Life-Balance Analysis- Reflection entry-Coach and Coachee, by Yuchen

I think that our coaching session of this week was       better than the last one. With Awa’s joining, our conversations became even more dynamic. From a coachee’s perspective, this coaching session was very instructive. This coaching session gave us a way to share our way of living, our experience of balanced or usually unbalanced life and finally analyze it. When I was being coached, I felt comfortable and relaxed to share my point of view towards the life-balance analysis, and my coach my coach shared his sharp observation and analysis of my current problems, for example, he asked me why I rated my Intellectual activities so low while I put so many time on study. To be honest, although I explained at the moment that this aspect was considered as emotional intelligence to me, I do realize now that it’s WRONG to put so less efforts on it because the more time I spend on it, the more skills I will have when coping with other activities.

My coach pointed out that my main stressor is actually my own problem with concentration; I was too easy to be distracted and therefore lost my focus. He also shared a very instructive method to help me get rid of the procrastination, he mentioned that if people can work or study in groups, they will have less chances to be distracted by gadgets, internet, etc.

I was actually stressed when I had to coach. It was very clear to me that the purpose and goal is to help coachee crystallize his or her stressors and provide some advises accordingly which requires me to reckon the 5 steps of coaching every second. My coaching is based on the life-balance analysis where I believe my coachee has a fairly balanced life although she’s facing some restrain factors, for example, she told me that she’s facing pressures from studies. Based on this acknowledge, I think my coachee knows exactly what her stressors are, and she has an interesting perspective on the nature of stress and the different aspects of life balance. On one hand, she felt demotivated by the uncertainty, the same feeling David had. On the other hand, she was supported by her family and friends, suggesting that her social resilience should be strong. Therefore, I focused on demonstrating that this powerful strength she had and how it could influence her life balance.

During the coaching process, I was able to practice the 5 steps of coaching. However I do find it's hard to apply the mirrowing part due to the quality of my questions. Had I ask the open questions that would attract my coachee's attention, that would help me allocate her problems? I'm concerning about this part, but nevertheless, I hope our conversation touched some points.