Why I became a coach. How I got into coaching and why I stayed

I wanted to talk about how I got into coaching, why I stayed, what it gave me. And perhaps you will find something in this that resonates with you. Or you will finally make some important decision.

In January 2017, I decided to start consulting. By that time, many trainings and courses had been completed. A lot of knowledge gained. The topic of goal setting and planning was especially attractive. And of course, working with self-esteem and confidence.

So, I called myself a consultant and started my movement. Then for some reason she called herself a life coach. And... whatever you call the boat, that’s how it will float. An advertisement for the course “First Steps in Coaching” caught my eye. I became interested and went. I paid and waited for the course to start. And along the way, I began to come across a lot of information and coaching training. I began to realize that a coach was not what I had imagined.

At some point, two training courses appeared on the horizon: “New coaching code” at IPS and another. I hesitated. I left an application both there and there. I decided for myself, here it is the first one will pass PShK class, then I’ll decide. There is only one company, so...

The magical voice of Yulia Borovik at the very first lesson of the PSC melted my doubts. And I chose NCC. During Julia’s course, I realized that I knew nothing about coaching. I listened, studied, did my homework. I worked with a coach. First sessions, first impressions.

Balance wheel

You can determine the desired results for yourself and, after analyzing where you are now, understand what you still need to improve. What actions to take to improve the situation. And your brain starts working. The coach asks questions, and you have to look for answers in your head. You are surprised to discover that they are there.

After finishing the course, you are full of hopes and expectations. And it seems that the whole world is at your feet. But it’s not for nothing that the course is called “first steps.” After the course, if you want to become a coach, you need to study further. If there is no desire to become a coach, then the course is enough to analyze your current situation and outline a plan to improve it.

The decision to continue studying was made. And then I had to ask for support. The amount was not small for a modest family budget. Turning to my husband with a request to forget for a while that I received money for the children (and this was twice his salary), I was afraid of discontent on his part. But, apparently, I was able to explain to him how important it was for me, that he agreed to be patient for a couple of months. I adore my husband because for the sixth month in a row I have been investing in my education. And he feeds his family alone.

The NCC course had its own difficulties. Sometimes the information was difficult to give. Sometimes there was a complete misunderstanding of technology. And our educational training sessions. It's funny to remember!

The first session was more like a consultation. And only thanks to our mentor Vitalia Yurchik, I did not lose heart. I continued to train and develop. Excellent support and feedback so far, even though the course is over, all exams have long been passed and certificates received.

We saw very strong changes in each other and in ourselves.

During the course we changed, became different, “grew up”. There was a lot of awareness and understanding of how this can be applied in life. Relationships in the family began to change. Questions began to be heard more often, rather than instructions. And it turned out that it works! Works not only in the profession, in working with clients, but also in the family, in ordinary life.

First contracts, first clients. But suddenly the movement began to slow down. Fewer invitations to sessions in the general chat. Fewer training sessions.

And here is a new solution. Go to PKK (Practicing Classical Coach). And back to training. The information seemed difficult to understand, despite the fact that the technicians themselves were generally familiar with NCC. Deeper presentation of material, deeper awareness. I learned to look at sessions from the position of a mentor. Almost learned.

This is how my journey into coaching began. And it continues. And every day my faith in coaching grows stronger.

Coaching is a magic wand for me. And who I will become - a fairy or an evil witch - depends on how professionally I use it.

On the PShK course, you go into knee-deep water. The water is warm, pleasant, with a coach accompanying the course, you can even sit down and sit in the water. Or go waist deep.
At NCC you are up to your neck. And when you meet the waves, you periodically swallow water, a chill runs down your legs. A little scary, but tolerable.
And then the PAC. Here you don't feel the bottom under your feet. You dive into the depths, only occasionally emerging for a breath of air. It’s interesting what’s there at the bottom and scary at the same time. But you are swimming forward. There is a mentor nearby who will give you a hand if you start to drown.

Why did I stay in coaching?

I discovered new traits in myself, strengthened character traits that help in coaching. Thanks to this, family relationships have become even better. The family has become that supportive environment, which is like a lifeline in difficult moments.

I also like coaching as a profession. I like that as a coach you help the client very gently, like a shadow following him. And it seems as if the coach does nothing but ask questions. But what work is behind it! And the results that the client receives are encouraging.

I am inspired, becoming stronger and more harmonious. I'm becoming the best version myself.

Coaching in Russian: the courage to desire

Chapter 2. Why and who needs coaching?

"Simple question. Okay, fellow coaches, if you are not able to simply and clearly say what kind of “beast” coaching is, then at least tell us why, again, we need it? Wow! "Supporter of Truth"

It is very difficult to answer a question whose answer seems so simple and clear to us. Coaching?! It's as if a person looking through dirty glass suddenly took it and washed it. "What has changed in your life?" - they will ask him. We are SURE it’s nothing. We have the same windows as you. The same glass panes as yours. We even look through them, like You!!! We do everything just like you, we do it even better!!!. And if you can bring the questioner to your window and allow him to look at the amazing, “pure” world, then it is impossible to let anyone into your soul to allow you to come into contact with the joy, fullness, strength, meaning that you gain using coaching.

One of our clients responded very emotionally and... confusedly when we asked him this question. "When there was no coaching, there was Soviet Union. It was all! Only there was no butter, no sugar, no cinnamon..."

Once again, thinking about this question, a parable comes to mind:

Parable. One dark rainy night, a young man needed to swim across a wide, fast river. The old fisherman gave him his boat and pointed to a barely noticeable light on the opposite bank: “Row at it, son, row as hard as you can, and don’t even think about lowering the oars.” And the young man swam. A strong wind blew towards him. The rain obscured his eyes, and he rowed and rowed across the current, keeping the landmark in front of him. Each subsequent stroke was more difficult than the previous one. Suddenly he saw a large white steamer floating downstream. People drank wine, ate, and had fun. He peered into the darkness and saw another small boat floating with the current. And again, and again... It seemed as if the whole world had surrendered into the mouth of the mighty stream of the river. And he took the oars out of the water and put them on the bottom of the boat, and he himself lay down on top. An indescribable weakness filled the tired body, the eyes closed by themselves and the whole mind dissolved in the measured movement of the man, the boat and the current merged into one. A sweet dream enveloped my consciousness. It seemed as if eternity itself had come to visit. Suddenly the dream passed, giving way to growing anxiety. Some strange sounds began to persistently penetrate from the surrounding world. With every moment they became stronger and stronger. The boat was approaching the waterfall...

