Holding back is holding you back

Laughable. Easily disprovable. Preposterous.

I’ve been telling myself one helluva fictitious story the last ten years. It goes like this:

1. Humor isn’t additive to coaching and actually interferes with clients reaching their goals

2. My humor is reactive (I’m not a joke-teller) and shifts the spotlight to me and away from my client, where it should be

3. Making light of a situation could come across as uncaring or unprofessional

4. Coaching is the work of serious people only because, you know, it’s just your life

5. People hire me so they can change their life and career for the better, not to host a 10-minute set at the Chuckle Hut downtown (two-drink minimum)

I only realized the story I created around humor and coaching when sharing with a few close friends that I want to have more fun in my work. We explored what was happening (how very coach-like!), which led to this ah-ha:

No one – absolutely no one – handed me this set of self-limiting beliefs. In fact, each one of these initially well-intentioned beliefs was of my own creation, yet hidden from view until I spoke them aloud. Once I did, I checked for accuracy and the beliefs withered under the scrutiny. Like blasting a weed with Roundup.

But I wasn’t content with simply disproving a set of beliefs that have stifled my growth for years. To add insult to belief injury, I checked them against my personal values, which are courage, resourcefulness, and resilience. Wouldn’t you know that infusing more humor into my coaching is:

• An act of courage in challenging, then overcoming, a limit I placed on myself

• A demonstration of resourcefulness in my approach to individual clients and what moves different people to insight and action

• A source of resilience through lightheartedness during life and career-defining conversations

Until today, I was unaware of the connection between my values and the beliefs boulder I placed in my path. As one of my long-term clients likes to say, “now that I’ve seen it, I can’t unsee it.”

I recognize now that these beliefs served to protect me and minimize risk of offending or misjudging the moment. At least, that’s how I tried to rationalize the beliefs. Yet, they were doing the exact opposite.

Because who says that executive clients are too precious for playful? That coaching isn’t a place where funny furthers your focus. Where hopeful is heightened by hilarity. That we like our alliteration in threes. Me, apparently. But no more.

These now disproven beliefs are no longer in opposition to the humor I want to bring to coaching and my clients. To prove it to myself, I’m experimenting with bringing more humor into coaching sessions. Or, better said, not holding it back because I constructed some absurd story that I just disproved a few paragraphs ago.

And what happens when I change my relationship with humor in coaching from “break glass in case of emergency” to “humor belongs here.”? Personal chemistry, trust, comradery, and belief in each other deepens. It’s relationship characteristics like these that lead to expansive self-understanding and tapping more of that inner wisdom which is the magic of coaching.

Humor is a central part of my personal identity and such a powerful force for change. So, I’m sharing more of it and moving past the story I made up. Believe it or not, it wasn’t even that hard to change my mindset with humor and coaching. It was liberating.

Through my self-exploration, I hope you become more aware of where you’re holding yourself back. With this self-understanding, you can become one of the fortunate who knows that holding back isn’t actually the thoughtful discretion you were going for. No. You too will realize that withholding a prized part of yourself – or making it harder to access – does you and others harm. That whatever self-liming fictitious story you’re telling yourself is laughable, easily disprovable, and preposterous.

Pass the Roundup.

--

For giggles, match these five adjectives with the five now-disproven beliefs above:

  A. Self-serving

  B. Misguided

  C. Self-indulgent

  D. Inappropriate

  E. Overly-serious