These Aren’t Your Parents Values Anymore

Finding a creative project (or a job, for that matter) is rooted in knowing your values.

When I ask my coaching clients, “What are your values?” they immediately reach for the “right” ones–honesty, authenticity, conscientiousness, kindness, spirituality.

Startcooking.com tells you how to load a dishwasher at http://tinyurl.com/yff44ev

“Piffle,” I say and hear a shocked intake of breath, followed by a protest.
“Those words don’t have any juice in them. They mean something vague and colorless to everybody. I want specifics.” I answer. Usually followed by a long silence.

The word “value” has been de-valued. Think about the words we used to think of as powerful: “Passionate” now means “I’m interested in it right now, “Authentic” means “I can’t be the real me, because no one will like the real me, but I wanna have a tantrum right now!” “Abundance” is something everyone else has but not you, particularly money. So we need better ideas for values.

When I ask about what a client values, I like them to use examples. Because what I’m looking for is what is important to them in the way they do their work, creative or not.

For example, you may value the bottom line–love it when people act in quick, decisive ways. Hate people who dither and endlessly consider every crumb of information.

Or, you may value being careful, thinking of a lot of choices, leaving the door open for more ideas, more thoughts. Then, when you do make up your mind, you will have done so after processing information thoroughly.

Neither of these people are wrong. Both have strong values in how they make decisions. But if they work together, collaborate on a creative idea, are in the rolls of “boss” and “employee” they will not form a good match.

While it’s true that we can’t expect to find our perfect matches in a job, a creative collaboration, in a boss, if we don’t find a match for the most important values we hold, we will be miserable. We also need to be able to speak to people who hold different values, because learning to speak to them means listening  and being heard–and being heard is a strong value with almost everyone, although listening is not.

You’ve probably had some thoughts (or heated arguments) on what is “right”–

forks and knives tines up or down in the dishwasher

toilet paper going up over or behind the roll

making important decisions first thing in the morning or when you have had coffee and breakfast

going to the airport 3 hours early to avoid panic or going just in time not to miss the plane so a short flight doesn’t eat up a whole day

Those decisions are based on our values–what we favor, prefer, feel comfortable with. People who hold the value of “big picture” will brush off those examples as not important to a full life. People who hold the values of “details make or break the deal” will think they are important to a good foundation.

To do your best creative work and to have success at a job, you need to choose the job that matches your most closely held values. The place to start is asking the questions, “What are my values?”

–Quinn McDonald is a writer, life- and creativity coach. She helps people sort out their values and use them to their best advantage.

 

Publishing Your Book: Step-by-Step to Getting “Lucky”, Part I

Right after I celebrated having an acquisitions editor express interest in my book, friends started congratulating me in sort of an odd way.

“You are SO lucky to be able to write a book and get interest right away.”

From school.discoveryeducation: http://tinyurl.com/yzjs7z9

“Aren’t you lucky to get interest in your first book so fast!”

“I could write a book too, but I don’t have time.”

“I’ve written a book, but it’s not ready to go out yet.”

“Ive been working on my book for years. I’m just not as lucky as you.”

You, too, can do exactly what I did, and I’m going to tell you how I did it, step by step. No secrets. No holding back. First, truth in disclosure: I do not yet have a contract. I had an acquisitions editor express interest. There is still the giant leap to acceptance. More about that part later. First, the step by step.

1. Write every day for 50 years. I wrote my first book when I was seven years old, in a spiral notebook. (It didn’t get published.) I’ve been writing almost every day since.

2. Take on different writing assignments. I wrote my first published book when I was 30. It was a “book for hire” deal. I hated it. It wasn’t my idea, it was me writing about someone else’s idea for pay. Since that time, I’ve written for ad agencies, PR firms, financial institutions, insurance companies, huge manufacturing companies, small struggling businesses. I’ve worked at a newspaper, at a magazine, at an editorial think tank. I’ve written for people I agreed with and people I despised. On topics I loved and topics so boring, watching the barometer drop was more interesting. But I wrote. Now, fast-forward to this book.

