Midwest With Zest

It’s magical!  Suddenly I’ve got a handstand!  That I can control!  That I can do again!

Well, ok, it’s really not magical.  Unless you count a ton of research, a bunch of handstand friends, 3 years of preparation, and 1 kick-ass handstand coach as magic.

7 weeks ago on September 24th I started Kirsty Grosart’s Garage Gym Girl 12 week online handstand course.  It’s always fun and challenging to be on the other end of the coaching relationship but it’s been a long time for me.  I wasn’t sure how it would go and I came to it without strong expectations or goals. It has been three long years of accepting agonizingly slow progress.  So this coaching felt surprisingly miraculously incredibly successful.

But as I know from being a coach – success does not come from a coach’s magic wand.

As I’ve been coached for these eight weeks, I’ve been reminded of four keys to being coached:

1. Trust and follow the program.
Week one and I was full of doubts and questions.  But if I actually knew better and could get to my goals myself, I wouldn’t have signed up. I chose this program and coach for a reason. It’s ok to ask “why do it this way?” But sometimes you just have to swallow your pride and ego and do what Coach says. Why? Because you already agreed to be coached! So let go of some control and be coachable!

2. Accountability only works when you really want it to.
Sometimes we talk about accountability as if it were magic. Add a dash of accountability and *poof* obstacle vanishes, hard thing done, ta-da! But all too often people say they’ll be accountable and then it just doesn’t happen. Having someone or something to be accountable to doesn’t magically make it easy to do the thing. You have to be ready to really want it to work. You have to want to report failure more than avoiding it.

3. Commit the time.
As long as I’ve made the choice to do the program, I might as well go all in and fully commit.  It’s a sacrifice to all my other training.  I’ve given up swimming entirely.  I run at most twice a week (and it’s suffering).  I’ve gone from training handstands three days to five. I stopped doing the drills and exercises I wanted to do.  I spend time reviewing her program instructions and logging and communicating in her method in addition to mine.  Why pay the money and ask for a coach’s time if I’m not ready to give all the time Coach asks of me?  It doesn’t work if my coach is more committed to the program and my success than I am. I will try to match and raise my coach’s commitment every time. It hasn’t always been easy, but I certainly don’t regret it.

4. Participate in the coaching.
The less passive it is the better.  I’m not just going through the motions checking off the items.  Self-coach/assess as much as possible and SHARE.  It doesn’t mean I’m not getting what I paid for or letting my coach off the hook.  It means I am getting MORE because my coach has more information and can give me more accurate direction.  I’m constantly coaching myself as far as I’m able, which leaves my coach to unlock the one thing I didn’t see or understand.

I’m so excited for the last five weeks of coaching. It took years of patience to get here, but progress is addicting.