So what does coaching bring to your life? First of all, the memory of your “beacon”. Your guiding star. Your purpose, mission. Coaching brings the desire to find the power that lies dormant within everyone. And start moving towards your goals, guided by your inner wisdom. Refusing the advice of “experts in the field on how to live correctly.” Coaching, no matter how pretentious it may sound, allows you to at least get in touch with your truth.

Parable. One day the gods gathered and created man. And a serious question arose before them: where to hide the truth from him?

Let's hide it at the bottom of the ocean!

No no! Let's hide it on back side Moons. It won't be long before they get there!

Hm! Shouldn't we hide it at the edge of the universe!

And then the wisest of the Gods spoke. We will hide the truth in their hearts. And I am sure that in search of her they will sink to the bottom of the ocean. They will look for her on the other side of the moon and throughout the universe, not even suspecting that she is so close.

What comes into life with coaching?

We asked more than 70 people to answer this question—our clients and group participants in the “Coaching as a Management Style” program. The answers were very different, or rather diverse. Here are some of them

“Coaching awakens “dormant” resources in a person, helps the buds of abilities to blossom, allows talents to manifest themselves and be realized,” - Ivan Z.

“An amazing discovery is the realization that a person inside himself has answers to all the questions he asks, you just need to be able to find them...” - Natasha A.

“The world became colorful and I started taking photographs. I didn’t even think that it would develop into something serious. Soon I will have my first exhibition,” Natasha B..

“I didn’t even think that I could do so much. Like a second wind opened up. And a lot of new ideas,” Yura.

“Meaning is the most important acquisition. The meaning that is found within yourself, the meaning that illuminates your path like a light,” Pavel N.

“I earned a lot of money. No, not a lot, but a lot!” - Sergey P.

Some responded very emotionally, others consistently listed their gains and losses. Yes Yes! Losses! When you gain something, you lose something. There is no other way. And this scares many people. We are afraid of losses. Completely forgetting that a grain thrown into the soil disappears forever, turning into a fragile sprout that is hardly recognizable in a mature plant. That's how life works.

Everything that is written about a person’s personal acquisitions also applies to an organization. When coaching comes to an organization, there is a meaning - not just business for the sake of money; and previously hidden resources begin to be used; and much larger number employees truly enjoy their work.

But this is discussed in a little more detail in the chapters “Coaching for Teams and Organizations” and “Coaching as a Management Style.”

Energy from the future

But before asking others, we asked ourselves this question - What has changed in our lives since we began to “pass” coaching, like real natural scientists, through ourselves? And looking back, we feel, first of all, admiration - have we really come this way? Now we are surprised to remember ourselves three years ago. Many things then seemed inaccessible, unattainable, and seemingly not really necessary.

How did it all start? Let me brag, dear reader!

Come on, in a year we will have 25 new client organizations! - said Alexander.

Let's! We will also create a new unique program - “Coaching as a management style,” Marina added.

In two years we will write a book,” said Alexander.

YES, and we will hold the First Russian Coaching Conference! - answered Marina.

And from then on it began, in big and small ways: an idea comes, the “magic” “It will be like this!” is said, and GO! Often, someone who hears another idea has the thought: “It can’t be,” but it goes away very quickly. Then, laughing, we remember: “Do you remember what your eyes were like?” Over time, not only we, but also those around us, ceased to be surprised by our fantasies. Our employees only remind: “Don’t forget to let us know - what else have you come up with? We’ll get used to this idea.” And we have been convinced many times how simply what is really important “floats” into our hands; how after some time “suddenly” everything works out in the best way. They wanted to go on television - they called: “We decided to make a program about you”; decided that we needed to enter the Moscow market - after some time an offer of cooperation from a Moscow consulting company; They decided to conquer the peak, and the expedition to Elbrus took shape “by itself”.

And there are many such examples that confirm that our thoughts and dreams materialize if you do what is really important to you. In this case, you “just” need to help the world help you. Great amount energy lurks in our dreams. We create more and more new plans, constantly pushing back the horizon, and move forward, leaving behind what until recently seemed completely unreal. Looking back at the path we have traveled, we realize quite clearly that in addition to achievements that can be “touched” with our hands, one of the most important things has appeared and become part of us: the courage to desire!

Other people who have introduced coaching into their lives also talk about this.

"Coaching is energy from the future. Coaching allowed me to define myself in the space of our world, to know exactly my coordinates: Where am I now? Where, with whom and with what will I move in the next moment? I have confidence that I can model my life as I wish,” Olga.

“I have increased confidence. Confidence that I can achieve results. Why did I have such confidence? Because in the coaching process I was able to solve several problems that I didn’t know how to approach before, it seemed simply impossible. A positive worldview appeared — the belief that there is very little that is unreal in this world and that I can get everything I need,” Kirill.

"Coaching helps you achieve high goals, higher than you imagine at the moment. You work for a long time, and it seems to you that what you are doing is good, and everyone likes it, and you like it, and then where - the thought arises in your subconscious that you can do better. The thought arises in the subconscious and, in principle, it does not go anywhere, and it does not turn into real actions. Setting goals, which coaching does, helps to get this thought out of the subconscious. speak it, write it down, imagine it and just make it real,” Galina

“I saw my goals and learned to respect them, otherwise how can I respect myself?” - Natasha.

But coaching is not magic! And, unfortunately, or fortunately, we do not have the power of Sai Baba and do not know how to materialize what we want out of thin air without leaving the spot. The courage to desire is only the first step, or takeoff. This is an inexpressibly wonderful feeling of flight, when you allow yourself to shape your dream, when you create it, sculpt it, draw it. The shoulders straighten, the eyes begin to shine, it seems that the legs are about to leave the ground. Yes, here it is - mine! This is exactly what I want. Exactly this? That's your decision? Well, let's see what awaits you on the way to it!

Work, constant work!

The work of awareness - what am I doing? How? And for what? It’s decided - I need to go there! But I don’t want to get up and go, taking at least a small step every day. While discussing this topic, one participant related a parable that he had read from Osho:

One day the rabbi gathered his flock and said:

Jews, from now on you can do whatever you want: eat what you want, drink what you want, sleep with whomever you want, but exactly one day before death you must begin to repent!

There was deathly silence. And after some time one of the Jews asked

Ravi, how do we know that we have one day left before we die?

In! You will never know this. Therefore, start repenting right now!!!