3.  Find a topic that fascinates, mesmerizes and fires you up. Mine was One Sentence Journaling. (Here’s an article I wrote about it last March.) I have notes that go back six years, but I organized and taught the course four years ago. Each time I taught it, I took notes, listened to comments and changed the course to see if it improved.

4. Do the same thing with two more topics: find topic you really like, develop a course, teach it, listen to feedback, change parts of it until you feel it is a good course that people will pay to attend. (This helps you gauge interest in the material.)

5. Once you’ve taught it in person, teach it online, to make sure you have written exercises that are clear and make sense. Teaching a class online takes about 8 x the length of time it takes to teach the class in prep, set-up, running and comments.

6. Examine the classes and discover a new path to the same information. This is called discovering another perspective. Not everyone learns the same way. You are broadening your audience. As you teach other classes, see what people wish they could develop their creativity to do, what they are missing in their lives, how they can make meaning. Take lots of notes. Be willing to be confused and not know what to do next.

7. Stay open to new ideas. Mine  hit me during morning walking meditation. It was a good idea but it doesn’t hang together with the rest of the material. Be willing to spend months trying out ideas, messing up, failing, starting over, trying, polishing, until one day you are too exhausted to care anymore. You put the idea aside. The next day, in the shower, you have an idea. It fits! You work another three months fitting it into the writing portion.

8. Blend the new ideas and put them in front of your audience. In my case, that was the beginning of raw-art journaling.   Blend the new approach with the old, turning it into the same step, so people who learned visually, auditorially (by hearing), and kinesthetically (by moving),  could learn.  Create a ton of examples. Create a website. Listen to comments from people who like and don’t like your website. Think them through. Be willing to be wrong, to fail again.

9. Develop a class that combines the final version of your idea. Teach this class and all the variations 10 times, each time making changes that improve the class. Listen to feedback, criticism, questions, and people who tell you it’s weird. Ignore the last one. Note on teaching: It will not make you rich. Do not teach to make money. Teach to try out your ideas, to spread your discoveries, to get better teaching. Teaching is not about you, it’s about the participants.

10. Gather up all your notes and create an outline for a book. Do this while running your own business, because no one pays you for this stage. Work on the outline until it looks like information people would pay to play with.

You now have reached the stage where you can write a book proposal. At this point, I’ve spend 50 years writing almost every day, and six years in some stage of book development. I haven’t started writing the book yet, although every shred of it has been taught and evaluated.

Tomorrow: How to write  a book proposal and find a publisher.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer, life- and creativity coach. She has a website for writers who want to keep an art journal, and a website for her business training. Both have coaching sections.

 

Affirmations: Beyond Stuart Smalley

You remember Stuart Smalley.  A character on SNL, played by Al Franken, Stuart Smalley was “good enough, smart enough and by gosh, people like me.” Stuart Smalley may have made you feel uncomfortable, or you may have laughed at the New Age silliness, but you probably wondered  about affirmations.

Facial expressions by isamaras.wordpress.com

Because they work. Yep, if you do them right, affirmations work. Here are basic ways to get them to work for you:

1. Practice before you need them. I know, I know, practicing is for wimps.  How hard can this be? You don’t jump in the car and head for the freeway before learning how to drive; you don’t start learning how to cook by doing  coq au vain, and practicing makes affirmations seem natural and easy, something you want to reach for before you are panicked.

2. Keep affirmations positive. Your brain can’t distinguish between what you think you experience and what your body experiences. That’s why you scream and kick while dreaming, and wake up in a sweat from something that never happened in real life. What you tell your brain is what your brain reacts to–when you believe it. So when you are hiking in the desert and a snake strikes at your ankle, you might mumble, “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” but your brain will feel quite afraid. Good thing, too. You need to be just scared enough to take effective action.

Notice the affirmation I just mentioned: “There is nothing to be afraid of.” It sounds positive, but it is not. It includes the word “afraid” and is phrased in a negative form, “nothing to be afraid of,” which lets your brain feast on “afraid,” –which is will. Negative affirmations are as powerful as positive–with negative results instead. If you have tried affirmations, this is mostly likely why they didn’t work.

