Coach of the Month- December 2017- Coaching Q & A

The last month of the year is here and we are delighted to present our last Coach of the Month for 2017: Stephanie Vitols.

It has been a wonderful year at PSG; filled with wisdom, new experiences and growth. We have worked hard throughout these 12 months to help our community of professional coaches flourish. We feel the reward for all the effort shows every month when we proudly share with you the insights of another brilliant Coach of the Month. We will definitely continue this great tradition in 2018.

Keep reading to benefit from Stephanie’s advice on how to prepare for the future, take the best out of any setback and be more focused on your goals.

Here is our Coach of the Month – December 2017 – Coaching Q & A

PSG: What enables you best to prepare for the future?

Stephanie

Belief! 8 months ago I had a serious fall, a shock to my whole system and I wondered for a minute “Is that all?” I quickly realized that, this wasn’t all and that there was much more to fulfil, if only I believe in the first place. Today I’m grateful to stand on my feet and enjoy life’s journey. I don’t know the details of my future. I don’t know what lies ahead. I don’t know some of the challenges I will have to face. What I know Is that I am my own agent, I believe I have the power to build a bridge of opportunities to help me see the end from the beginning, prepare myself the best I can from where I stand today.

Setting goals definitely helps to set myself up for the future. I work in a company where our CEO designed a tool to focus goals and align the organization. It’s called V2MOM an acronym that stands for vision, values, methods, obstacles, and measures. I use it not only with the people I coach and develop but I made it a personal tool supporting my goal achievements and to best anticipate the future. The vision helps me clarify what exactly I aspire to do, the values embed my vision into what is most important for me. The methods illustrate the way to get there and outlines the actions I’m planning to take. The obstacles uncover the identified challenges and red flags that could step into the way of achieving my vision. The measures assess the progress and the results. The tool itself keeps me on my toes as I’m shaping my future self.

PSG: How do you support your future goals with your awesome fails?

Stephanie

Someone once said that failures give us perspectives to achieve our goals, I truly relate to this. My approach to challenges is that they will give me experience and will be for my good. I cannot predict the future but I can certainly learn from the past and be more future-ready.

Looking into the mirror of self-reflection has been key in learning the lessons from the past and setting myself up for what the future might hold. It is a way to assess myself on what worked, what didn’t work and what to build to bridge the gaps, what skills to develop, what resources to leverage, what support system to reach out to. Self-reflecting is the action to think about myself. As I’m preparing myself to be more future-ready, crystallizing the thoughts into writing is paramount.

Keeping my journal as often as I can, will help me to reflect back and forth and readjust my objectives as well as recalibrate my targets. The brain is racing a lot on a daily basis and writing supports my memory to recall how much life’s lessons learned have been part of the process to fulfil my goals.

PSG: What is something we could all start doing to be more future focused?

Stephanie

Be grounded in the present does help. The photographer with his full-colour wide lens needs to be well grounded where he stands to get closer to the subject. Looking into the new dimension with precision is the right way to take a good shot with depth and perspective. Balance is important and it starts with daily self-care, self-discipline involving mindfulness, regular exercise, healthy diet. The exercise piece doesn’t have to be intense, a walk to empty out our minds from toxic thoughts and reload it with fresh empowering thoughts, choosing stairs over the lift and so on. Anything that can help boost our immune system.

I’m thinking of Time management and Covey’s Quadrant 2, the important – Not urgent. The tasks that are in direct alignment with our goals and things we want to achieve in the long-run. Wellness previously mentioned is part of them.

Also adopting the “No procrastination” attitude helps plan now for tomorrow and nurture a more forward thinking and future focus. Another thing I mentioned earlier we can do is to set and execute goals. Long-term goals fuel today’s decisions and actions, they help us enhance our vision.

Also, part of Q2 tasks and helping us prepare for what might come, surrounding ourselves with family and friends is critical. It keeps our balance straight and is key to get us future-ready.