You change your attitude towards life. You change the quality of her stay. Despite everything! Surprise, and sometimes condemnation from others: “Have you decided to change something? Why? Look at how others live, why are you rocking the boat! No, you won’t succeed! This is UNREAL!! Shame, guilt, especially in the moment between awareness of what is desirable and necessary, and the beginning of movement towards this - you already become disgusted with yourself, what is really important to you, what you need to do for this, but fear holds you back. I’m still very tired of the old state of things. I’m also afraid of the unknown - what will happen in the future, and is it as good as it seems? And then, when you start to implement your plans, it’s very unpleasant when you don’t carry out your own decisions.

It becomes simply impossible to lie to yourself. After all, you understand how truly everything is in your hands, having repeatedly experienced the success of your endeavors. You can’t blame it on others, on circumstances. The role of a coach is simply invaluable here, acting as a guide, not allowing the client to fall into laziness or self-criticism. Together we find the optimal pace of movement towards the goal so that it is not traumatically fast or too slow. But despite this, losses on the way to follow the bird of luck are inevitable.

Here's what people who, no matter what, have not turned away from their chosen roads, say about it:

“You become a foreign body in your organization. Colleagues and superiors first welcome your endeavors and initiatives, and then suddenly they understand: “This looks like it’s serious!” We don’t need this.” And if you are not at the very top of the pyramid and do not have sufficient authority, they begin to squeeze you out, reject you, like the body rejects a foreign body,” Vladimir.

Yes, indeed, about 40% of participants in the “Coaching as a Management Style” program changed jobs. Many of them went through attempts to change something in their organization, without giving up the hope of realizing their ideas for some time. Someone decided to immediately go to a place where his skills would be in demand and appreciated.

“Coaching asks questions and forces you to give answers to them. It’s not easy, believe me. This is the thread that stretches between your feelings, thoughts and your goals in this life. And this thread does not allow you to fall down into the chaos of our life. Be honest A coach helps you with yourself and not hide in the bushes. However, it’s still not always pleasant,” Marina.

Leadership and creativity

Making life with your own hands is a leadership position. Coaching allows you to become a leader 100%.

Lately here and especially abroad, special attention is paid to the problem of leadership. Yes, yes exactly the problem! Lots of smart, knowledgeable, professional employees. There are few, very few true leaders. When teaching top managers and middle managers coaching as a management style, we conduct one simple but very revealing exercise. We ask participants to stand in a circle, blindfolded. A rope is handed into your hands. And we ask them, while maintaining silence, to build a square from a rope circle. What begins here! Some people become confused and remain confused throughout the entire exercise. Someone pulls the rope in front of them and freezes. Someone, the “most advanced” one, makes a right angle in front of him and protects it until the end of the exercise. In this case, up to seven right angles are observed in a square. It would look funny if it weren’t for the pain we experience every time. This exercise can only be done if someone takes responsibility for doing it and approaches the problem creatively. Prove yourself as a leader! IN in this case:

Figure out how you can build a square in complete silence, without seeing anything

Find the courage to organize the construction process and take responsibility for the result.

But even top managers of the largest companies refuse to show their activity. They begin to break the rules: talk, spy, give correct, mind you correct, advice. But even when the algorithm of action becomes clear to everyone, no one takes responsibility for implementing it. Why? There was no personal order!!! And how radically does the situation change when similar exercise given at the end of training. It's nice to know that coaching training, despite the fact that there is no emphasis on leadership, nevertheless cultivates this quality in people!

“I am the creator of my life when I consciously choose where, why and how I should go. It’s so nice to compose the melody of my life. If I allow myself to go with the flow, then I become a performer, a performer of a play invented by someone. I’m terribly tired of playing someone else’s music," Elena.

Loneliness is the other side of the coin called “Responsibility for your life.”

Many things become clear and simple, at a glance. There is simply nothing to talk about with others. It’s just uninteresting and boring to “speak” like that. Washing the bones, savoring the details, discussing problems is a waste of time.

“I used to go around in circles: to friends for pity, to colleagues for help and sympathy. And nothing changed. I saw myself from the outside. I changed, I began to do things that were not expected of me, I began to allow myself more often to say what I feel and feel. Everyone was surprised. And I felt bored with those people whom I had previously considered friends. I saw envy in the eyes of some of them, in others - bewilderment, irritation. For some reason they were not happy about what I was happy about. . One day I looked around and realized that I was alone. It was scary - what if it’s forever?”

In general, everyone lives like this without coaching! They gain something, lose something. When you begin to manage this process, life becomes bright, filled with feelings, new sensations, impressions, and events. The dust seems to be erased from everything around, and the colors become alive, playing in the light, sunbeams jumping, which delight and sting the eyes. You experience inexpressible pleasure from doing what you really want, and joy from acquiring what is important to you. You have the ability to create a space around yourself that attracts the people you need according to the principle “like attracts like.”

In this article I want to shed light on the topic of coaching, since in the post-Soviet space a lot of ambiguous information about coaching and coaches has gathered. Some people ended up with the right coaches and were very happy with the results, while others ended up with charlatans and realized that they simply lost money.

In addition, I will give you some tools so that you can experience what coaching is like.

In this article I will tell you:

Who is a coach (history, definition).
The difference between a coach and a psychologist, trainer, consultant.
How to distinguish a coach from a charlatan.
What questions do clients turn to a coach for?
How can a coach be useful to a client?
What does a typical coaching session look like?
How much can a coach earn?
Could coaching be beneficial for you?
Can you become a coach.
What does it take to become a coach?
My journey as a coach: how I became one and what it gave me.

I am sure that my thoughts will seem objective to you, since, on the one hand, I am a certified coach, and on the other hand, coaching is not a source of my income, since my main job is personnel management on the largest Ukrainian TV channel. In addition, I myself hire coaches to develop company employees and see different representatives of this profession.

I have been a certified coach for several years now. When I tell others that I am a coach, I am constantly asked the same questions:

Who is a coach? What is this, a personal growth coach?
How do you work with clients? You probably give them advice?
Is it true that clients pay $100 for one coaching session?
And are you really just asking questions?

Everyone has heard the word “coach” for a long time. Each of us has different associations when we hear the word “coach”. Some people imagine a personal growth coach, some a psychologist, some a charlatan information businessman, and some, perhaps, an avid NLPer.

Of course, none of this has anything to do with coaching. It’s just that all these people at one time caught the trend in the popularity of coaching and began, among other regalia, to attribute to themselves the newfangled word “coach”.

Real coaches don't teach anything at all.

