Coaching Tip: Flexibility and Authenticity
Category: Coaching Secrets (CS65)Originally Submitted on 10/30/98.
Introduction
Flexibility and authenticity are not incompatible. It is possible to respond flexibly to changing circumstances and yet to remain authentically ourselves.
The Coaching Tip
Can we be ourselves, standing tall and proud like the oak tree, and still respond appropriately in different situations, like the bamboo that sways in the wind so as to survive changing circumstances? Some people believe the two are incompatible, that personal authenticity involves reacting in the same way regardless of what is happening around us, and that flexibility means that one moves away from authenticity.However, the two can easily be reconciled. In earthquake regions, one way that tall buildings are built to survive major quakes is by including flexibility in the design. Some actually sway in the wind, and so have the 'give' needed to survive sudden jolts. It is the very rigid buildings that are more likely to crumble. The secret is that beneath that flexibility the building must have a very deep and solid foundation.
When we have built a solid personal foundation--something on which most coaches work intensely for ourselves, and with our clients when they are willing--then we know just what we believe in, and what our values are. With a foundation that is truly solid, adjusting to circumstances need not lead us away from our core values. Then, and only then, can we know just how far we are able to flex without coming off our foundation.
To use another analogy, just as a good ice-skater can lean and twist in an extraordinary number of positions while still gliding, perfectly balanced, in the planned direction, so can we adjust our behavior to our circumstances without straying away from our own center of balance. We can adjust our responses to external events, confident that we will still be maintaining our balance and meeting our own standards.
Self-awareness plus solid personal foundation does not have to lead to rigidity.
About the Submitter
This piece was originally submitted by Diana Robinson, Ph.D., CASAC, Personal Growth Coach, who can be reached at Diana@ChoiceCoach.com, or visited on the web. Diana Robinson wants you to know: I coach people to focus the power of their integrity, their authenticity, and their spirituality so as to enhance their inner joy and their outer success. An earlier version of this piece appeared in my free e-mail newsletter Work in Progress. I also have a free spirituality-oriented newsletter, Grounded in the Earth, Reaching for the Sky.
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