A  good affirmation uses only positives to give the brain positives to work with. “I’m choosing to be calm,” “I am brave,” are both positives. It also helps you focus on something you want. Both help the brain provide thoughts in that direction.

3. Keep “Should” away from affirmations. “Should” is a two-by-four over the head. It heaps disappointment into your heart. Because “should” has come to mean “but you didn’t.” So when we say, “You should eat more fiber,” the second part of the sentence is, “but you don’t,” or “but I’m eating a donut.” “Should” is in the vocabulary of the gremlin–the voice in your head that spouts negative self talk. Stop “should-ing” on yourself.

4. Keep your affirmations short. Complicated directions don’t work when you are lost, and they don’t work when you are shaky, either. “I can do this,” “I’m ready to go,” work really well. “I’m ready to give this speech,” “I am happy to be here,” is acting “as if” and it helps you focus on the one important thing.

5. Keep your affirmation specific. Hate giving speeches? Right before you go on, think to yourself, “I am prepared for this speech.” Of course it helps if you are prepared. Your brain will override a big fat lie. Hate that client who’s calling? “I’m a polite person,” will help you be a polite person.

6. Repeat your affirmation. You probably didn’t clean up your room the first time you were asked, and neither do your kids. Your brain isn’t all that different. Repeating an affirmation several times calms the body as well as the spirit. Repetitions are used in rallies, prayers, and rituals for an excellent reason–they work.

7. Keep working on them. Some affirmations work better than others. If you have read this far, you are hoping they will work for you. They might not have worked in the past, but with practice, they will work for you.

Samples of affirmations you can use to develop your own

• I can get through this
• I am strong
• I will be kind (instead of “I won’t get angry.”)
• I choose what is healthy for my body
• I feel grateful for. . .
• I believe in myself

© Quinn McDonald, 2009 All rights reserved. Quinn McDonald is a freelance writer, trainer,  life- and certified creativity coach. She teaches people how to write and give presentations. She also teaches people who can’t draw how to keep an art journal.

A Shadow of Who We Are

We see ourselves in certain ways–”the patient one,” “the black sheep of the family,” “dependable.”  Maybe other people don’t see us that way, they know us in ways they experience us, instead of the ways we experienced our roles in families.

A cut-out gate and its shadow. © Photograph by Quinn McDonald, 2009

A good way to know who we are is to watch our shadow. How to we show up in the world? How do we represent ourselves? Even then it’s hard. That shadow we cast in real life on a sunny day doesn’t look exactly like us, after all. It’s hard to guess when the angle of the sun distorts our height, what we look like in a mirror.

You can catch a glimpse of what people think when you tell a story or give an example. “I’m not that extroverted,” you say, as prelude to a story of you dancing  on the sidewalk, and you notice people exchanging glasses. Uh-oh, they knew what you didn’t suspect–you are an extrovert.

An interesting exercise it to watch how people react to you–smile, cringe, lean forward, hug. The person we are when we are rushed or in a place where we don’t care about our behavior–in the grocery line, among strangers–is often the real us.

The gate below caught my eye. In the angle of the sun, it casts almost a duplicate as a shadow. Had I been there earlier or later, it would have looked different.

Journal prompt: Walking down the street, I turn and look at my footprint. I’m wearing ______, but my footprints are _______.

–—Quinn McDonald is a life- and certified creativity coach. She teaches people how to write and give presentations. She also teaches people who can’t draw how to keep an art journal.

Make a Decision: Tap Into Your Emotions

Anne was trying to decide whether to stay in a relationship or go. There were plenty of reasons to leave–she didn’t feel heard, she felt belittled, her boyfriend didn’t want to go for counseling and didn’t want her to go either. On the other hand, she had spent a year in the relationship and had put effort into making it work. Her boyfriend was funny and made her laugh, even at herself.

