2009 - The Year for Performance
I read a newspaper article last year. The typical thing, a journalist using a coach and questioning whether it wasn’t just common sense. Sure, ‘nothing as uncommon as common sense’ they say.
There are a couple of prerequisites to being coached effectively:
Firstly you need to want to improve your performance
Secondly, in some shape or form, you must want to be coached!
2008 saw two massive improvements in performance for me. In addition to a huge amount of coach development through my PGC in Executive Coaching at the University Strathclyde Business School, I also engaged the services of two professional coaches for my own performance in different activities; sailing and skiing.
Charlotte, a long time friend and professional as the Scottish National Watersports Centre gave me a couple of half day sessions around performance sailing in preparation for my own RYA Dinghy Coach’s update. This is a qualification I have help for 20 or so years and needs revalidation from time to time. Coupled with my own reading, practice and development plan, the sessions with Charlotte literally catapulted my performance.
Full on practice - review – practice in challenging conditions.
Then this Christmas, to develop my skiing I engaged the services of Christiane, a professional with the Ecole de Ski Français in Les Houches by Chamonix where I hang out. This guy is good. 58 years old and an ex army instructor who now teaches skiing in winter and chills out with tennis and golf come summer. Christiane’s approach was push you as far as you can go, take you beyond it and teach you how to be comfortable in this new place. Brilliant.
We skied everything. Ice, powder, perfect pistes and forests. My favourite pastime was to tuck right in behind him and ski where he skied and boy what a ride that was! Initially I was down for 3 2.5 hour sessions. I extended it to 5.
The last 4 seasons have seen me work on a number of things. Progress yes, breakthrough no! What I realised very early on in these coached sessions was that I was focusing on the wrong things, and as any Jedi knows ‘Focus is Reality’. Through the coaching approach of Christiane I was able to apply focus to the right things and create a new reality. I would not have achieved this without him.
What both these cases illustrate is that where performance is sought in any arena, work or sport, don’t mess around. Get a coach in to help you work your mix. You might get there yourself if you through enough resources at it. Might!
I read a newspaper article last year. The typical thing, a journalist using a coach and questioning whether it wasn’t just common sense. Sure, ‘nothing as uncommon as common sense’ they say.
There are a couple of prerequisites to being coached effectively:
Firstly you need to want to improve your performance
Secondly, in some shape or form, you must want to be coached!
2008 saw two massive improvements in performance for me. In addition to a huge amount of coach development through my PGC in Executive Coaching at the University Strathclyde Business School, I also engaged the services of two professional coaches for my own performance in different activities; sailing and skiing.
Charlotte, a long time friend and professional as the Scottish National Watersports Centre gave me a couple of half day sessions around performance sailing in preparation for my own RYA Dinghy Coach’s update. This is a qualification I have help for 20 or so years and needs revalidation from time to time. Coupled with my own reading, practice and development plan, the sessions with Charlotte literally catapulted my performance.
Full on practice - review – practice in challenging conditions.
Then this Christmas, to develop my skiing I engaged the services of Christiane, a professional with the Ecole de Ski Français in Les Houches by Chamonix where I hang out. This guy is good. 58 years old and an ex army instructor who now teaches skiing in winter and chills out with tennis and golf come summer. Christiane’s approach was push you as far as you can go, take you beyond it and teach you how to be comfortable in this new place. Brilliant.
We skied everything. Ice, powder, perfect pistes and forests. My favourite pastime was to tuck right in behind him and ski where he skied and boy what a ride that was! Initially I was down for 3 2.5 hour sessions. I extended it to 5.The last 4 seasons have seen me work on a number of things. Progress yes, breakthrough no! What I realised very early on in these coached sessions was that I was focusing on the wrong things, and as any Jedi knows ‘Focus is Reality’. Through the coaching approach of Christiane I was able to apply focus to the right things and create a new reality. I would not have achieved this without him.
What both these cases illustrate is that where performance is sought in any arena, work or sport, don’t mess around. Get a coach in to help you work your mix. You might get there yourself if you through enough resources at it. Might!
