Skillfull Awareness

A few years back I had the honor of meeting Dr. Mark Pirtle and his amazing wife Lynda. They are pioneering a self-awareness approach so that people may have more positive life experiences, get in touch with their personal power and experience stress-relief through the human capacity for self-awareness.
 
Professional integrative coaches look for three milestones in our client's process. Each milestone leads to the next. Just like each transformation leads to the next. 
 
The first milestone is self-awareness. 
 
As a coach, when we actively observe our clients engaging in their own self-awareness, then we know they have made it to milestone number one. 
 
Some examples: The client says, "Oh my gosh, I thought I was angry but I now see underneath the surface is deep sorrow." Or, "Wow, when I said I was 100% committed to my success I felt a twinge in my stomach. Interesting!" These are indicative milestone #1 has been reached. 
 
Self-awareness is milestone #1 because until you reach self-awareness, you can't reach the other two milestones. Yikes!  
 
However, once self-awareness is intact then milestone #2 begins to naturally surface. 
 
The second milestone is self-generation. Self-generation is occurring when we use our self-awareness to formulate new ideas and new ways of thinking. 
 
Ex: I ask my client, "When you notice that is really going on for you, what do you want to do?" Then the client generates ideas that are aligned with their truth. This is a very important milestone because it means they have ownership. When ownership is fostered, follow-through is increased through intrinsic importance. 
 
Once we see a client actively and consistently self-generating, then milestone #3 becomes possible!
 
The last milestone is the ability to sustain success long-term. 
 
It takes a journey of self-awareness, into self-generation that produces the capacity to sustain success in the long run. 
 
It is like buoyancy. Once you have the first two milestones in place, this gives you enough buoyancy to get you through tough times and sustain. 
 
This week's resource is about milestone #1, self-awareness. But not just any kind of self-awareness...  skillful awareness. 
 
I hope you resonate with Mark's teachings. He is another exemplary example of how many rich resources we have available to us and our clients.

Coaching Resource of the Week