To stay or to leave? Would leaving seem like giving up? Was she being a quitter instead of someone who worked out problems? Was staying in a bad relationship a sign she didn’t care about herself? Couldn’t admit she had made a mistake and move on?

Anne was tortured with her choices. And she kept piling up more reasons without knowing which direction to take. Watching this was torture. I suggested she might feel comfortable writing Carolyn Hax, who writes the syndicated column, “Tell Me About It” for the Washington Post.

“I should be able to sort this out by myself,” Anne said. “I don’t know how come I can’t make a decision.”

Sometimes making a decision is tough because with the decision comes the consequence. Either staying or leaving brings on a pile of consequences that you choose the instant you make the decision, and often you are afraid of consequences you don’t know about yet. So you put off the decision, and begin to drown in your own life.

I gave Anne a coin. “Heads you stay, tails you leave,” I said.
“You’re kidding, right?” she said, looking at me as if I were nuts.
“Well, this is the simplest way for you to get to a decision. It takes thinking out of the problem. Let’s see what happens,” I said.

She flipped the coin. Heads. Anne broke into tears. Hurts and agonies months in the making poured out. I handed her a Kleenex. At the end of the sobbing came the sentence, “I can’t stay. I’ll die if I stay.” As soon as she sobbed it out, Anne had her answer. By coming up with endless possibilities and choices, Anne has supressed the answer she already knew. By taking thinking out of the pattern that she had developed, she suddenly collided with her emotions and knew the answer she had been suppressing.

Anne left her boyfriend, and although there were many tears and a few hard days and nights, over time she knew the decision had been right. Looking back she saw that a lot of her indecision was rooted in not wanting to change because change made her feel as uncertain as she felt in staying.

It’s not the tossing of the coin that helps you make a decision, but the emotions that follow it. Emotions often inform clear decisions, because they allow you to focus on what is important to you. We often block our values because we are scared of honoring them. The coin toss works, even if you know about its purpose, because it make your own feelings clear to you. Our ability to provide many scenarios of the future blocks a clear view sometimes, and tapping into raw emotions provides the only clear view. A coin toss will put you in touch with what you are hiding from yourself. The coin isn’t leading you, the coin gives you permission to see one decision and gauge your choices instead of balancing one pro with another con.

It clears the way to sorting through the issue at hand instead of the fear of making a decision.

—Quinn McDonald is a life- and creativity coach. She knows that choosing can be as hard as admitting a bad choice. And she loves the thought of the sufi poet and fool, Mullah Nasiruddin, who said, “Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.” (c) 2007-9 All rights reserved.

Why Your Coach Makes You Work

Adults learn by doing. Most people don’t learn much by simply reading or listening. We forget about 80 percent of what we hear in eight hours after hearing it. That’s why I am not enthusiastic about computer learning that guides you through blocks of texts and asks questions. You’ll get a lot of answers right an not remember a thing.

A mandala to color from www.bigfeature.org/mandala-octa-ring.html

Jill (not her real name, this is a compilation of conversations from several clients) hasn’t reached many of her goals, and wants to quit coaching. While clients always decide when to leave, I like to discuss the reasons for leaving and make sure the client has some tools for the weeks ahead.

I asked Jill what she could use from our coaching sessions.

“Well, I really didn’t get a lot out of it. That’s why I’m leaving.”

“What was missing, Jill?”

“I don’t feel better. I still have all the same problems. I’m going to have my chart done by an astrologer. I think my Mars is in retrograde.”

“What steps will you take if Mars is in retrograde?”

“I don’t know. But it will explain how come I am not solving my problems.”

“Jill, I did notice that you didn’t do your homework very often,” I said.

“Well, you didn’t make me, you never yelled at me, so I thought it was OK not to,” Jill said.

“You often told me you were sick or too busy with work. Did you not get anything out of the homework?”

“I don’t think I should have to do homework. It takes time. I’m paying you to help, and then you give me homework, ” Jill said, suddenly explaining more than she had in weeks.

“Homework is part of coaching. Most of the coaching understanding comes between the sessions, because you work on your homework and have flashes of insight.”

