Get the Results You Want with Positive Change

Marshall Goldsmith is an executive coach to CEO's and senior leaders in the business of “helping successful leaders become better.” Interestingly enough, he says it doesn't matter if he's working with a leader who is self-destructing or with one who is flying high—he gives them all the same advice—and he wrote a book to get his message across called, What Got You Here Won't Get You There.
 
Intuitively, we know Marshall's message is true. Whether you want to get ahead at work, start our own business, lose that weight, or rekindle a withering relationship, we know that to get different results we have to change things up a bit. We also know that just wanting to change doesn't cut it, so what does?
 
Here are three keys to making change happen:

Be honest with yourself: We have a tendency to rate ourselves higher than what the evidence suggests. We want to believe we listen more than we talk, we tend to think we are more generous than our actual behaviors show and everyone thinks they're an above average driver.

Coaching Assignment: Seek out candid feedback and see where you need to improve.

Acknowledge yourself: While we may have an inflated perception of our skills, it’s often because we need to think those things about ourselves to feel valuable. We think that the solution to doing better is to be harder on ourselves—when what we really need is support and unconditional love.

Coaching Assignment: How would you assess your best friend if they were in the same situation you find yourself in? Apply that to self.

Get a change partner: I ask all of my coaching clients to ask someone to be their “change partner.” This is the person that knows what our change goals are and can give us the feedback we need. They can also give us support and encouragement.

Coaching Assignment: Choose your change partner carefully. He or she needs to be someone you trust and respect because   you won't always like what you hear!

-Alan Allard, Leadership Coach/Life Coach
www.alanallard.com