Coaching Blog
The Coaching Group Of Switzerland

Are you creative?
Would being more creative so you can better navigate the daily ups and downs of your life?
 
As an executive coach and writer of murder mysteries (currently working on the third book in a series), expanding my creativity is essential. First thing in the morning, I like to read thought-provoking books. Reading while sipping coffee starts my day with energy and depth.
 
The book I’m reading now is The Creative Act: A Way of Being, by Rick Rubin. 
 
Rick Rubin is an eccentric and acclaimed music executive and producer who, in 2003, revitalized Johnny Cash’s career. In 2007, he was dubbed "the most important producer of the last 20 years" by MTV and was named on Time Magazine’s list of the “100 Most Influential People in the World.”
 
In this book, released in January 2023, Rubin asserts that we are all creative. Without creativity, we could not survive in the world. He writes:
To create is to bring something into existence that wasn’t there before. It could be a conversation, the solution to a problem, a note to a friend, the rearrangement of furniture in a room, a new route home to avoid a traffic jam.

Whether it excites us or paralyses us, change is an inevitable part of life and leadership. In today's fast-paced and dynamic business world, leaders must navigate change successfully to ensure that they and their organisations can adapt, grow, and thrive. In this article, we'll explore seven key strategies that you can use to develop the skills and mindset needed to navigate change successfully.

When faced with a difficult decision it is important to know that you always have choices. It is hard to realize there is more than one solution to any given problem. One important life skill to learn is how to find those choices when faced with a difficult decision. With this skill, life becomes easier to keep in balance. More balance means less stress.
 
Think of a situation you are facing and see if any of the comments below can be applied:

Which of us doesn’t want to have a good life? Who doesn’t want to be enough? With a lovely house and garden, sweet children, a loving spouse, who come together for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. A life filled with good friends who celebrate over an elaborate meal and extended family that come together often with smiles and hugs. A life with a rewarding job that appreciates your work and brings out your best.
While these scenarios might be things that people dream about, they are scenes from stock photos, advertising campaigns, lifestyle shows, and social media influencers. Yet they inspire us to want to be perfect, to have perfect lives. They prey on our feelings that we are not enough. Then, for many of us, the drive to have a perfect life overwhelms.

In her book, End the Struggle and Dance With Life, Susan called the drive to always be perfect an addiction. Always having to be the best, always going above and beyond, always having to prove yourself are just ways of trying to show the world, and yourself, that you are good enough. Being a perfectionist, while it might look as if everything is fantastic, takes its toll on our health and our relationships. It can also hold us back from new opportunities.

All those images and videos we see of perfect-looking people living perfect lives only has the echo of truth in them. What we never see in those images is the mess behind the camera. The other people working behind those scenes to make the illusion seem real. So while those images make us feel as if we are less than perfect, they only represent something superficially “perfect.”

The reason our addiction to perfection can be so devastating is that we believe our self-worth is measured by our performance. But since no one is perfect, it is impossible to attain self-worth through perfection.
​
Trying to be perfect in everything we do is only a means to feel as if we are good enough.

In the multifaceted world of leadership, age is a number. However, emerging leaders often face a unique challenge – leading individuals who may have been in the field longer or might view age as a measure of expertise. 

I've helped countless young leaders overcome this dynamic. This article is for you if you are an emerging leader looking to command respect despite your age.

Age vs. Leadership: The Misconception
There's a common misconception that age and experience are the sole determinants of leadership capabilities. 

While experience has value, leadership is more about the ability to inspire, influence, and guide others toward achieving shared goals. 

Leadership is also about adaptability, vision, and the ability to foster collaboration – qualities that aren't exclusive to any age.

Even the most enlightened of us can’t always stop ourselves from worrying about the future and asking ourselves “what if?” Underneath our connection to our Higher Self that we work so hard for, lurks the fear of future problems just waiting for an opening to ask us “what if?”
You know how it is…trouble is brewing at your job, layoffs could be coming. What if you lost your job? There have been a rash of pedestrian traffic accidents lately. What if your child is hit by a car? Your mother’s routine check-up turns into several follow-up appointments. What if she is sick? And on and on.
​
Before we know it, our Chatterboxes have taken over. We are filled with fears about the future and the “what if” questions drag us down to our Lower Self. Many of us “what if” ourselves into a perpetual state of worry.

“What if” questions come from our Lower Self, our inner chatterbox that wants us to live in perpetual fear. Susan wrote in Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, “When the ‘what ifs’ are out in full force, the internal Chatterbox is at it again. You look at the unknown and try to predict the future; you try to take control of outside forces. Both are impossible. At this point you might notice you are driving yourself crazy.”

Fear of failure often stands in your way in the journey of personal and professional growth. 

As a society, we view failure negatively as something that diminishes our worth or derails our progress.

What if you could shift perspectives? I’m saying, view failure as an opportunity to be more faithful to yourself.

When embraced with the right mindset, failure can become a catalyst for transformative change, leading you closer to the authentic leader you're meant to be.