But everyone will probably agree on one thing: coaches make good money. And this is really true. A coaching session even for a beginning coach costs $50, but experienced coaches charge from $100 to $200. But there are those who can charge $500 or even $1,000, but these are usually very well-known coaches who work with business owners, and this work is limited to either a series of intensive coaching sessions, with a pause of 6-12 months between them, or, on the contrary, occasional meetings once a month.

But what’s most amazing is that real coaches (and I’ll tell you who a real coach is below) don’t teach anything at all. They don't tell you what decisions to make, they don't force you to work better or harder. And what is no less striking is that they talk to the client not about his past, but, as a rule, about the future.

So why do people who ask questions about the future get thousands of dollars from their clients?

Let's try to figure it out. Let's start with the definition.

What is coaching?

Official version:

Coaching(English coaching - education, training) - a method of consulting and training, differs from classical training and classical counseling in that the coach does not give advice and strict recommendations, but looks for solutions together with the client.

My version:

Coaching- this is a special type of work of a coach with a client, thanks to which the client achieves outstanding results faster, more joyfully and easier than he himself would work to achieve them.

A little history

TIMOTHY GALLWEY

It all started with Timothy Gallwey, who was the originator of the concept of the inner game, which formed the basis of coaching. The concept was first outlined in the book The Inner Game of Tennis, published in 1974. This date can be considered the date of birth of coaching.

The idea of the inner game came to him while working as a tennis instructor.

The opponent in your head is much more dangerous than the opponent on the other side of the net. The coach's job is to help the player eliminate or mitigate internal obstacles. As a result, a person's natural ability to learn and achieve effectiveness will emerge. The purpose of the "inner game" is to reduce any interference with the development and realization of a person's full potential.

Timothy Gallwey

JOHN WHITMORE

He developed Gallwey's ideas as applied to business and management. John Whitmore is a British racing driver, one of the UK's leading business coaches, and the creator of the popular GROW coaching model.

John was a student of Timothy Gallwey. In 2007, he received the President's Award from the International Coaching Federation (ICF), which recognized his work in promoting coaching worldwide.

THOMAS LEONARD

Considered the creator of coaching as we know it today.

Thomas was a financial consultant. One day he noticed that his most successful clients weren't asking him for financial advice so much as they were asking him for personal business advice. Business managers and top officials of companies were interested in learning how to quickly respond to a changing economic situation, how to effectively manage employees, and some simply could not formulate their future professional goals.

Here is just a small part of Thomas's achievements:

Founder of the Coach University (Coach University - www.coachu.com), the International Coach Federation (ICF), the International Association of Certified Coaches (IAC) and the CoachVille.com project.
Developed 28 personal and professional programs.
Author of six books for coaches and 14 internal exclusive works for students of the Coaching University.
Among the more than 28 programs he developed, Clean Sweep is a very popular one.

How coaching evolved

From the 70s to the mid-80s - the stage of the emergence of coaching in the USA.
Mid-80s - coaching began to spread in the United States.
Mid-80s - coaching intensified in Germany.
The end of the 80s - personnel development through coaching began in Germany.
The beginning of the 90s - in Europe and the USA, the division of coaching into specializations began.
Mid/late 90s - coaching is actively gaining momentum in Europe and America.
From 2002 to the present day there has been a phase of in-depth professionalization.

The difference between coaching and other types of assistance and consulting is shown in the graph:

Thus, coaching is the only way of counseling in which the client is the expert, and the coach only asks questions.

How to distinguish a real coach from a real charlatan?

Coach	Charlatan
Studied at a certified school coaches (ECF or ICF) and can present their certificate	Didn’t study coaching at all, studied from books, studied with another coach, studied in an uncertified school
Inspires trust, does not impose pressure with his authority, does not impose services	Does not inspire trust, convinces of the need for his services, uses manipulation techniques
Asks a lot of questions	He talks a lot and gives advice.
When asked about the price, he gives a direct answer with a specific figure.	Doesn’t name the price, asks how much you expect, offers to pay “as much as you can”
Has a specialization (career coaching, life coaching, business coaching)	Ready to work with any request
Can talk about his own successful experience in the chosen field. For example, when offering executive coaching, it can tell about your at least 5 years of experience managing a team of 20 people or more	Cannot demonstrate experience in the selected topic. So, for example, while doing relationship coaching, he himself does not have a partner

»
Separately, I would like to talk about the “coaches” who studied at Erickson University of Coaching.

It is worth noting that because Marilyn Atkinson spent many years of her life calling her former NLP teaching the newfangled word “coaching,” many students of this school are now perceived as coaches. I do not want to challenge their right to be called whatever they want, but I am obliged to shed light on this issue.

Who is Erickson, after whom his teachings are named:

So, Erickson Milton Hyland (1901–1980) is one of the most popular American psychotherapists XX century.
Wrote more than 140 papers on psychotherapy. In 1923 he developed a number of techniques hypnotherapy, including the hand raising method.
Erickson - founder and president of the American Society clinical hypnosis(American society of clinical hypnosis), founder and editor of the American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis. Regularly conducted his famous seminars hypnotherapy and a short straight psychotherapy.

Erickson's biography does not indicate that he was a student of one of the well-known coaches at the time (they are on the list above). In addition, Erickson himself did not call himself a coach or his science coaching.

But then Marilyn Atkinson appeared, who taught her followers NLP. However, at some stage she began to call herself a coach, without indicating who she studied with. Here is information about it:

Marilyn Atkinson - President of Erikson International University, Doctor of Psychology, coach, world-famous trainer, student Milton Erickson, a famous psychologist.
Marilyn is the author of many works, has been teaching and consulting in leading corporations in the world since 1985, and is the founder and president of Erikson International University (Canada) to this day.
Marilyn is the author of books on coaching: “Mastery of Life: Inner Dynamics of Development”, “ACHIEVEMENT OF GOALS: A Step-by-Step System”, “LIFE IN THE FLOW: Coaching”.

Therefore, internationally certified coaches often challenge Atkinson's right to call herself a coach, as well as her students.

What questions do clients turn to a coach for?

The range of questions with which clients turn to a coach is indeed very wide. Here are some of them:

Business planning, budgeting, goal setting.
Establishing a balance between work and personal life.
Solving difficult situations.
Achieving peak productivity at work.
Solving business and personal problems.
Making key decisions and developing strategies.
Increased sales.
Control my life instead of letting other people control me.
Increase my company's profitability by at least...
Take the adrenaline out of my life so I don't burn out.
Accelerate my own development.
Design a path for my own growth.

