these beliefs? This really is a fascinating area to learn about and to deal with. I often walk away reflecting on my coaching skills for managers course because the day has been such a lightbulb moment for the delegates on the course and I wonder why managers are not taught coaching skills correctly.

Claire Moody is our head coach at Target Training, and you can read more about her here.  She delivers training on all coaching and numerous training the trainer courses.