… THE CLOSER THESE 3 FACES ARE ALIGNED, THE CLOSER YOU ARE TO TRUE HAPPINESS
This was the great statement made by a coaching client of mine recently.
I was intrigued and asked him to explain more.
I wondered if he had read it somewhere, but he said that it was an observation he had made though his life, and it was a theory that he had come up with on his own.
Face One was the face that everyone saw and what everyone believed he was.
Face Two was how he actually felt about himself. The face that looked back in the mirror, you could say.
The Third Face was the actual face of reality. This is where he was living his life.
But the real wisdom was on the closing sentence: He said, “The closer that these three faces align, means the closer you are to true happiness.”
Wow, I thought this was fantastic and it really got me thinking.
The subject came up as my client is going through a particularly tough time at present and this has forced him to experience a particularly low opinion of himself.
He felt that the gaps between the faces were bigger than they had ever been and he just couldn’t see a way in order to close the gaps back together.
We all have these periods… We spent the next couple of hours working together and talking through the reality, as opposed to a reaction to the current climate or a difficult spot he found himself in. This enabled him to set an action plan that, if achieved, will see him get through this tough time and come out the other side.
A quick note here… As a coach, I don’t set the plan or make it happen. The client does that with my help. Through the use of questions, the client will always find the answers that are within them and the path appears. This is sometimes easy, but it can also be difficult, and the questions can cause the client to have to really go deep within to find the answers. I simply help the client get that clarity and hold them accountable to the plan that they put into place for themselves.
We are all our own worse critics, and often we are overly hard or self-critical of ourselves.
How often do we simply fail to acknowledge any progress we are making, even if it is tiny. In my experience, the progress is often huge, but the recognition of that progress takes a period of reflection which often we don’t allow ourselves to have.
I have lost count of the amount of times I have asked a client for an update on what has happened since we last met, that is then followed by a barrage of self-criticism and a dose of how undisciplined they have been. This more often than not, prelude to an exasperated declaration of how little they have managed to get through in the last month or so.
After a short spell of self-loathing and venting, I then get down to the reality. “So, let’s break it down”, I say.
What follows then is a list of accomplishments, normally as long as your arm, which when prompted cover many areas of their business and private lives. After about 10 minutes I look up from my notes, and with a wry smile normally say something smart like, “Not much then?”
This normally gets a smile.
We take for granted – What we do in one week, most of the working population do in a month
This isn’t exclusive to my clients, I see it all the time with my fellow Faculty members when we meet for our quarterly summits and hear it on group calls all the time.
I think as business owners we fail to grasp the reality… We take for granted that we do in one week, is what most of the working population do in a month. We just don’t get the time to reflect or crow about what we do.
Also, I find that more than half of the things we do in a day, are done without any acknowledgement. They don’t even appear on a to do list to get ticked off. They are just done. That’s what we do isn’t it? We just get busy doing the do.
Back to the 3 faces, I loved the analogy, I have to be honest. I rarely meet or see anyone that isn’t regarded highly amongst their peers and family. Where we fail down, is the low opinion we have of ourselves and there is the gap between face one and face two.
John Maxwell says nothing is ever as good as it appears, and nothing is ever as bad as it looks. I think the same is true for ourselves.
So, think of the three faces, concentrate on face 3 and the reality. Cut yourself some slack. I tell everyone there are millions of people out there who will enjoy being horrible to you. For that reason, you don’t need to be horrible to yourself. Find some time today where you can reflect on what you have achieved this week or month. Look at the goals you set yourself this year, are you on track or have you wavered off course?
