Coaching: 15 things that make your heart sing

One of the key components of my coaching certification program is to undertake peer coaching with other members of the cohort.

There’s a minimum requirement of peer coaching hours over the program, but most of us have gone above and beyond this already as it’s been very valuable time – both as a coach and a client (we usually do 30 mins each, swapping at the midpoint).

I’ve been doing a couple of peer sessions a week and that focused practice along with absorbing how my partner approaches sessions has definitely improved my practice.

For yesterday’s session as a client I presented an agenda of blocks around my creative work.

After we’d gone into a deeper agenda and talked through some related challenges, my coach invited me to try a couple of exercises to help re-align with that creative space.

One of them was simply to list 15 things that make my heart sing. 

At the time of the session I was finding it hard to even list one. We agreed to check back in two days later so I had some space with it.

Getting back into it today it came to me far more easily (in batches of 5, strangely).

Here’s what came out – plenty of music, a fair bit of food, and some sun.

I feel more in the groove already.

The unexpected punchline

Grilling aubergines in the Ibiza outdoor kitchen

Drum & Bass mixtapes circa 2001

Cycling on a long, straight, open road

The inquisitively raised eyebrow

Fresh gridded notebook and a trio of colored pens

Early evenings in the departing sun

Cooking for friends with zero regard for surface mess

The next great visual metaphor

The locals’ choice of unassuming restaurant in a new city

Those few seconds before the band come on stage

Geometric patterns everywhere

Discovering the ID of that track

Being beautifully entrapped in an intricately woven story

Getting sunk into the groove of the never-ending beat