“But I hired you to tell me what to do.”

“No, Jill, we talked about that early on. I don’t give advice, and I can’t fix people because I don’t think they are broken. Our talking leads to discoveries that you want to follow. Homework allows you to experience what you discovered in coaching and act on it.”

“Well, but it’s a lot of work, and I don’t have a lot of time. And I have anxiety attacks at night, so I watch TV to calm down, and I can’t do it then. I don’t understand how come you just didn’t tell me to read a book or something.”

“Have you read a lot of self-help books?” I asked.

“Sure, and you don’t even know a lot of the authors that I’ve read. I wonder why you don’t read all those books,” Jill said.

“Do those books help you?” I aked?

“Well, yes. Of course. They are smart people. Those books help millions of people.”

“Jill, what change have you made and kept for more than three months from one of those books?” I asked.

“Well, I don’t remember. But that doesn’t mean the books weren’t good,” Jill said.

“Those books could be very good. But to change your life, you need to choose a goal, break down the steps to get there, and work on it regularly. Working with a coach keeps you in motion toward those goals. The responsibility of doing your homework works better if you have someone to report back to.”

“I still think if I’m paying you, I shouldn’t have to do homework, too,” Jill sighed.

“I’m not an emotional or spiritual plumber that you call when your plans spring a leak, Jill,” I said. “I can’t come in, patch up your heart and soul and send you off to be happy. Being happy or fixing your problems is work you have to do yourself. I can help you look at goals, show you how to weigh them, find out what success and happiness mean to you, and ask you questions that will result in understanding as you work with stumbling blocks, but I can’t patch up your spirit. I’m not a magician, just a coach.”

In the weeks to come, Jill visited different spiritual workers, hoping for an answer. But for Jill, even an explanation is not an answer. Working with a coach is a mental and spiritual exercise, work you have to do for yourself. You have to care enough about yourself to want to help yourself. A coach is a guide, a map-reader with a compass. If you don’t know where you are heading, you won’t notice when you get there.

--Quinn McDonald is a life- and certified creativity coach. Read more about her coaching practice.

Creative Threat: Studio Fear

There is an understood, but largely unspoken fear in every creative person. Every time we leave the studio, it can be the last time. There is no guarantee that we will have the next idea, the drive, the self-discipline to

Butterflies sunning on the other side of the screen. © Quinn McDonald 2009

return. Most days, this thought doesn’t cross our minds. But there are weeks when we shut off the light and cross the threshold and wonder, “Maybe that was it. Maybe there is nothing left. Maybe I’ve had my last good idea.”

Because we aren’t completely in control of the flow of ideas, the best we can do is create an environment of anticipation and eagerness in the studio and leave it there to wait for us when he come back. Here are some ways to do that:

Leave a project unfinished and waiting for you. That way, when you come back, you know exactly what you have to do to complete the project. Whether it’s putting a clasp on a necklace or spraying fixative on a drawing, knowing that a piece is one step away from completion is an invitation to return.

Start a project. If you enter the studio and feel that you have to come up with a new idea, pull out the pieces, gather the materials, and then. . .face them, it is harder to go to the studio. A project that is waiting to go takes the uncertainty out of the decision.

Leave some inspiration waiting for you. A new book, a magazine, a fascinating piece of textile, a celebration page in your journal can welcome you back to your studio and remind you that much creativity can happen in this space and you are the one to make it happen.

Clean up the biggest mess. No one wants to go into the studio and spend an hour scrubbing brushes and vacuuming threads and beads before the work can begin. Having supplies out and ready to go is inviting, having a mess to manage drains your creative energy.

Create a ritual. Having to make the decision to go to the studio every day is hard. Make creative work part of every day, like picking up the mail or brushing your teeth. Create a ritual that pulls you in the right direction. One of my favorites is making a cup of tea, locking my gremlin in the linen closet and heading to the studio.