Failure Teaches You a Lesson 
Every failure carries a valuable lesson. Whether it's an exam, a presentation, a project that didn't meet expectations, or a strategic decision that led to unexpected outcomes, each failure serves as a teacher. 

There is nothing like being comfy and cozy in our comfort zones. Right? The problem with that is, of course, that we can’t change or grow if we hold on to our comfort zones. As Susan wrote in Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, “Most of us operate within a zone that feels right, and outside of it we are uncomfortable. For each one of us that zone of comfort is different, but whether we are aware of it or not, all of us—rich or poor, famous or unknown, gay or straight, male or female or whatever our gender identity— make decisions based on the confines of that comfortable space.”

While we may feel secure in our comfort zone, we likely are living with the pain of neediness and the fear of change. While comfort zones can make us feel secure, they also keep us from feeling powerful. If we want to grow, to experience, to learn, we have to start moving out of complacency in that comfortable space. We have to start expanding our boundaries. To do so, we have to take action, we have to put in the work—even if it means being uncomfortable. That is the only way we can know our own power.

​With leaders advocating for individual progress and team success, coaching is essential to career satisfaction, retention and employee wellbeing and plays a critical role in achieving fulfilment. 

Coaching is more than just talking
It's a collaborative, thought-provoking process involving the coach and the client working together to identify core values, individual strengths, and areas for growth to overcome obstacles that stand in the way of fulfilment.

In the corporate world, this Alliance can have a transformative impact, helping leaders and employees navigate complex challenges, improve communication, and enhance overall performance through, for example, understanding someone else's perspective.

Providing leaders and employees with the support and guidance they need to feel fulfilled is essential for any successful business.

1. Coaching helps individuals identify their core values and align their work with those values, promoting fulfilment and improving overall performance.

When employees are clear on their values and align them with their work, they are likelier to feel a sense of purpose and fulfilment every day.

Coaching helps identify those core values and explores how to integrate them into work. This process is what leads to a more meaningful and fulfilling work experience.  

The first and most important step is to realize and truly acknowledge that unless you take care of yourself nobody else can or will. When I say, “truly acknowledge”, I mean that you have accepted the following:

• There is always another choice; to do, or not to do / to say, or not to say!
• You are comfortable – saying “no” when necessary, knowing a “yes” does not serve you / is going to take something from you; time, energy, emotional stability.
• You recognize when you have allowed yourself to slip into “victim mode”, have stayed there too long, and are ready to take your power back.
• You know how to make, create, or find the time for yourself, and on the occasions when there simply is no time … you know to do a couple of minutes of deep breathing!

 
These are a few examples, expressed in simple terms: You have taken charge of your life, know your Values and maintain your Personal Power. You can live your life … it does not have to be living you!

If you recognize the warning signs of impending burnout in yourself; remember that it will only get worse if you leave it alone. But if you take steps to get your life back into balance, you can prevent burnout from becoming a full-blown breakdown.

Read on for some tips:

I am a big believer that moving forward means improving the existing quality of your life. Of course reaching goals and increasing your performance it important. How you feel while you are doing this is what I believe makes up for quality of life.

You can be reaching goals and increasing your performance by pushing through, being competitive while running on an empty battery. At some point your body and emotional self will not be able to keep up.

To increase your quality of life I suggest doing things differently or adding something entirely new to your routine. Maybe this is changing your location or job, or even friends, these are big changes. How about starting with getting rid of some behaviour patterns that no longer serve you? Replace them with behaviour patterns that do serve you.

I love personal growth & development. My personal as well as professional experience can vouch for that each step taken, even small steps, results in change. Imagine climbing up a ladder. With each step your view changes and brings a new perspective.
 
 Make the kind of changes that stick!
 
Life changes all the time, sometimes daily. During your lifetime you never stop growing, developing and learning, which of course means changing. If you resist this, you run the risk of staying stuck.
 
Here is how you start:

Staying calm and grounded requires certain behaviors that feed being calm and grounded.

Each person will have his/her own requirements to feel calm and grounded.
The actions you need to take are unique to you and will most likely differ from those others need to take.
Just as each person has his/her own interpretation of success, each person has an individual feeling calmness and being grounded. Listen to yourself to know what is best for you.

Based on my own personal experience, this also changes depending on age:
When I was 30, my focus was very different to 40.

• At 30 I was focused on creating my family and being a wife and mother.
• At 40 I was involved with my children’s education and day to day life. I was not thinking of my goals. I did not really have any beyond my children’s wellbeing and development.
• At 50 I noticed that I had to get to know myself much better and feeling at peace and fulfilled became my goal. I found my purpose late but am thrilled it involves supporting others to grow.
• Turning 60 was fabulous as I had completely grown into my skin by then and was more than happy to focus on my core values and needs and knew exactly what grounds me and offers me that wonderful sense of calm.
• Approaching 70, my new goal is answering the question, "How do I want this next chapter of my life to look and feel?"

I have no complaints or regrets and admire the younger people I work with on their personal development while achieving and striving for their goals. I was never like that but love how my life was and is moving forward.  

