Help from my friends – Life change coaching
“You have everything you need inside of you to create anything in your life that you desire.”
― Mike Basevic, No Limits, Mastering the Mental Edge
Evolution and Change
A lot has changed in the last few million years. A creature emerged from amongst the primitive life forms on this planet, learned to use tools, to walk upright, communicate, harness fire and began to exert an influence over its environment. That creature was the predecessor of what evolved to become what we now know as mankind! It became us!
Believe it or not, most of the changes occurred, at an ever increasing rate, in only the last 10,000 years. Change in the 21st century is occurring at the fastest rate ever, with knowledge doubling in an estimated time of every few months – depending on who you ask! Whilst it is the fastest rate ever, it is also increasing exponentially!
To put this in perspective, 1,500 years ago we were generally, globally in an agrarian age, where man lived off the land, either hunting and gathering or cultivating crops to live on. OK, there were a few plunderers too – a lot of us have some Viking blood in our ancestry! In those days, change was generational – in other words, parents would teach their children what their parents had taught to them, and significant inventions and innovations were decades apart. The wheel, steel and bronze tools replacing stone tools, feathered flights on arrows, and so on. Significant advances in their time, but decades or even centuries apart.
Leading up to the 20th century, we saw a rush of inventions including wireless radio wave transmissions, the motor car which followed the invention of the internal combustion engine, the electric light bulb and the subsequent development of power generating stations and electricity transmission lines and so on. These followed and were often inspired by developments in the Renaissance Period where brilliant minds like Leonardo Da Vinci put forward some crazy (at the time!) ideas for things like flight, numerous inventions of which many are now in common use. Of course, the printing press came out of this period, enabling the distribution of these new ideas and innovations to the wider audiences.
Man learns to fly! The Wright Brothers at Kittyhawk 1911. Image from kittyhawk.bu.edu
Manned flight soon followed and travel around the globe began in earnest early in the 20th century. Rather than months of travel to cross an ocean, it became possible in hours. Knowledge and innovation jumped from brilliant minds on one continent to brilliant minds on another, and innovation and invention spread like wildfire.
So began a rapid process of ever faster change in the lives of ordinary people, like you and I.
In the early 20th century, a tradesman printer knew he would have a job for life working at his printing press. So did the person working in the woollen mills. They were in stable environments, creating products for a stable, local market. Those jobs virtually vanished within the next 50 years! Whilst there are still printers now in the 21st century, most of them work through computer programs with digital images – nothing to do with the printing presses of the early 20th century.
Woollen mills now are massive automated machines that require few people to operate them and are no longer local. Australia once produced more wool than any other country on the planet, from a flock of 170 million sheep. It had woollen mills and processing plants dotted around the country, in many regional towns and all the capital cities. There are now none! All wool from the flock of only 50 million sheep is now exported and processed in a relatively few countries overseas from us. That industry and those careers no longer exist in Australia, and the same can be said of many industries and careers in different countries around the world.
What we no longer have:
• Vinyl record manufacturing plants – it’s all CD or DVD now, stamped out by the billions in almost unmanned factories.
• carburetor manufacturers – engines are now electronically fuel injected – totally different technology and factories.
• Photographic development labs – everything is now digital.
• Steam engine powered manufacturing plants – everything is gas, oil or electricity powered.
• Steam trains – either diesel or electric powered.
• Incandescent light bulbs – converting to energy saving fluorescent light tubes.
The list goes on.
More importantly, the lives of the people who used to create and manufacture these items changed with the products vanishing. Careers and industries changed and so did the lives of the people in them. This rate of change is ongoing and increasing, and the lives of every person on the planet are affected.
How do you manage the change process?
Sometimes the change is thrust upon you, as it was for many people when those industries vanished. Sometimes, it’s a health challenge that forces change on your life. Relationships are a challenge, moving from thinking for one to thinking of your new family. When children move out, the “empty nest” syndrome kicks in. Once again, it’s the parents learning to live with and share with just each other again. Financial challenges – increasing costs and the need to replace items around the house, or even the house – these are all stressful challenges and require change. Sometimes, it is an internal desire to grow, evolve and change, for more personal reasons and ambitions. How do you manage it? Life Change Coaching is one very powerful option!
It’s really a three step process. These are the basic steps:
1. Knowing and understanding what you want and need. Clarity of your vision, something specific to aim for.
2. A realistic perspective on what it is you want, the challenges you face, your opportunities and resources. Sometimes, it can be impossible to see this from where you are in life, because life overwhelms you with the urgency and the need for change.
3. A plan or program to make the changes happen, the way you want!
Change WILL happen, whether we like it or not. If someone else directs it and controls it, the change happens according to THEIR AGENDA and for THEIR BENEFIT! If it happens too fast, the change process can have traumatic effects on the person who bears the brunt.
What is the alternative?
Take charge of the change process with personal life change coaching. When you realise that you need to make changes, identify them and then seek help with the process. If you wanted to change and improve your golf game, you’d get golf coaching. When it’s your life that has to change, why not work with #life change coaching?
Life Change Coaching is what happens when you ask a suitably qualified and experienced person to assist you with perspective, objectivity, experience and resources to manage change in your life, whatever those changes might be.
Life Change Coaching is a valuable and viable alternative to being subject to the winds of change on your own. Whilst we may have been great at what we were doing, that doesn’t mean we are either qualified or prepared for what is coming next!
With a little help from my friends… Image from ncea.org.uk
Why have life change coaching?
There are a few powerful reasons to work with someone outside your areas of challenge and change. These include:
1. An unburdened perspective on your circumstances and situation, free of the pressures you face.
2. An objective appraisal of your challenges and obstacles.
3. A realistic look at your opportunities and the resources you already have.
4. Their objectivity can help you gain clarity that otherwise may evade you, on exactly what you need and where to aim for in your life.
5. Tools, resources and experiences you may not have access to from within your own life experiences and circumstances.
Learn more about Life Change Coaching.
Would you like a free Life Change Coaching session?
For those who wish to or need to make changes in their lives, a limited number of 35 minute life change coaching initial sessions are available free. All you need to do is request the free session and answer these questions to get your free session underway.
1. What do you want to change?
2. How urgent and critical is this change?
3. Whose change is it – yours or required by an external influence?
4. What time frame do you have?
5. What other areas of your life would you like to improve or change?
6. Full name
7. Email address
8. Skype name and contact details
9. Time zone and location
If you know anyone else who could benefit from a Life Change Coaching program, please forward this to them. It may change their life too!
Til next time, fair winds and full sails,
Ray Jamieson
“Some strive to make themselves great. Others help others see and find their own greatness. It’s the latter who really enrich the world we live in” ― Rasheed Ogunlaru
Fine tuning techniques – image from chicagoceocoaching.com