An example of specific queries that I worked with:

Which career path to choose?
How to eliminate your weak sides to become a marketing director.
Learn to manage a company (the person recently became a partner).
How to talk to a shareholder about your development.
Increase your income by 50% in 6 months.
Create passive income of $200 in 10 months.
Purchase of a car (not on credit) for 1 year.
Career growth to the position of manager in 1 year.
Reducing the level of stress and tension so that work is fun.
Find a boyfriend by the end of the year.
Finding life balance (so that work does not come at the expense of other areas of life).
Increased level of well-being and energy.
Learn to manage your time, determine your capabilities and effectively determine deadlines for completing tasks.
Bringing order to life (instead of the existing chaos).
Lose 5 kg in 3 months.

What does a typical coaching session look like?

A typical coaching session lasts 60–90 minutes. If meetings are frequent, it may be reduced to 30–45 minutes. Meetings usually take place in a cafe or restaurant, as well as at the client’s workplace (in his office or meeting room). Less often, the client comes to the coach’s office.

Before the coaching session, the client forms his request - a certain task for the duration of the session. During the session, the client and the coach will have to find a solution to their request.

The result of a coaching session is a clear understanding of the client what to do to achieve his goal, and an action plan, usually for a week.

During the session, the coach asks the client questions and uses various coaching tools.

A typical coaching session follows the GROW model, which Whitmore came up with:

Goal - what is your goal? What do you want to achieve?
Reality - describe your situation now.
Options - what are the options for achieving the goal? Who can help you? What do you need? Let's brainstorm.
Will - what needs to be done to achieve the goal? What are the next steps? When could you do this?

One of the tasks of a coach is to raise the client's bar. That is, helping the client set higher goals so that he achieves more in life.

Now, as promised, I am giving you one of the coaching tools.

This is a tool for a comprehensive assessment of the client’s life and searching for weak points in it.

There are 30 questions here. Each question must be answered “yes” or “no”.

Now calculate your score separately in each area. If an area scores less than six “yes,” it means there are problems there. If eight or more, everything is fine. Between six and eight - it would be worth improving.

Now your goal is to get all 30 “yes” in 90 days. Weak? ;)

How much can a coach earn?

Most often, a coach charges $100 per coaching session.

Clients do not apply once, but buy on average 5–10 coaching sessions (private clients usually take five, corporate clients - 10). In such cases, the coach can make discounts.

The coach is not 100% busy all the time. A load of 40–60% is considered good, since the remaining time is required for moving around the city, attracting new clients, maintaining websites, and so on.

Many coaches provide training, which generally also charge about $100 per hour.

Let's take a person's normal working day - 8 hours. At 40% load, our coach will work 3 hours a day. This will be three coaching sessions of 60 minutes each. For such a day, the coach will earn $300 (provided that the coach did not give discounts).

In 20 working days, a coach earns $6,000.

This is a person who does not engage in any other activity other than coaching. There are not many of them, but I know several representatives.

More often, a coach’s income ranges from $3,000 to $10,000.

If coaching is not the main activity for a person and in addition to it there is a permanent job, such a coach conducts no more than one session per day. And he doesn’t have clients for all 5 days. Usually this is 3–4 days. Which gives $300–400 per week or $1,200–1,600 in additional income per month.

There are also coaches who practice coaching solely to maintain their experience and conduct one session per week. Which gives 400 dollars a month.

Can coaching be beneficial for me?

Are you ready for coaching?

Rate it from 1 to 4, where 1 is false and 4 is completely true.

You can count on me to be on time for meetings.	1 2 3 4
I will honor agreements and keep my word	1 2 3 4
I want to listen and take advice from my coach	1 2 3 4
I speak directly and promise my coach a “no games” relationship.	1 2 3 4
I will immediately tell the coach that I am not getting the desired result, if I get this feeling	1 2 3 4
I guess I have limiting beliefs my development, and now is the time to take steps moving forward	1 2 3 4
I am ready to expand my scope and replace ineffective behavior more effective	1 2 3 4
I'm totally ready to take my life to the next level.	1 2 3 4
I want to experiment with ideas and concepts which the coach will offer	1 2 3 4
I will immediately tell the coach that he is crossing my personal boundaries, and in this case I will ask him to change his approach	1 2 3 4
I am ready to change HERE and NOW	1 2 3 4
I know what I want and will use a coach to help me achieve it.	1 2 3 4
I am fully aware that all responsibility for the results lies with me	1 2 3 4
I want a coach to always tell me the truth under any circumstances.	1 2 3 4
I have the necessary resources to pay for coaching, and I consider coaching a worthwhile investment in my life.	1 2 3 4

»
___________ total score

Result:

60–53. You are a very good candidate for coaching!
52–47. Are you ready. A slight resistance holds you back. This is where coaching can begin.
46–39. You're in a wait-and-see position. Before we get started, it's best we first talk about why you're thinking about coaching.
38–0. Come back when you're ready to make a decision. Now you are not ready to take responsibility and make significant changes in your life. Coaching for those who are READY. Now may not be your time yet. This slice gives you an understanding of where you are now.

Can I become a coach myself?

You can safely give a positive answer to this question if you can answer “yes” to all points:

You want to help other people achieve their goals.
We are ready to become a model for them and to achieve their goals in different areas of life.
We are ready to devote time to training and basic coaching practice (more than 100 hours).
You have time for coaching sessions after completing your training.
Ready to learn, train to conduct sessions in the presence of others, receive feedback from the coach.

What does it take to become a coach?

The algorithm here is as follows:

Choose a school that suits your needs based on location, course timings, reviews, and ICF certification.
Raise money for the course ($1,000–$2,000).
Complete a training course (average 1-3 months of intensive classroom training for 2-3 days per week or 10-12 months of online classes once a week for 60-90 minutes).
Start hosting free coaching sessions. You need to spend at least 100 hours.
Start telling others that you have become a coach.
Create your website.
Start attracting clients.

My path as a coach: how I became one and what it gave me

Initially, I went to study coaching not at all to practice coaching, but to improve my leadership skills. My team grew from 2 to 10 people, and I needed to learn how to manage them effectively. Since I had read all the main books on management at that time, I looked for management advice in the field of leadership.

Leadership training didn't spark my interest or respect, so I switched to coaching. I met a coach who told and showed me what coaching is, and my training began. I studied at International Academy MAXIMUM coaching (don’t consider it an advertisement) with Maxim Tsvetkov for 10 months, every week for 90 minutes in webinar format.

After completing all my homework, I began to set goals for myself, work to achieve them, and saw the effectiveness of coaching as a way to achieve goals (even though I just wanted to learn how to manage people).

