Personal Development Coach: Life Coaching to Uncover the Real You

Dissolve the hidden, negative beliefs that sabotage your freedom. Personal development is the quest to express all that you really are.

As a personal development coach, my aim is to create a warm, reflective space in which you feel free to explore your own story, guided by values like those expressed here:

Friends -
Leave for a while the busy city
And take the Aryan Way into the delectable mountains.
There find a vantage point -
See see how the fearful clamour
Dies behind you!
Listen, there, for that other voice:
Of wind, echoing distance ...
And of creatures gentler than men.
There you may enter the Great Abiding
Which - if it comes to you -
Will remain ...
Even when you return to the busy city.

I first read this Tibetan blessing when I was about 16. I've a mind like a sieve when it comes to memorising poetry, yet I've always remembered this.

It seems to capture the essence of my approach - as a personal development coach - to life coaching as a process to enhance personal growth.

'Leaving the busy city' and 'going to the delectable mountains' are both a metaphor and a practice:

1. They're metaphors for getting to know your own inner landscape, to find that there is a marvellous Presence behind the fearful clamour.
2. They also suggest that one way of developing spiritually - of entering a personal development process that leads to waking up, becoming fully conscious - is to become immersed in nature.

Being immersed in nature might mean sinking your fingers in the soil of an inner city window-box or it may mean time off in big country. An awareness of the abiding presence of natural cycles has a remarkably levelling, soothing effect.

A personal development coach accompanies, doesn't instruct or advise:

I'm here to notice, to be curious about decisions and the beliefs and values that guide you ... and to draw them to your attention.

Whether you're just leaving the city, you're experiencing the foothills; or your trekking into the mountains, I hope there's something here for you. As I write this, I'm aware that there is more stuff here for you guys who are leaving the city or entering the foothills at the moment. But sign up for the free personal development program (see top of right column) and you'll get an introduction to the whole personal development process.

As a personal development coach, what do I offer:

You'll want to know if this approach will work with you. You'll want to know whether this is the right site for you.

This home page sketches out my approach as a personal development coach – the beliefs and values  that underpin how I work – and what makes this approach different.

Then – if you like what you read – you might like to sign up for the free ebook, Writing for a Change. The link is at the bottom of this page.

I guess you're searching for personal development plans and ideas because you are experiencing something like this ...

Maybe you feel "stuck" - you see patterns repeating in your life, like debt, addiction, disrespectful relationships, and other kinds of strife and unhappiness.

You may feel powerless to make decisive and permanent changes.

"Go with the flow" might sound great in theory, but what if you continually waste energy swimming against the tide? Exhaustion, anxiety and illness may follow.
You may be experiencing situations and feelings like these:

• feeling at odds with yourself or those closest to you
• wondering who is the 'real you' ... perhaps they've not been around for a while and you're missing her or him
• a working life that has become unfulfilling
• troubled relationships: new partner ... same outcome
• new job, same bullying boss or backbiting co-workers
• repeating the same experiences despite your best efforts to change
• feelings of emptiness - "What was all this for?" - in the midst of financial and material success
• a feeling that you're wasting energy repeating old arguments
• life may have lost meaning and purpose
• perhaps the stress of all this is affecting your health
• .........

What are your own personal development concerns? Fill in the empty space!

It is likely you also know - somewhere in your water! - that you are capable of a more fulfilling life, that "There's more to me than this!"

Personal development

And you know - you just know - that your current experiences aren't inevitable ... that healing, personal growth and positive changes are possible. Not just possible, even. Your birthright. But that certainty can evaporate all too easily.

This can be confusing or tantalizing - you can almost touch the real you. They pop their head out often enough to remind you they're still there. But then they duck down below the surface again - avoiding something or other.

Personal development?

The phrase can sound a little paltry when we consider that this is our lives we are talking about!

Here's Irish poet, philosopher and mystic, John O'Donohue's call to come to life, to express your humanity fully as he describes attending the deathbed of a rogue at the end of a life lived wholeheartedly!

Are you at a time of momentous choice in your own life?

Personal development coaching is about re-connecting with that part of you who tends to be “what you are not.” That positive, life-affirming you is still there, waiting for you to call its name.

Many of us feel that we have lost some inner spark ... the inner fire that used to guide our actions in a freer, happier time. You may have experienced that as creativity, living with exciting possibilities – life was your oyster!

