Powerful Questions Your Coach May Ask You

Australian icon Ian Thorpe's recent retirement from swimming – at age 24 – followed three weeks of consultation with a career coach. His lavish praise of his coach's pivotal role in reaching the momentous decision, has sparked even greater interest in the role of personal and business coaches.

Coaching in its purest form is non-directive, meaning that coaches will not give clients advice or tell them what to do. Coaches have the questions that will assist and challenge clients to get to their own answers.

The first powerful question Thorpe's coach asked him was:

• 'Why are you doing what you are doing?'

Now there is a question that hits you between the eyes! How would you answer it? This is not something that you can answer off the cuff, it requires thought.

Having done his homework, Thorpe, a five-time Olympic gold medalist who had not swam competitively since winning in Athens in 2004, was pushed even harder.

Some of the follow-up questions included:

• 'How do you measure your self-worth?'
• 'What do you get from doing what you are doing?
• 'What do you like about what you do?'
• 'What do you dislike about it?'

Take a few moments and answer these questions for yourself. If you are serious about considering a change of career, a relationship, moving house, whatever you are currently contemplating, grab a piece of paper and write out your answers. This will de-clutter your mind and give you some perspective.

Then there are the really challenging questions:

• 'What are the things that you are not doing in your life that you want to do?'
• 'Who are you when there is no one else around?'

In the business world, it is common for employees (staff and managers alike) to put so much energy into fulfilling the company's goals and objectives that they lose sight of their own.

More and more people are recognising that investing in their own personal development is a valid and worthwhile exercise. Some people are afraid of how they might answer the above questions. They are scared that thinking too much about their lives will result in a realisation that they have 'wasted' time living someone else's dreams, having buried their own priorities somewhere along the way. But answering these questions is the gateway to increasing our levels of fulfillment and true happiness.

When we step back and assess our work and our lives from a detached yet objective position, we often realise how much is good and positive. From my experience in dealing with coaching clients, none have turned their backs on their careers completely. They go back to their jobs with greater focus and clarity about what is important to them. They develop a more proactive attitude and to top it all they receive the boost in self-confidence that comes from greater self awareness, greater certainty about who they are and what they are about.

Ian Thorpe's predicament as to whether or not he should retire from swimming is no different from a professional whose career path was set by their decision to choose certain topics for the Leaving Cert, or by the fact that someone many years ago in a personnel department decided to reply to an application letter. Most people dream of being or doing something different - a cafe owner, a writer, a musician. The grass often looks greener as they have created a romanticised vision of what their life could be like. That does not mean you should not pursue your dream.

Change always requires courage. Have the courage to answer the above questions for yourself. We may bury our dreams, but they never die. Which is greater the pain of risk or the pain of regret?

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