Why - and how - will you benefit from working with me to optimize your mind-body connection and thereby improve your degree of personal mastery - whether it is in the area of athletic/sports, creative or professional/career endeavors?
A recent article in the New Yorker Magazine titled "Personal Best: Top athletes and singers have coaches. Should You?" by Atul Gawande, a surgeon who'd hit a plateau but wanted to go to the next level with his professional abilities describes the process of employing a performance coach beautifully. I'll let his words articulate what coaches do (bold italicized emphasis mine):
"The concept of a coach is slippery. Coaches are not teachers, but they teach. They’re not your boss - in professional tennis, golf, and skating, the athlete hires and fires the coach - but they can be bossy. They don’t even have to be good at the sport. The famous Olympic gymnastics coach Bela Karolyi couldn't do a split if his life depended on it. Mainly, they observe, they judge, and they guide."
and:
"Élite performers, researchers say, must engage in “deliberate practice”- sustained, mindful efforts to develop the full range of abilities that success requires. You have to work at what you’re not good at. In theory, people can do this themselves. But most people do not know where to start or how to proceed. Expertise, as the formula goes, requires going from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence to conscious competence and finally to unconscious competence. The coach provides the outside eyes and ears, and makes you aware of where you’re falling short. This is tricky. Human beings resist exposure and critique; our brains are well defended. So coaches use a variety of approaches - showing what other, respected colleagues do, for instance, or reviewing videos of the subject’s performance. The most common, however, is just conversation."
This last excerpt about why people resist paying for coaching is perhaps the most important for you to read:
"For society, too, there are uncomfortable difficulties: we may not be ready to accept - or pay for - a cadre of people who identify the flaws in the professionals upon whom we rely, and yet hold in confidence what they see. Coaching done well may be the most effective intervention designed for human performance. Yet the allegiance of coaches is to the people they work with; their success depends on it. And the existence of a coach requires an acknowledgment that even expert practitioners have significant room for improvement. Are we ready to confront this fact when we’re in their care?"
Is Mind-Body Coaching for Optimal Creative, Professional or Athletic Performance the right next step for you?
Many creative and professional people blame the obstacles to achieving success on the economy or other external factors. However, the deeper challenges are generally your own self-sabotaging and non-productive thoughts, choices, actions, and behaviors that have developed over years, becoming status-quo habits you get stuck in - and don't know how to get out of. Athletes also get caught up in negative internal programming and reactivity that can cause them to "choke" at critical moments.
Fears - both large and small - plague all three groups of people, and at worse can be debilitating, but at least (and much more commonly) can find you coming up with all the great excuses, justifications and rationalizations as to why things are just not going right for you.
Do you really want to improve your experience of life? Are you willing to do the work? Can you put your ego aside and allow yourself to hear constructive feedback? Are you willing and able to make both a financial and self-empowerment investment in yourself? Are you willing to be held accountable for what it takes to optimize your performance to actualize success?
Acknowledging you can use some help - and getting it - is a sign of great courage and strength.
What makes me a comprehensive and effective Mind-Body Coach:
On the Technical Skills side:
I received advanced training and certification in Hypnosis for Sports Performance from the nationally accredited Hypnosis Motivation Institute, and am well versed in the workings of the subconscious mind and how to pinpoint your unique inner obstacles to attaining your personal best. The Hypnosis and Guided Imagery tools and techniques I possess translate beautifully into creative and professional performance as well. Adding the Life Skills of Mindfulness Practices boosts your ability to be present, attentive and focused upon what is right in front of you. You will learn mindfulness, self-hypnosis and imagery techniques designed exclusively for your unique needs.
Mind-Body Performance Coaching Areas of Focus:
- comprehend intrinsic and extrinsic motivation - strengthen attention and clarify intention
- become present and eliminate mental distractions
- eliminating excuses, self-criticism, doubt, blaming, denial, justification and rationalization from getting in the way of success
- build self-confidence, self-acceptance and self-compassion - no more beating yourself up!
- develop insight into your mental blocks, fears, negative self-talk and focus issues that get in the way and cause you to "choke" under pressure ... or simply plateau or tread water
- special programs for transcending public speaking, audition and social stress fears and phobias
My clients and I are in a partnership, and we work together in steady, incremental steps to move through the subconscious barriers to successful self-improvement, empowerment and greater mind/brain/body balance - that in many cases, whose self-defeating patterns took years to create. It takes a strong, courageous and purposeful focus to break through your personal status quo and make change last. I coach and teach clients to understand the power of both their conscious and subconscious mind, to take responsibility for their shadow tendencies and the impact they have upon others and themselves -- and also to believe in their strengths and abilities and to begin to think and live life differently.
On the Human Factor side:
Besides the tools of mindfulness, self-inquiry, hypnosis and therapeutic imagery, the most important things I can give you are my full attention, a safe place to express yourself, a sense of fun and adventure, both compassionate "tough love" and positive assistance in the process of personal change and growth, and heartfelt, encouraging support.
Please click here to learn more about Mind-Body Coaching and Training with Suzanne.
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