This week’s blog has been written by The Coaching Academy Graduate, Laura O'Shaughnessy, Laura shares with us her tips for staying and present this festive period using the CALM framework. Read on to learn more…
For those who celebrate, Christmas is a unique season, one that is here to bring us harmony and common humanity, but one that often serves up additional angst with a side helping of exhaustion.
In fact, it’s the only time of the year where both coaches and clients are swept into the same temporary state of flux, with pending deadlines and multiple commitments, some of which may compromise both our core values and our personal growth plan.
With that insight in mind, I think there’s a special opportunity for us coaches (and trainees) to rise-up, to tune into our clients’ challenges, offering both support and strength. In doing so, we can help them navigate Christmas with greater ease and grace.
As empathetic coaches we must help our clients find a realistic path through the season. It’s a delicate balance. We must help them hold faith in their visions, whilst considering coping mechanisms for the pending distractions that could compromise their progress.
Here’s a few things we need to be mindful of, particularly for those clients whose goals focus on healthy habit formation:
There are four simple practices of peace that may help both client and coach at this time of year. I will be keeping these front-of-mind in my sessions, but also be using them as a guide for wellbeing in my own life. Have a think about how you could embody these into your offering over the coming weeks and days:
As challenging as a big jolt in routine can be, it can also offer a good opportunity for us to pause and reset. Encouraging clients to consider what’s gone well in 2023 will allow them to recognise the progress they’ve made, providing positive and valuable reflection. Perhaps also invite your client to take away some vision exercises. Thinking about where we positively want to take our lives in the year to come is a nourishing way to sooth ourselves when everything feels so full on.
Christmas is a good chance for us to play with ‘letting go’. To see how far we’ve come in our understanding of things we can change and the things we most certainly cannot.
By resisting any idea, viewpoint or event, we effectively go into battle (even if just with ourselves). I’ll be prompting my clients and myself to consider what acceptance could look like. Perhaps this season we’ll find space to drop down our position of being ‘right’, with the kids, the parents, the partners, the friends. Perhaps we’ll find freedom and neutrality through acceptance and good grace.
There may never a more poignant time to embody compassion for those we love, but also to give back care and affection to ourselves. Explore questions and techniques that give your clients solace and personal protection, but also allow them to plough loving energy back into their own hearts as we close out the year.
I will be gifting some tried and tested guided meditations in these December sessions. Giving clients a moment to remember how much they deserve to take care of themselves, as well as they take care of others.
This is a hard one when it comes to busy periods. However, mindfulness is potentially the most effective way to bring momentary calm, so we can enjoy all the magic of Christmas.
When you’re in the here and now, you catch the good bits. You read the room and ride people’s emotions before they blow. You see people’s eyes light up, you realise that food tastes amazing, you enjoy what’s right there before you.
Have a look at simple mindful exercises that engage your client’s senses, giving them a special anchor that will help ground them through the seasonal period.
We’ve all got the skills to not just survive, but to build in enjoyment and thrive this season. I truly hope you and your clients land it safely and have happy hearts this Christmas.
Bio:
Laura is a Coaching Academy graduate, who now runs her own successful coaching business called The Good Vibrations Project. With a background in branding, she’s spent her career helping businesses develop their identity and communicate effectively through an understanding of what sits at the heart of their brand. Armed with these enriching skills and her coaching qualifications, she’s now helping individuals understand what sits at their core. Laura is passionate about helping people connect with their authentic selves to build inner strength and lead fulfilling, purposeful lives.
The Coaching Academy was established in 1999, and is now the world's largest coaching school.
In that time we have trained over 14,000 people to become life coaches.
We are accredited by the International Coach Federation and the Association for Coaching, and we're rated 4.8 out of 5 on Trustpilot.