Coaching works like magic: you just need to set a goal and understand the ways to achieve it, and you automatically start working on it.

At the end of the course I already had clear goals in all areas of life. In addition, my employees noticed changes in my management style, and our relationship became much better.

To obtain a certificate, I needed coaching practice, so I began coaching everyone I knew. It so happened that many of them achieved their goals very quickly. One of my subordinates, after a month of coaching, left for a higher position in another company with a salary twice as high. :)

I realized that coaching works like magic: you just need to set a goal and understand the ways to achieve it, and you automatically start working on it.

I received the certificate and began to inactively coach those clients who came to me mainly on recommendations. Over time, the number of such clients increases. But for me the main priority is my career: I want to become a CEO in 5 years, so I don’t devote as much time to coaching as I could. For me, this is rather an opportunity to earn pocket money for my favorite toys (phone, laptop) on the weekend.

What coaching gave me:

Achieving a number of goals (career, health, salary).
Experience managing people in a more democratic style.
Meeting new and interesting personalities.
Awareness of your purpose.
A more balanced life.
Improving relationships with others.

WITH additional information on the topic of coaching and development can be found on my website. :)

Let's break the rules. Let's start with the particle "not". Let's answer the question, who doesn't need a coach?

Can you do without a coach?

You can. I think that if necessary, you and I can build our own home, sew trousers, make household utensils, and print a book. We’ll just spend so much time on this that there may not be any time left for what is more important and desirable for us than everything mentioned.

“Imagine a cart rushing along off-road terrain. Three half-unharnessed horses are dragging her in different directions, and all this is controlled by a drunken coachman. You lie in this cart with your hands and feet tied, your mouth taped, and still manage to sleep. So, the cart is our body, the horses are our thoughts, the coachman is our feelings. Your job is not to just wake up and say, “I know everything.” You will need to undress, sober up the coachman, re-harness the horses, fix the cart and find your way. And then drive along this road, without deviating anywhere and skillfully managing it all with great love for the world around us and for people.” This metaphor for our life and coaching was proposed by the traveler, researcher and philosopher George Gurdjieff.

Of course, coaching is not a panacea for solving all the difficulties in your life.

A simple example. Think about it, maybe you just like to complain about some problem. And you are not at all going to turn the problem into a goal and change anything in your life. Maybe it is the constant presence of this problem that allows you to feel like a significant, necessary and good person?

Asking this question, I remember a Soviet film where the main character was called upon to identify and eliminate the cause of poor warehouse performance. As a result of his investigation, it turned out that the storekeeper deliberately created chaos in order to feel needed and important. Nobody except her, could not find the right thing. In this way she satisfied her important needs for usefulness and uniqueness.

And so, if you just want to talk about difficulties and talk about your heroic attempts to cope with them, then you will need friendly people who are willing to listen to your stories about the “unsolvable” problem. And the coach will only ruin everything for you. He will offer to turn the problem into a goal, find resources and achieve a result in which the difficulties dear to your heart will no longer exist.

I hope that you have already understood: it is better to come to a coach with your goals or be ready to transform your problems and difficulties into specific solvable tasks.

- “How is this possible, you say? What if my boss set this goal for me? Or do my relatives constantly put pressure on my brain to send out my resume faster and finally find a job?”

In this case, at the stage of researching the request you came with, the coach will quickly discover that the goal is not yours.

And what to do in such a situation?

If you decide to achieve other people's goals and insist on it - out of a sense of duty, guilt or responsibility, then most likely you will not be happy with the result, and the work process itself will bring nothing but torment. Not to mention the fact that your unconscious will definitely rebel and turn on “sabotage” mode. Are you ready for this? No?

Then there is good news!

If you want to try on a task that is not yet yours, understand what the implementation of this goal will give you personally. Or realize what exactly will not happen in your life if you give it up. Perhaps you can reframe it in a way that makes you feel good and makes you want to work towards achieving it. In this case, a coach can help you.

By the way, do you already know about your abilities and capabilities?

Download the checklist that will help you figure this out! For free!

You will need half an hour of quiet time for yourself, a pen, a cup of coffee and a good mood.

For those who find it easier to perceive information in images, I will tell you a short story - a metaphor that, in my opinion, well conveys the essence of coaching.

If you don't like the stories, then just skip this short chapter.

History is a metaphor for coaching

You go through your life. And suddenly you see a deep river on the way. “I urgently need to cross to the other side,” you think with growing anxiety. But, looking around, you don’t see anything that can help you do this. No raft, no boat, no rope, no trees, no bridge. Nothing.

You have a goal - to get to the other side. But you don't know how to do it. You feel confused, desperate, and perhaps frustrated or angry because you cannot find a way out of the situation.

Now imagine that you can simply quietly call: “Coach.” And a man will appear in front of you. Let it be a woman.

This calm and friendly woman invites you to sit down on the grass and, looking at the other side of the river, answer why you need to go there. What is so important that has brought you to such despair? When is it important for you to be there? What is stopping you from getting to the other side? And, if you look hard enough for the crossing, what could it be?

It’s interesting that when answering the coach’s questions, you may suddenly realize that that shore has nothing to do with you. And you don’t want to move there at all. Personally, it is much more important for you to walk along the shore, breathe in the fresh air, find a spreading tree and just sit, looking at the water flowing past, listening to the melodic polyphony of birds in the treetops.

But if it turns out that on the other side, for example, a loved one, a partner, a client is waiting for you, close person, and you want to get there with all your heart, then you will definitely continue to look for opportunities and resources that will allow you to overcome the obstacle.

Step by step, answering very specific questions from the coach, listening to your feelings, you suddenly notice that about five meters away from you upstream the river, the water is especially stormy. There appear to be large, flat boulders lying close to the surface at this location. You just didn't notice it before. And this is the road to the other side of the river.

Fear rolls over you like a wave, preventing you from entering the river.

The coach helps you realize that this is the fear of that little girl who was once suddenly pushed into cold water. But now it’s summer, it’s warm. There are no villains trying to pull legs or push while crossing.

It is enough to take off your shoes, take a thick stick for support and simply walk over the saving boulders to the other side.

You remember how you once jumped with a parachute to overcome your fear of heights, and how proud you were of yourself for this act. You remember that determination, courage and feeling that you can do anything you want. After all, you know within yourself that you are not lacking in courage.

You get up, pick up a stick and calmly cross to the opposite bank, experiencing pleasure from the caressing touches warm water that hugs your ankles...

