COACHING: WINDOW WITH A VIEW

February 2022
The Pennsylvania Key Coaching Team welcomes you to another edition of Coaching: Window with a View. We invite you to engage and respond to questions posed as well as sharing exciting and insightful resources that facilitate reflection and critical thinking.
Motivation

This month’s issue was a real challenge to write, if we're being honest. When starting a new year, visioning, resolutions, change, and growth all come to mind. At the intersection of these ideas for us are motivation and truth. 
 
So we began to ponder questions like, what prevents us from taking future visions and making them a reality? Why do resolutions get abandoned by February? We thought this would be a good opportunity to identify ways coaches can support people through motivational rollercoasters that can, at times, take us to our highest action points and, other times, leave us deflated. 
 
Let’s take some time to reflect on what might be happening on the bridge between present and future visioning? While it is not the only thing on the bridge, motivation is a significant factor. It is what pushes us to step on the bridge, drives us to approach and work through the obstacles, get creative, and achieve.
Most of us can agree we can’t motivate others; people are truly motivated from within. I know we have lived in a society that has continually revamped the carrot on the stick method as a form of motivation, but these methods do not yield long-term success. There are books written about the concepts of motivation, like Why Motivating People Doesn’t Work…and What Does; The New Science of Leading Energizing, and Engaging, written by Susan Fowler (we are in the middle of this one now) that help to shed light on moving towards optimal motivation. 
 
So what is a coach to do? How do we support others to identify their motivation for sustainable movement towards their future vision?  One way is to have individuals identify their highest values and reflect on how their visions and motivations align with their top values. 

Everyone will admit their values drive their behaviors, but most people don’t take time to identify the most important values to them and connect them to their why. Motivation is likely to decrease when one works towards a vision aligned with a value that exists lower on their priority scale. So coaches could ask questions about values and how they connect.

Of course, we know that as a coach, we should engage in practices for ourselves, so we have crafted some questions below that we would love for you to consider for yourself:

  • What is your vision for your career in 5 years/10 years?
  • What values do you hold dear to you? (Prioritize or rank your top 10 using the list.)
  • How do those values align with your vision?
  • Which value does your vision align with most, and where does that value fall on your priority list?
  • Where is there misalignment?
  • What value is your vision not as closely aligned to, and how significant is that value to you?
  • On a scale of 1 to 10, how motivated are you to achieve your vision?
  • How is your current role supporting you in moving towards your vision?
  • What do you have to do /expand upon to move closer towards your vision?
  •  What would it mean to you to reach that goal?

Let us know where you land.
 
Submitted by,
Rasheeda Coston, Director of Coaching, rascos@pakeys.org                    
Barb Willier, Coaching Coordinator, barwil@pakeys.org   
The Pennsylvania Key
Coaching values the knowledge, skills and desired goals of the early childhood education
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The title of this newsletter, Coaching: Window with a View, reflects how only a small slice--or window-- of a perspective or viewpoint is necessary to make an impact in the process of coaching. This monthly newsletter is where you can find information, research, articles and perspectives to support engagement and continued development of the coaching mindset. 

For additional information about coaching, visit the Pennsylvania Keys website.
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