I listened to the song Changes by David Bowie and it got me thinking. Change is inevitable. It is the one constant in our lives we can count on.

The real question is, how do you handle change?

Change is something that most people think about one time a year; the day the calendar changes from this year to next. How many of you have stuck to those New Year resolutions?

The reality is that change is difficult.

But difficult does not always mean ‘bad’. Studies show change can be good. They have shown patients with Alzheimer’s disease who were moved to a new care facility or to a new room made new synapses in their brain. Change forces your brain to work differently. Change makes you grow. Some changes can be very slight and yet make a huge impact. Some changes can be drastic and in the end only affect your bottom line in a small way. In my work, I find it is the constant small changes that add up to a huge impact.

So why talk about change today? I am always looking ahead and setting new goals and milestones that I want to accomplish. The first step in making changes is to clarify what those changes are. Maybe you want to be in better shape or lose weight, maybe you want to produce more than you did last month.

As a coach, my job is to is to help teams figure out what their goals are and what action steps are required to reach them.

Getting the most from a coaching relationship means that coaches need your help in clarifying what change you would like to see in your practice. You can focus on systems, or you can focus on production. You can focus on whatever is top of your mind.

How do you get the most out of coaching? You must set your goals. We have to have a vision to guide us towards your goals, but if you can’t succinctly state your goals we are going to have a hard time reaching them. I am reminded of a quote by Einstein which said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. We have to be willing to change something to see a different result.

 

What are you willing to change?