A coach is an “expert” in 3D

When you are alone in your own juices, it is difficult for you to see some of the obvious and best opportunities for yourself. This is how our psyche works, protecting us and creating a safe environment for preserving what we have already achieved.

To find new opportunities, resolve internal contradiction or any conflict, you will have to break thought patterns and transform your beliefs and misconceptions. Few people can do this alone.

To do this, you need the ability to simultaneously be inside yourself and understand your inner world order, to look at yourself through the eyes of other people and without emotions - from a bird's eye view.

You need a coach in order to look at your situation from all possible points of view, play out possible scenarios of action, get off the ground, find reserves and resources in order to safely enter a new space for yourself and explore it, wondering how much is there interesting and accessible opportunities for you.

You need to get out of your routine and everyday thoughts to see yourself from the outside: through the eyes of other people involved in your projects, and through the eyes of an outside observer.

Other points of view allow you to create a 3D picture of the situation, see, hear and feel what you could never do if you were only inside yourself.

By doing this regularly, you will be surprised how the world around you expands, what details, thoughts, feelings, people appear in it.

Gradually, you will be able to track your personal patterns, learn to trust your feelings, stop blocking them in the body, leading yourself to stress and illness, you will be able to choose accurate guidelines that are in tune with your soul and move towards them.

Learn to take small steps every day, which will allow you to carry out your planned actions with pleasure.

You will get used to asking yourself what I really want, what is important for me to do in order to bring to life what makes my soul happy.

And six months later you suddenly discover

that they redid a bunch of things that they had been struggling with for years to no avail,
your life will become harmonious and balanced,
you will know what to do if suddenly there is a skew in some direction,
you will have enough time to do important things, not everything in a row, but important ones,
you will be able to make decisions without excessive internal conflicts.

And to sum it up, I'll just list 7 reasons

Why do you need a coach?

The official statement of the International Coaching Federation (ICF) states: “Coaching is an ongoing collaboration that helps clients achieve real results in your personal and professional life. Through the coaching process, clients deepen their knowledge, improve their performance and improve their quality of life.”

A coach will help you set new goals or, if necessary, change or adjust old ones. And it doesn’t matter in what area of life your goals lie: in your personal life, hobby, business, career, health, relationships, self-development.
You need a coach because he is interested in your high results.
A coach helps you understand the values and needs that allow you to express your abilities and give you strength and self-confidence.
The coach aims to unlock your potential so that you make the most of your existing skills and develop new ones that you currently lack.
A coach creates the conditions for you to find the best decisions regarding your health, relationships, money, work, self-realization, business, and other areas of life that are important to you.
The coach creates the conditions for you to make choices, make decisions, map your route, and move along the intended route at a speed that suits you. And if obstacles arise along the way, they knew what to do with them and how to transform them for the benefit of themselves and their intentions.
A coach knows how to go beyond the usual patterns of action in an environmentally friendly way, broaden your view of the situation, help you try on new behavioral strategies, understand your motivation and personal meanings that give motivation and energy.

“Coaching is based on what the client wants, who is unhappy with something in his life. A person either wants changes or achieves some important goal..... Someone can set certain goals for themselves: write a book, start their own business, improve their health. Some people want to be more successful and efficient at work. People turn to a coach to streamline and balance their lives or to achieve something more in it - more peace, more simplicity or joy; and sometimes they want something less—less clutter, less stress or financial worries. In general, people turn to a coach because they want to live better,” wrote one of the founders of coaching, L. Whitmore.

At some stage of working with a coach, you will definitely encounter internal conflict. One part of you will passionately strive to keep everything as it is. The other part will push forward and want change.

It is important to know in advance that millions of people have already successfully gone through such a situation and achieved the desired result. The main thing is to believe in yourself and trust your coach, who initially knows that you can achieve everything you need and that you have all the necessary resources for this.

If you are ready for changes in yourself and are determined to work, then a good coach will become an indispensable partner and assistant on the path to your goals.

The Village continues its New Life Week. Over the course of five days, we talk about how to change ourselves and our habits, and also try to change jobs and listen to the advice of a mentor. This material is about how a coach can change the life of an ordinary person.

I have never met a coach in person. I just read in Forbes about how large corporations hire special mentors with psychotherapeutic education for their top managers. After which top managers are transformed: they begin to sell $10 million more, manage to do 15 things a day and achieve the intended result from their subordinates.

To be honest, I have always treated psychotherapy with distrust: many of my friends have been going to psychotherapists, psychoanalysts and psychologists for years, but outwardly eke out the same miserable existence as before meeting them. They jump on motorcycles at night with dubious guys, take antidepressants and cheat on their fiancées. Dear friends say that it is always useful and pleasant to talk about yourself, but I have always had many other ways to spend money.

What captivated me in coaching was the focus on results: it seemed to me that at the age of 30 I already knew myself well enough to wander through the dark corners of my life again. inner world. So far, I don’t have any major goals - changing jobs, starting my own business, getting married or emigrating. I just want to change my lifestyle: manage my time more efficiently, get enough sleep, stop constantly looking at Facebook and juggle all my many social roles. To be a successful journalist, a good daughter, a responsible parent, a graduate student and a person with a great future.

Goals of meeting with coach

Establish time management: work at work, spend evenings with your child rather than staring at the computer, go to bed no later than 23:00, stop being distracted by social networks.

Stop feeling guilty
in front of the child, parents, colleagues, myself and the Lord God for the fact that I do everything wrong or do not have time to do it at all.

Feel more confident establish harmony with yourself and not depend so much on other people’s opinions.

About dating

The Institute of Coaching, the oldest company training coaches in Russia, helped us conduct this experiment. Yulia Tertyshnaya, head of the Moscow office, agreed to be my coach for a week. I was very worried: suddenly they would give me an energetic man with a premium smile as a mentor, who would convince me that I was wasting my life irrationally, that I should give up everything and find a better paying job, take a nanny, change my qualifications and give up creative wanderings like from a non-revenue budget item. I was afraid that in the pursuit of efficiency I would cease to be myself, lose my personality and become a function.

The first meeting with my coach started as an interview, but soon we started talking about me, my goals and way of thinking. Yulia is very gaze with an endearing, attentive focus on the interlocutor. I immediately felt embarrassed that I was not a top manager or a banker, but some kind of girl doubting her trifling thoughts. But I was glad that a woman became my coach. I doubted that I could explain to a man why I live the way I live - costly, irrational and unprofitable. And why finding time for gingerbread cookies or teaching a child to eat broccoli are no less significant achievements for me than a thirteenth salary and five subordinates.

