Ignite, Accelerate and Drive Your 2021!

By Teresa Peters

I love using car metaphors. With a business named ‘Accelerator Coaching’, it’s the only way to steer this article. To find the right satnav coordinates, we need to run an MOT on ourselves before we can turn on the ignition. We wouldn’t put all our family in a car and drive off without having a clue where we are driving to and, yet, most of us live life this way. Let’s find the fuel for 2021 and, yes, there will be roadblocks and roadworks but we will get there by using some of these tips:

1. START WITH A PERSONAL MOT

Personal assessments can help you determine which areas to coach yourself in order to improve your life. You can visit my wheel of life and business article to take a helicopter view of your whole life and business right now. This helps you to identify where you are right now. You can also complete a DiSC assessment with a certified licensed deliverer to help you to solve the people puzzle and maximise your communication skills with family, clients and colleagues.

2. ASK POWERFUL QUESTIONS

Powerful questions are the cornerstone of coaching; all coaches use them. Questions provoke you to look for an answer in a particular direction. A powerful (open) question starting with ‘How’ or ‘What’ is expansive and opens up further avenues for exploration. This also increases engagement when emailing teams and clients. Close-ended questions starting with ‘Why’ or ‘Do’ usually elicit a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer - there's no depth for further exploration. Powerful questions invite introspection, present additional solutions, and lead to greater sensitivity and insight. Powerful questions provoke people to look within for the answers to what they really want. The powerful question is powerful because it makes people stop and respond from the heart.

Here are some powerful questions you can use to help you coach yourself:

• Where do I want to be in 5 years? 10 years? 

• What do I want to do when I retire? How can I best prepare for my retirement?

• What is the biggest challenge I have now?

• What is my most urgent problem? What needs immediate attention?

• If I could have anything, what would it be?

• What am I wasting my time with? What is holding me back the most? 

• What am I putting up with? What am I tolerating? What drains my energy?

• What is my business vision? What is my life vision?

• What opportunities do I have now? What opportunities am I missing?

• What changes would I make now? 

• What risks do I need to take? What am I waiting for?

• What are my goals? What are my priority goals?

• What does my ideal life look like?

• What are my passions? What gives me the most joy? What motivates me?

• What is my purpose in life?

• What skills do I most want to/need to learn?

• Where am I out-of-balance? Where am I stuck?

• Do I have enough fun in my life?

• How is my self-esteem?

• What will I have regretted not doing at the end of my life? When can I do it?

• Who is my support system? Do I need a larger support system?

3. DAILY HABITS - TIE IN A WANT WITH A NEED

It is so important to take care of yourself! Nurture yourself! Be Selfish!

This simple habit can change your life. I WANT to run but I NEED to study and walk the dog. The solution is to listen to webinars or audiobooks whilst running or taking out the dog.

I WANT to get fit but I NEED to work all day. Could you step back and assess who you can call whilst walking? How else can you work without having to sit all day long?

Tying in a WANT with a NEED is a great way to start.

4. REDUCE YOUR TOLERATIONS

Tolerations are events, people, or situations you put up with that drain your energy - see my article about the circle of influence in December’s issue. Make a list of all the things you are tolerating and decide if these should go into your circle of concern (reactive) or circle of influence (proactive).

5. BECOME IRRESISTIBLY ATTRACTIVE

Learn to attract what you want into your life. If you’ve watched the film The Secret, you’ll learn all about the law of attraction. Simply repeat to yourself every day ‘I am great at…’, or ‘I’m excellent at…’. Say it in the present tense as if you are already living the dream: ‘I am the best business coach in the north’ whilst picturing it daily. You will attract based on how you think!

6. RADIATOR ACCELERATOR

There are radiators and drains in life. Choose who you need and want to be around to enable you to grow.

7. USE YOUR MIRROR TO REFLECT ON YOUR PASSION

Do you have passion in your life? What is passion? Make a list of all the things you loved doing as a child; make a list of all the things you do NOW when you feel passion. Compare the two lists - what do you notice? How can you start doing again what you loved to do?

Create a collage or make a list in a journal of all the passionate activities you want to/like to engage in.

Notice people whom you consider are passionate: what are their traits? How can you emulate them?

8. ACCELERATE YOUR SELF-ESTEEM

I believe confidence to be external and self-esteem to be more internal. I personally had huge amounts of confidence as a child but a very low self-esteem. Through coaching and being coached, I’ve increased my self-esteem and it’s now well above average in my EQ (emotional quotient) scores.

What is self-esteem? It’s appreciating my own worth and importance and having the character to be accountable for myself and to act responsibly towards others.

Can we continue to build our self-esteem as we grow older? Nathaniel Branden, the author of The Six Pillars of Self Esteem, states that a commitment to awareness - the will to understand - is the central pillar of positive self-esteem.

There are many other ways we can coach ourselves or find a coach to build our self-esteem: emotional intelligence questionnaires, DiSC, strength questionnaires, VAK, my new Gob Stopper course and by eliciting limiting beliefs. Once we raise our self-awareness, we have the ability to be more aware, assertive and to take action.

9. TAKE RESPONS’ABILITY’ AS THE DRIVER

Whenever we take a risk, we learn something and we grow!

Taking risks also requires getting over your fears.

Coach yourself to get out of your comfort zone and risk to achieve the life you want!

10. MEASURE YOUR FUEL

To thrive, indeed just to survive, we need connection - which hasn’t been easy for many of us so far in 2021. How strong are your connections? You can coach yourself to create a stronger, more loving support system!

Make a list of all the people you know: family, friends, colleagues, acquaintances, service providers, physicians/dentists, therapists, teachers. Examine the list to determine who supports you and who doesn't, who nurtures you, who drains you, who builds your self-esteem, and who diminishes it. Be more conscious about whom you want to be around and whom you want to avoid. Try to get the negative people out of your life and spend more time with the positive people. Seek out more positive people and positive role models/mentors.

Support to ACCELERATE your business

You can see my video here with some questions to help you identify your support network for your business and career.

FULL SERVICE

As more and more people discover the value of coaching, they will want to learn the benefits of coaching. If you’re great at online study and at disciplining yourself – fantastic! I’d love to hear how you get on with using all the tools above.

In terms of embedding your learnings about yourself and staying motivated, 1:1 Coaching and Group Coaching both offer wonderful interventions and WILL change your life personally and professionally. Which road do you want to take?

Teresa Peters is our resident Geordie Accelerator Coach! Do you find yourself driving through a thick fog because your personal life and business has become convoluted? As an ICF accredited Executive Coach and Personal Performance Coach, Teresa empowers you to find clarity, focus and transformation, both professionally and personally, using a solution- focused approach and DiSC profiling. She has 2 successful businesses – one as co-founder of a book publisher for the hospitality sector (which has had to pause during lockdown) and her main business – Accelerator Coaching . 

Teresa offers a range of online and face to face support services to both male and female business owners and their teams. She finds great joy in working with couples and families who run businesses together, those making life changing decisions post redundancy or post hysterectomy who need a dynamic energetic champion and critical friend to unleash their full potential.