DO BE DO BE DO. BE DO BE DO BE…
Poor Frank Sinatra. I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t want to sing this version of his mega-hit Strangers In The Night. In fact, I’m pretty sure my mom would be upset if I even suggested it, which I kinda am, except Frank would be the only person who could sing it so I’m not.
BE DO BE DO BE is shortcode for my life philosophy. It’s also an extremely effective coaching exercise I created to facilitate deep and lasting transformation in my clients.
It changes lives!
I think of my BE DO BE DO BE exercise as the “hammer” in my coaching toolkit. It’s the “goes-with-anything” lip gloss in my make-up drawer; the 3-inch paring knife in my knife block; the OxiClean of laundry detergents… you get the picture.
So what is this tool and how does it work?
First of all, here’s why it’s special. Unlike most other coaching tools, my BE DO BE DO BE coaching exercise gets my clients to the core of the issue that’s troubling them, the heart of the problem they can’t seem to solve; the source of the throbbing pain they’ve been feeling for years.
So many coaches coach their clients on what to do. As a former Master Coach Instructor at Brooke Castillo’s The Life Coach School, I used to see it all the time, especially in new coaches who are always wanting to find relief for their clients – they try to “fix” people by getting them to take action. That’s the “do.”
Annnnnnd it usually works.
FOR ABOUT A WEEK!
And then those clients are back to doing what they did before. And the problem doesn’t get solved. The reason? Because there’s been no transformation from the inside of the person, at the level of their emotional DNA. Without inner transformation, nothing changes. It’s like stretching an elastic band – it always goes back to the way it was because that’s what elastic bands do.
People do their lives the same way. They follow patterns, habits, rules – life paradigms – that are deeply ingrained in them; paradigms that are the result of a person’s emotional DNA. Coaching someone to take action (the doing) is like stretching an elastic band and expecting it to stay put and then being surprised when it doesn’t.
Coaching from the outside in doesn’t work. At least, not for long.
Change cannot last when you coach (or you’re being coached) from the outside in.
Coaching has to topple the paradigms if lasting change is to occur. It has to change the human being’s emotional DNA.
We all have a way of being in the world. How we see ourselves and our place in the world determines how we choose to be who we are. We fit the paradigm. The paradigm fits us.
It’s from that place of being who we are that we decide what we’re going to do in any given moment.
It takes an astute and experienced coach to identify the emotional DNA that created the paradigms, first.
Emotional DNA paradigms are the elastic bands of a person’s life.
And no matter how hard a coach and client work to change the doing (action), if restrictive paradigms are in force, the client will always go back to being her “old self” unless there’s a fundamental change at the level of her emotional DNA, where paradigms are shifted.
Does that make sense?
BE first.
Then DO.
BE DO BE DO BE
That is how lives are forever transformed from the inside out.
This work takes guts. For both the coach and the client. If your goal as a coach is to get the client to feel better as quickly as possible, so you can feel better as a coach, then you will be doing your clients a disservice.
If your goal is to find a coach who can give you a quick fix, then you’re doing yourself a disservice because you’re going for short-term gratification instead of deep and lasting change.
What does it take for you to become the woman of your dreams?
First of all, it takes GUTS. “Going in” is not for the faint of heart. Changing who you have been until this point in your life is not easy, but you already know that. The fact that you’re still reading means you’re up for the challenge.
Self transformation requires an unwavering commitment to becoming the best woman you can be so that you can then do all the things you’re not doing now because you aren’t yet “that woman.” In fact, there’s a side of the woman you are today who may not yet believe it’s possible to become the woman of your dreams.
Becoming that woman begins with your decision to commit to going in.
From there? Oh, the places you’ll go.
This is how we Woman UP.
