Happiness is that great word that everyone aims for but do we really understand what it is and what it means to us as individuals? Coaching and happiness are 2 relatively new words gaining momentum as we all seek to understand this life. 

Flow – Losing Yourself

Do you ever experience ‘losing yourself in the moment’? Do you remember those moments and do you have them frequently enough? And I don’t mean losing yourself on a night out but truly being so involved in your activity that there is no sense of self or time. Everything just stands still and you feel alive… and happy. Coaching can help you find those moments of happiness and direct your life so that you can choose to  live to your full potential by doing something you can ‘lose yourself in’. Positive Psychology refers to this as ‘flow’.  

Learning to Say No

As a child of a narcissist, I learnt to get validation from others around me rather than inwardly. This leads to a very annoying (to me, anyway) trait of always saying yes and unable to say no to anything. I was very proud of myself when I politely said no to something at work this week. The timings just didn’t match with my priorities and we worked out a compromise solution. The other person didn’t think twice about this being a problem and was happy with the outcome. They don’t hate me nor do they want to blank me out of their lives. It was 2 adults agreeing something together. 

But wow, what amazing progress for me who would normally crumble inside whenever anyone asked for a favour. I would sacrifice my sleep, my time and probably sell my soul to make them happy. But not this time…. and it felt good! And normal. I suddenly felt free to be myself but this has taken a lot of internal work with a coach. I couldn’t have got to this point without my coach. 

Low Self-Esteem

As a confident person, I didn’t even realise I had low self-esteem which meant that I didn’t respect my own boundaries and so yes to anything anyone asked. Whilst confidence refers to a feeling about a particular situation, self-esteem refers to how you feel about yourself overall. It’s an odd paradox for me because my family instilled beliefs in me that I was never good enough. The positive of this was that I turned into a high achiever. I’m therefore confident in that I know I can be good at anything I try. The flip-side is that I also believe it’s not enough and so I’m worthless and never up to standard, all thanks to the negative chatter which, interestingly enough, was always with my mother’s voice. Again, it was through coaching that I learnt to identify this with tips and exercises to find my happiness.

Coaching and Happiness

Martin Seligman, a key recent figure in positive psychology, states that we have 3 kinds of happiness: pleasure and gratification, embodiment of strengths and virtues, meaning and purpose. Whilst on paper, these are all clear and logical, it is in reality very difficult to get past our cultures, backgrounds and upbringing to truly know ourselves to be able to define our purpose. 

A coach is an invaluable person in being a sounding board. They can help us identify our blind spots to find ourselves and learn to live to our full potential. This goes back to finding the things you ‘lose yourself’ or ‘flow’. This ‘flow’ is our purpose where we find a greater sense of meaning. We are part of something bigger than ourselves where our inputs and contributions will live on beyond us. The more we work towards finding this in our lives then the more our individual selfish needs become less important. And that work is so much more powerful with a coach and yet those who need them the most, sadly often avoid them.

Our Energy

Our energy goes towards meaningful goals that will contribute to the greater consciousness and help form future thinking. The more positive our impact on those around us then the more we contribute to a better world and future. And we can’t do this alone. Coaching can help us find ways to lose the grip on our ego and move towards connecting with our core true selves and our purpose, hence find happiness. In that way, we also have positive impact on the world around us and our daily ‘sufferings’ become less significant. Flow will naturally follow, as does our happiness. As Andy at Headspace nicely states, “we find a sense of underlying contentment and ease no matter how the mind and body feel at any moment in time”. 

Whilst some people will always convince themselves they are happy with their power or material gain, if they were brave enough to look deep inside they would see something missing. They would be able to identify their emptiness and imbalance. But looking inside is a truly frightening thing to do. The demons are ugly and the truth hurts but the outcome is worth the pain. The journey of coaching and happiness are intertwined and accessible to all but also require deep personal effort. But the final knowledge that life was fulfilled and contributed to the universal consciousness will make the journey into the next phase of our existence less daunting.