Perfectionism – learning to work with it…
When I trained to become a coach, I felt I learned so much so quickly I knew I couldn’t possibly keep all of it in my head. I wanted to start coaching clients but how was I going to do that if I couldn’t access knowledge, strategies, and stories, as and when I needed?
So, I decided to create colour coded ‘prompt’ cards which would enable me to quickly reference anything I needed during a coaching session.
And they did. They were filled with information, too much in some cases, and soon, I just needed to see one word out of the corner of my eye and knew what would be helpful in that coaching moment.
When speaking with other coaches about this, they were curious about my need to get these in place before jumping in with my coaching.
Easy – I wanted each session to be perfect. The best it could be. I wanted to be the best coach and to do that, I needed everything perfect around me.
I’ve always been aware of my tendency to want to make everything as good as it can be but learning and understanding about my type on the Enneagram and my behaviours associated with this, suddenly all made sense to me.
As a Type 1, I recognise my need for everything to be structured, ordered, organised and there is little space for me to criticise myself for something I could control.
After all, the last thing I want is to feel criticised and not good enough – that’s my Type’s vulnerability. Learning about the Enneagram has opened doors for me both about myself, my motivations, my relationship with others and more.
I feel I have only scratched the surface of this incredibly rich system. I will soon be a certified Enneagram practitioner and I can’t wait to start using it with clients who I hope will find discovering more about themselves as insightful and inspirational as I did.
I don’t use these cards anymore, well, not all of them. But I know I’ll be making a new set soon and that’s okay.
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