For all of us our personal development – that is, the way we develop as people – starts off in the control of others: parents, teachers, friends and the norms of the society we grow up in. There's a painful process of learning to be how others want us to be. We all undergo it. Part of the process is necessary, even. A bit like emotional 'growing pains'.

But getting stuck with a negative self-image, low self esteem and repeating 'mistakes' means that you've not been able to work through the lessons life is trying to teach you. Sooner or later – often starting during the rebellious stage of adolescence – we need to start to rebuild our self in our own image.

We're all the result of our past experiences – and the lessons we learned from them.

It's called conditioning, or socialisation. One best-selling author calls it 'domestication,' which really emphasizes the 'big-stick' nature of the experience!

You've probably heard the saying, “As bends the sapling, so grows the tree.” It's the same idea.

As a personal development coach, I help you to discover how to undermine the forces that restrict your growth. That tree can grow to become tall and elegant, reflecting its true nature.

The 'stunting' effects of your conditioning – your 'domestication' – are  not inevitable.

Early personal development

Way before we think, talk and reason, we store up experiences that impact who we are and who we become. As children, we are largely powerless to stop this process. And we simply forget that our view of the world and ourselves was formed or shaped in any way by external forces.

So at the beginning, our personal development is controlled by more powerful adults around us, who mould us according to what they think best.

What we're left with are beliefs about how the world works – and who we are.

We experience these beliefs as 'The Truth' about what makes the world tick ... and what makes us tick!

But we have a choice

We can choose to empower those beliefs to restrict us (simply by continuing to believe they are true). For example ...

Your inner foe says:

• “You can't ...”
• “You'll never ...”
• “You ought to ...”
• “You don't have enough ...”
• “Your body's too ...”

Do you feel you energy and vitality sink as you repeat these phrases?

Would you be that critical of your best friend? How come you treat yourself that way?

Or we can embark on a journey to discover what those beliefs are, question whether they are useful or helpful in our lives ... and drop them if they are not.

Your inner friend says:

• “You can ...”
• “You will ...”
• “You have all I need to ...”
• “You are am able to ...”

Are these phrases energizing? Do they lift your spirits?

Personal development coaching: how?

First – avoid critical voices and drama. Ramping up self-criticism adds to the weight of baggage you carry. So does endless thinking, rehearsing new scripts and introspection. Repeatedly re-experiencing painful episodes is not the way, in my opinion.

My experience is that

• self awareness,
• an active, non-judgemental approach
• child like curiosity about your inner life
• active self acceptance adds up to ...
• what might be called the Way of the Authentic Warrior

is more psychologically astute, effective – and just plain quicker – than confrontational, no-pain-no-gain approaches. This is a path to personal development that respects your authentic self as your own best teacher.

Simply taking time out to hold the many voices, points-of-view, ideas, opinions, thoughts, masks and beliefs that make up the story of who we are in awareness creates the conditions for change. Fighting and struggling with who you are creates resistance and pain.

Yes, you will need to be resolute, purposeful, courageous. You will experience memories, feelings and emotions that are difficult. Humour is indispensable!

But there, one step ahead, clearing the way through the undergrowth is the real you, preparing the  way home.

You drop shame, embrace power.

You nurture your own inner spark until it blazes up and provides you with the security of clear inner guidance.

The approach is nurturing. At 57 years old, it has developed over a working life focused on health, personal development, growth and change. There's more about me here.

My aim as a personal development coach and the aim of the personal development plans and exercises you'll find here is to strengthen your connection to the real you, your original power and potential.

Stay in touch with Deeper Coaching?

If you want to stay in touch, the simplest thing to do is to click on the RSS feed. That way we'll 'ping' you any time anything new is added.

A step further would be to sign up for my mailing list.

Keeping a personal development journal is one way to help you can support your own personal development journey. Sign up for the free ebook and I'll sign you up to my mailing list.

 

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Where to next?

This home page should have given you a reasonable overview of personal development coaching.

The next page in the introduction helps you answer the question, "Is this me?" by giving examples of the kinds of people and issues I tend to focus on, and that I have most experience of working with.

Find it at personal development coaching.

Want to stay in touch, get the Deeper Coaching newsletter and receive the free downloads? Subscribe on the contact deeper coaching page.

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Online personal development coach; Newcastle Gateshead, Tyneside, Tyne and Wear, UK

Copyright © Robert Fordham and Deeper Coaching.