Decisions, Decisions

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Making important choices is never simple, but it can be a lot easier and more fulfilling if you pay attention to ?where the choice is coming from.? That?s the advice of personal coach Henry Kimsey-House, co-founder of the Coaches Training Institute in San Rafael, California (www.thecoaches.com). Kimsey-House is the co-inventor of the ?co-active? approach to personal coaching, which adapted techniques from the kind of coaching commonly used in business settings to the needs of people in all walks of life.

Circumstances: ?Most people who are having trouble with choice are trying to make choices from circumstances, and casting themselves in a victim role,? says Kimsey-House. ??I?m unemployed, so I?d better take this job! And I?d better not explore other avenues of making a living.? But coaches help people make choices from their vision and their values.?

Values: So how does that work? ?Coaches begin work with their clients by helping them become aware of their values,? says Kimsey-House. ?And that doesn?t mean putting a laundry list of values in front of them and asking them to pick. If you see the word loyalty, you?re probably going to pick it, because you?re supposed to. Instead, we might ask them to tell about peak experiences they?ve had, or imagine themselves landing on an uninhabited planet?what?s the first thing they would want to have happen to them there? From these stories, the coach helps them pull out the values they really care about and live from; if your peak experience was a trip in nature, you value nature; if you see yourself running a company in five years, having power is important to you, whether it should be or not.?

Perspectives: ?If you?re choosing from circumstances,? he says, ?you might think this way: ?I?m unemployed?gosh, I?m unemployable!? Unemployment is a circumstance; the idea that you are unemployable is a limiting perspective on that circumstance. Coaches help you develop other perspectives from which to base your choices. One perspective on unemployment might be: ?I?m free, available to possibility?; another, ?I?m a member of the unemployed?a significant group of Americans with real political issues.? Or: ?I?m unemployed?my need to support myself could jump-start a freelance career.? You can eventually settle into the perspective that has the most energy for you.

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