You will know what is right for you. Follow your heart and remember that you cannot take anything with you. No matter what you achieve and how much you earn, how you feel along the way is just as important. 

By Suzie Doscher, Executive Coach focusing on Personal Development, Self-help author since 2014. 

Photo credit: Pexels

We all know the feeling—angry, upset, and sad because the world is making our life less than perfect. Our boss is mean, our friends aren’t there for us, other drivers cut us off in traffic, the store clerk was rude, we got a surprise bill from the electric company. On and on, we have so many miseries that are not our fault.
​
Susan wrote in Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, “We all have a tendency to look around for someone to blame if things are not working out to our liking.” Blaming others of things outside our control means we are not taking responsibility for ourselves. Blame makes us into an injured party who has no control, who lets the world beat them down, who doesn’t respect themselves, who lives in misery.

In Chapter 4, “Whether You Want It or Not…It’s Yours,” Susan talks a lot about taking responsibility for our own lives. As adults, we often feel that we are burdened with lots of responsibility. But responsibility for your day-to-day living is far different than taking responsibility for how you react to your day-to-day living.

These are a sample of options you have when in need of some stress relief:

• Take a break and leave the room. Find a quiet space, even the loo will do.  
• Compose yourself by taking at least 3 breaths. As you exhale, imagine a little bit of the tension leaving your body. (I find visualizing a dark cloud dissipating helpful.)
• Gather your thoughts.  
• Keep your focus on exactly what has been going on that is causing you the stress. Is it the task itself? How about more basic such as hunger or the space around you?
• Does it will involve another person or people… What is missing?  
• Once you know specifically what has thrown you out of balance, think about what can you do now to influence the situation.
• Consider all the steps required to find a solution. Make a list, if only a mental list.  
• What can you do today, right now?  Arrange your list in terms of priority. What has to be done first, then what?  
• Consider the practicalities of your action plan. Is it realistic? Have you the time?  
• Do you need advice or support? If so, whose?  
• Fine-tune the steps you consider necessary to resolve the situation. Keep things realistic to avoid feeling pressure.
• Having thought things through you may find the problem has changed in perspective. Adjust the plan accordingly.

It is most import to ensure that any action you propose to take is in keeping with your personality and can be executed in a style that suits you.
 
by Suzie Doscher, Executive and Life Coach, Self-Help Author 
Balance - A Practical Handbook for Life's Difficult Moments 
3rd editon out now in any Amazon store worldwide 
Narrated by Suzie Doscher on Audible and iTunes.

Photo by Shutterstock

Listen to excerpts from the Audiobook:
​Balance - A Practical Handbook for Life's Difficult Moments by Suzie Doscher
​iTunes or Audible

❌ I want somebody to fix the problems in my life - the right coach will question, listen, reflect and challenge you to think in new, more resourceful ways but will NOT “solve” anything for you. If you’re not committed to do the work, event the best coach can’t help.
 
❌ I need help with psychological issues - if you’re dealing with depression, anxiety or a mental illness, you need a trained therapist. A coach will focus primarily on your future helping you discover new ways of acting and thinking, rather than dealing too much with your past. 
 
❌ I need a wise friend - a good coach is NOT your friend and needs to  have the impartial ability to hold that bigger vision that will help you attain your full potential. Family and friends are not impartial. They are too close to your situation, which can limit their vision of your potential.  
 
✅ Something wonderful has happened - positive change can be exciting and challenging simultaneously. Big transitions such as a new job or career, can have a huge impact on other areas of your life. This makes them the perfect opportunity to get a renewed sense of Who You Are and most want to become.
 
✅ Something terrible has happened - a qualified coach can provide a compassionate and safe space for you to process and learn from the struggle so you can expand and move forward.  

You’re crushing your job interview. You’ve nailed every question thrown at you, and nothing has tripped you up. As the conversation winds down, you’re oozing confidence. Then your interviewer hits you with one final test:
“So, do you have any questions for me?”

It’s your last chance to impress the employer and make sure the job is a good fit for you — but you need to tread carefully. If you ask the wrong type of question, or the wrong number of them, you risk leaving a bad impression.
​
We’ve consulted with hiring experts to come up with seven questions to ask — and a few to avoid — to end your interview on a strong note.

How to prepare questions for your interview

Many of us submit to the comfort of living in our herd, but this doesn't have to be you. Through personal transformation, you can find what you value personally and break free from imposed beliefs by creating your own.
I got to a point in my life where I went on a journey to find myself. I took time out to think about what I really wanted, what my life would look like if I knew I couldn't fail.
My herd would have kept me in a legal career; what about all my other interests and passions? I decided to pluck up the courage and follow my aspirations of being a therapist. My herd thought that I was strange; I just wanted to explore how I could help people in a more emotional way as well as a practical way through law.

On my journey, I met phenomenal people. I realised that this 'self-awareness' is the foundation of being a great leader.
This article describes four simple steps based on Nietzsche's philosophy that will get you started on finding yourself.