Transition Coaching
Transition Coaching
Change can be wonderful and exciting, but it can also instill fear and anxiety. We fear what the future may bring. In the workplace, we fear that new technologies and new procedures might make us redundant, or at the least appear incompetent. We employ much of our energy coping with what is already happening to us and around us, sometimes to the extent where we feel we are just 'keeping it together'. We fear that change will destabilize us because we do not have the energy or strategies to cope with new demands.
Of course, some of us welcome change for its own sake, regardless of the costs and benefits. Generally, though, change is difficult for most of us. It can challenge our values, our beliefs and even our very notion of who we are.
The Nature of Change
There are several techniques or strategies for dealing with change and our resistance to it.
We cling to certainty and permanence, yet live in a universe where death is the only certainty and impermanence underscores all of existence. Everything and everyone is constantly undergoing change. To recognise the impermanence on an intellectual level may not be too demanding, but living it is extremely difficult.
Yet, even some recognition of lifes impermanence can impact on our behaviour - we can begin to live more fully in the present, be less conditioned by the past and less fearful of the future.
Coaching is about moving forward and, to that extent, can be said to be future-orientated. Yet again we emphasize that coaching is a process - a process of change and self-awareness that is firmly grounded in the present. The changing and development are as important as the end result.
Coaches work with their clients to enhance their life situations - their work, home, interpersonal, social, and spiritual lives. While goals, action plans and forward action are always crucial to a successful coaching intervention, the coach and coachee should be situated in the now of the coaching relationship. Both need to be aware of its shifting, changing landscape and be able to move freely within it, accepting and embracing change as a fundamental truth of existence.
Why change is difficult
Change means an alteration in our world, an interruption of how we usually cope with the world, with ourselves and with others. Change is a beginning and signifies the end of something.
It is the most common situation causing anxiety and feelings of helplessness because it always means some disruption of ties or relationships.
Change is difficult because it takes time and effort and because it is a gradual process and not a 'quick fix'. It requires patience and tolerance for our failure to change and develop as quickly as we expect or sometimes demand off ourselves. Change is uneven and it is easy to become discouraged when everything seems static and our efforts appear to be in vain. In such instances, there is a tendency to revert to form, to our habitual responses, thoughts and feelings.
Even if the change is positive, such as moving to a new or bigger home or a new job, it is still stressful. One way of dealing with stress, of course, is resistance.
Another barrier to change is a deep-seated belief that 'we are who we are' and that our personalities are fixed. Coaching is based on the assumption that humans can unlearn old behaviours and learn more adaptive ones, and grow and develop. Our adaptability underpins the fundamental principles if coaching.
This does not to deny that change is difficult, sometimes painful and frequently uneven and erratic. Noone can make another person change. They may induce compliance, but profound, lasting change can only originate from within the individual concerned.