Lock up the gremlin. All of us have negative self-talk. It starts when we think about doing creative work. “What makes you think you can write?” “Who do you think you are wasting time in a studio?” “You aren’t a real artist, you just waste time.” If that talk comes into the studio with me, it’s all I can hear. I know what the gremlin of negative self-talk looks like. I gave him a name, drew his picture, and put it in the linen closet on my way to the studio. Then I’m ready for work.

What are your rituals, tips and boosts to get to your creative work?

–—Quinn McDonald is a life- and certified creativity coach. She teaches people how to write and give presentations. She also teaches people who can’t draw how to keep an art journal.

Why I Won’t Critique on Your Creative Work

Yes, I’m your coach.

No, I won’t comment on your creative work.

This is hard to understand, because I am not only your coach, I’m your creativity coach. There are several reasons, so let’s get the one you most suspect out of the way:

image from spamula.com

1. You are paying me to coach you. Critiquing is a different service. Most clients think that once they’ve hired me as a coach, I can provide many services–adviser, researcher, conscience, authority-figure-to-fight-with, editor, marketer, problem-solver, and idea-provider. Not so. As your coach, my major service is to keep you in action in service to your own creativity. To give you a clear place to take a stand. To let you discover who you are and what your purpose in life is. I don’t give advice. It’s a bad idea. It gives you the idea that I’m responsible for your decisions, when I am not. You came to me because you were stuck in one place. Discovering your next move is your work, and I support you in that. I will toss out ideas for you to consider, but they aren’t advice. They are generally perspectives you can’t imagine yourself, but you will.

Yes, I provide marketing communication, editing, writing, problem-solving and idea-providing to businesses. And I charge them for it. All those services are separate, and my non-coaching clients pay for them.

If you still are having trouble with the idea, think of it this way: when you get an oil change, does the service fill up your tank for free? If you are getting a manicure, does the manicurist throw in a pedicure for free? If the plumber is fixing your leaky toilet, and you ask for a dripping kitchen faucet to be fixed, is the reply, “Sure, I’ll do that for free while I’m here.” There is plenty of coaching work to be done in our sessions. That work will keep you (and me) busy.

2. I’m a coach, who understands the slippery work of creativity. I know about the danger of discouragement and the spike of “making it” and the long stretch of creative fear in the middle. I’m not an art/music/film/fashion expert. If fashion listened to me, there would be no 5-inch spike heels, none of those silly platform stilettos without heels, and none of those ankle boots that make women look as if they had a hoof instead of a foot. There are many things that work well, even if I don’t understand them or think they would be financially successful.

3. Writing is not about getting published. This is the hardest to understand. I am a writer. And writing is not about getting published. Writing is about writing. A born writer won’t quit, even if I tell them their story stinks. That’s how I know they are writers. Writers want to say something, even if no one listens. Being a writer is a struggle, and that’s the part I’m supporting and making accountable. The rest is details.

4. It doesn’t matter what I think. What if I tell you your creative project is horrible and I don’t like it? Will it destroy you? Why? Because one person doesn’t like it? What if I say it’s wonderful? Will you be disappointed if it doesn’t sell? Will you doubt my taste? Probably. And that’s why we stick to your working on your creative work.

5. Because you need to build confidence, not gather encouragement. That’s the heart of the reason. You hired a coach to be able to create a change, work through change, live with change. Or learn to live why you can’t and live with that. There is a difference between what makes meaning and what will sell, and both have merits. That’s your work. I can’t do it for you. All the stories, the examples, the agreement in the world won’t amount to anything if you don’t do the work. Ah, and that’s the horrible truth. . .I won’t do your work. I can’t do your work. Doing your work is how creative people succeed and live their lives. It’s all about you. And I know that.

–Quinn McDonald is a life- and creativity coach who helps people through change, re-invention and transition.

QuinnCreative Newsletter Returns

Some months ago, I stopped publishing my newsletter, Imagination Works from QuinnCreative. There were lots of good reasons: The newsletter was ten years old, I’d originally kept the addresses in an address book, because I sent a paper newsletter. Once I created an online one, I knew that some people weren’t getting the letter anymore, those who

Raw-art-journal entry, Inktense pencils on paper, © Q.McDonald, 2009

got it at work often found it in the spam filter. OK, I’ll admit it was a lot of work putting it on my website, and fads change–people didn’t want a newsletter through email, they wanted it on a website, now people don’t want to be forced to click on links in emails to take them to websites they think might contain mal-ware.

