Coaching for Compassion and Courage
At this time in the semester and during the first year for freshmen, many can experience overwhelm and may consider giving up. Maintaining any enthusiasm and empowerment with which students began college takes endurance and follow through as they encounter each challenge. Life's twists and turns present a series of obstacles. Students, especially with tendencies of perfectionism, must find ways to work through daily difficulties including disappointment, pain, ambiguity, heavy workload, and multiple responsibilities. Building the ability to persist will sustain them over time, bringing lifelong growth and promoting physical and mental well-being.
Compassion without courage is a potential self-care train wreck. Courage without compassion is a self-serving mode that can limit and isolate. The balance of compassion and courage is what allows people to sort through difficult situations within themselves, their families, their friends, and their work environments. When both compassion and courage are sourced from the self, they can extend out to other relationships.
In the documentary Stutz (trailer here), Jonah Hill as patient features the healing power of his therapist, Stutz, who says,
“Vulnerability connects you to the rest of the world. You're giving out the signal to the world, 'I need you because I can’t do this by myself.'...Take action no matter how frightened you are.”
While coaching is not therapy, all of us as coaches can challenge ourselves, our students, those with whom we work and those we love to courageously transform difficulty and compassionately share vulnerability. This is how learners become leaders and how students who want to quit become change-makers who don’t give up on themselves, their dreams, and their goals to improve the world.
Reflection questions for coaches to ask of coachees, or of themselves:
- Who are you when you are vulnerable?
- Who are you when you are not just relying on yourself?
- Who are you when you are compassionate?
- What does courage look like to you?
- What relationship does compassion have to courage in your life right now?
- How do you persist to show up daily to walk through pain, uncertainty, and hard work?
- If you were both compassionate and courageous to your full ability, what would your life look like now? In five years? In ten years?
Let LifeBound help you build courage and compassion, for your students as well as yourself, with which you can build a bridge of persistence to the end of the semester.
Note: Please be advised that although the trailer linked here is for all audiences, the full documentary Stutz contains some profanity.
|