Evoking Transformation: Get Your Body To Move

The problem is how do you get new habits to stick so that coaching sessions are effective for all clients and in the long term.

Coaches are all supposed to be trained in a particular model or methodology that allows them to guide a client through to reach their specific set of goals or next level of growth. For executive clients, their focus may be company or performance related. For business owners, it may be creating a shared vision. In my coaching practice, the manifesto is around legacy building as I saw a void in the marketplace in the support the 10% of society who is interested in this topic needs when defining, developing and executing their own legacy. The legacy could be the "idea" of them, the survival of their family or the cohesiveness of their family business.

Yes, it is personal for each client as they understand what it is they bring to the table in their wisdom and voice, what they want to leave behind (in how they are remembered) as well as how they can live their guiding principles today so as to create lasting memories.

One tool in the Co-Active model is to evoke transformation and what better way than to ask the client to move. Yes, to ask them if they would stand up out of their chair and perhaps, look out their office window or just, shift their energy to create new patterns.

When working the exercise known as the "balance wheel" related to conscious choice, this coaching session may happen 100% where the client is standing and moving around. Even to the finale where they place a demarcation line on their carpet or hardwood floors, in crossing over in their commitment to their next step of "forwarding" their goals.

While the intention may not be exercise, movement does have an effect on the body while learning. Similar to how "including play" allows for change and new habits easier in the mind-body connection. While movement aids a client in getting unstuck [when talking about difficult subjects], it also creates fun.

Fun, like play and imagination, helps with clients gaining new insights, awareness around possibilities and reminding them they are at choice. When I can get clients out of their chair, it can become a multi-sensory experience that propels them forward with their creating their conceptual legacy into reality. It's one thing if I ask about their senses with existing or future decisions and it's another thing if they can feel and embrace it when moving around.

If possible, I ask clients to have their coaching sessions on their back deck or in their backyard in an environment of nature and fresh air. If they are in the middle of the work day, and wearing a suit, I ask if perhaps there is an office deck or some private outdoor space where they can speak and move freely. Not under a microscope.

If and when clients can see we are entering an adventure together, a "legacy journey", the flow and momentum become easier compared to rigid when new ideas come into the coaching session. When a client moves their position in a room or their outdoor environment, they can mentally align a new "way of thinking or seeing something" with a physical change of perspective where the internal can match the external.

As problems can be heavy and consuming to the client, in what is real for them, asking them to get out of their chair reminds them they are also physically at choice to not allow the heaviness to lead them, their emotions or their decisions.

The bottom line is it allows clients to see their space as a positive anchor where they found solutions. Or where the painful or ordinary becomes the extraordinary.