Once I discontinued the newsletter, the emails started.  “What happened to the newsletter?” “Where was that article you wrote on failure?” “I went to your website and there’s no newsletter!”

My mistake. There are many reasons to start up the newsletter again.  A lot of people don’t want to read a blog every day, don’t want to troll my website to see when a new class is coming up,  and want to know about living their creativity out loud as artists, writers, and just plain people. So I’m bringing back the newsletter with a really simple title: QuinnMcDonaldNewsletter.  It’s not fancy, it’s simple writing through a Yahoo Group.

You can go here and sign up:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Quinn_McDonald_Newsletter/join

Anyone can sign up. It will come the first and third Sunday of the month, via this Yahoo Group.

Tip of new logo for Quinn's Raw-art-joujrnals

Sundays so people who are in the “Sunday Slump”–that uneasy time of week at the end of the weekend and before the beginning of the work week–will have something interesting to read.

I don’t sign anyone up, I don’t spam anyone. I’ve sent out invitations to a few people who have told me to bring the newsletter back. If you want to receive the newsletter, please go sign up. It will contain links, stories, ideas on living a creative life. Because I still believe that we don’t find meaning in life, we make meaning. The newsletter will be delivered through a Yahoo Group, but it is a newsletter. No photos, no websites, no fancy design. You won’t be required to do anything. I chose Yahoo Groups because it makes it easy to subscribe (and unsubscribe) and for me to mail out.

Yahoo Groups also creates automatic archives, which I could never do, and it was a constant source of questions. Now people can search the archives for previous posts.

Thanks to all for letting me know what you want. I sure hope this is it!

The Pencil © Quinn McDonald, 2005-9

Why Does My Life Coach Do That?

If you are a life coach, you will have a list of policies and procedures that your clients won’t understand. Here are some of my working ways and why I do them.

1. Why do I have to call my coach, why doesn’t my coach call me? Much of the reason is the same thinking behind going to the dentist, the mall, or a hair appointment–the client makes the effort. If I phone clients, I discovered that they weren’t ready, asked me to call back, were not in a place they could talk. If the responsibility of coaching communication is left to the client, they are focused and ready to talk when they make the call.

2. Why do you bill me if I miss a call? I was [fill in good excuse here.] My agreement says that if you miss a call without 24 hours notice, I will charge you for that call. I do make exceptions. Lots of them. But I do have clients who are scattered, not used to sticking to a schedule, resistent to timetables, or simply avoiding the accountability of coaching. Often these clients haven’t done the homework we agreed to. That becomes a separate issue.

At the end of each call, the client and I agree on a time for the next call. I save that time for that client. I schedule my activities around that call, including giving up other work. When the client doesn’t call, I’ve lost work. In addition, I have to contact the client and set up a new time–and that means that a missed hour of coaching results in a minimum of two-and-a-half hours of my time–the missed hour, the real hour, and a half hour spent in setting up a new appointment and juggling other priorities. If four clients miss a call, it’s an entire wasted day of my time, and I need to recoup the financial loss.

3. If I call five minutes late, why don’t I get a full hour of coaching? My coaching time is booked for a few weeks in advance. I give myself 15 minutes between calls to clear my head, take care of physical needs or check emails. When a client calls late, we still end on time, so the next client won’t be inconvenienced. I do the same for you.

Additional blog posts that answer coaching questions:
10 Questions to Ask Your Coach
What Does Coaching Do for Me?
Why Coaching Isn’t Therapy
Coaching: Price and Value
Get The Most From Your Coaching Session
Coaching and You, Change and Career

–Quinn McDonald is a writer, life- and creativity coach. She has a business site and an art site that explains different kinds of coaching on each site. She offers free sample coachings. © 2009