We talked about my goals: I want to be more efficient, pack all my tasks into one week, stop feeling guilty, not depend on other people's opinions, and also understand why I always stumble in my personal life. Yulia listened carefully to my inarticulate whining, and then asked about the results of the year: why is everything so bad? Why interesting stories or the travels that happened to me are not taken into account? After this meeting, I felt like a master at devaluing my own achievements, unable to be a support for myself.

It was a very unusual feeling: as if stranger on the street he takes a coin from behind your ear. It was as if Julia stuck her hand into my chest, pulled out the core, plopped it on a cutting board, made a cut and let me see how simply my decision-making center was structured. I was taken by surprise, like Colin Firth’s character in the movie “Moonlight Magic”: it’s amazing how a person can be blind and unfair to himself. And how difficult it is to feel a true relationship without outside help.

Unlike psychotherapy, coaching is limited in time: these are 10 weekly one-hour meetings, during which the coach reviews the past week, plans future tasks with the client and sets deadlines for their completion, and also analyzes where the client needs his support. But since we had little time for the experiment, we agreed that we would meet every day at 09:00 and conduct our meetings via Skype. One day - a week.

Coach's comment

When we agreed on this format (that we would live a week in one day), I was a little scared, because Sasha, fitting into this story, did not understand what awaited her, and I understood that we were going into depth, looking at the intentions behind actions. The volume of this work that the psyche does is colossal, and it adds additional burden to ordinary life. On the third day I asked: “How are you generally feeling?” It was important for me to understand that she could do it and that her psyche could handle it. I think that young age and ease were beneficial. If the psyche had been more rigid, we might not have achieved such results. The regime of one meeting per week allows a person to comprehend, digest and integrate the results of our work. When he comes to the next meeting, I ask the question: “Tell me what happened this week?” And it becomes clear that it has taken root, and, based on this, we moved on.

About work

Yulia and I agreed that I would send a report every day about three achievements per day. The first days I had to suck them out of my finger. It seemed to me that I had nothing worth mentioning, extra person, I didn’t do it that day.

Coach's comment

In order to reformat the habit of scolding herself all the time, devaluing everything that happens, keeping the focus on what did not work out, I offered Sasha an exercise: look at her day and choose three things where she was impeccable.

I had a lot of paperwork to do this week: registering my child for school, getting a visa and a resident agreement for parking. In bureaucratic matters, I feel as insecure and unprotected as possible, small and a priori guilty of being born into the world. Perhaps this is the meaning of the existence of public places - to humble pride. Julia taught me to break down big and scary tasks into small and manageable ones. If I was afraid to call someone, we looked at the most terrible scenarios of how everything could end, and, in general, they turned out to be not so terrible. The anxiety went away, and I coped: things got done. These were just calls and just conversations, not burdened by fictitious experiences. That's why they didn't take up as much energy. With this feeling of a small victory over my fear, the day went on more cheerfully.

During our reality audit, it turned out that in my speculations about other people, I go into internal games and an artificial world of fantasy experiences that have nothing to do with reality. Julia advised me to ask other people if what I think or feel about them is true. For example: “Am I really that hard? Am I right in feeling that I’m causing you unnecessary problems?”

We worked with the scenarios that I live by, and it became clear that I, in general, are their author, which means I can change them.

At the first meeting, we began to understand my approach to work. This is such a simple idea that time is the same limited resource as money, but it always seems that there will be more. To learn to concentrate, Yulia advised setting a timer for 30 minutes and during this time not being distracted by anything. After 30 minutes, look back and make a decision: continue working or take a break. Of course, I've heard about this approach, but when you have to report on the work done in the evening, you pay more attention to what is addressed specifically to you, and not to the life hack shared on Facebook.

At first it was quite difficult not to check my email every 10 minutes and read Skype, Facebook and Whatsapp over and over again, but over time I began to enjoy how much I managed to do in those 40 minutes. After a few days of training, I already set the timer for 60 minutes, and managed to complete the amount of work that previously could have taken me a whole working day.

To improve relationships with colleagues, Julia advised me to watch out for when I place my countless expectations on them and get angry that they don’t meet them. I learned to verbalize all conflicts through the formula: “When you (do something), I feel (this), I would prefer (this).” It allows me to make it clear to my interlocutor what exactly bothers me, without throwing spears, books and telephone handsets. (I haven’t learned this yet with my colleagues; this phrase seems a little artificial to me, but with my daughter, when she doesn’t listen to me, we started talking this way.)

About personal life

After I realized that I immediately build stories about any men I barely know for 25 years in advance, Yulia suggested that I try to be with them here and now. To feel like an attractive woman, I learned to flirt for fun, without the intention of a common mortgage and the prospects of past years. It turned out to be quite difficult - probably the most difficult task for me.

Meeting after meeting, we sorted out different pieces of my existence: relationships with colleagues, with friends, with parents, men, with a child and ex-husband, with money and priorities.

We worked with my guilt and its origins, and for the first time I understood where it came from and why I believed in it. I also realized that, unable to cope with this guilt alone, I projected it onto my relationship partners. Despite the fact that there was a lot of joy and happiness in our relationship, I used to feel that they were deeply to blame for me and often could not forgive them for much. Of course, no one is to blame, and it would be good to end any relationship with gratitude.

Coach's comment

We lack female initiations in the culture. We are totally dependent on our mother and how much she helped us in adolescence to cope with the feelings that washed over us: “Am I okay as a young woman? Am I like this or not?” We don’t know ourselves in this and we don’t have any support in this. “What kind of woman am I? How do I want to reveal the feminine side in my life? - Thirty-year-olds have a huge question. They don’t know what they want, as if they don’t even have the idea of a family that would suit them.

We examined my obsession with importance own opinion, and the need to give other people the opportunity to express their opinions, which will enrich my understanding of reality.

One of the sessions was dedicated to my daily routine. Julia said a simple but true idea that learning to go to bed on time is like quitting smoking. This is difficult because it requires forming a new lifestyle, a new habit.

Going to bed at 23:00 was beyond my strength. Even if I went to bed at eleven, I couldn’t fall asleep before two. But at 09:00 our sessions began, which means that we need to have time to feed the child, collect and take him to kindergarten and then return home. But when you start getting up at 07:30, the desire to go to bed at 02:00 subsides.

For several days I was angry and sleep-deprived: I threw myself at people and was angry with the child, but soon I began to enjoy the “gentle light” that paints the “walls.” ancient Kremlin"at half past seven. Even on weekends I now get up at nine and go for a run. And this is a damn cool feeling that makes you proud of yourself day after day.