In a world in crisis with systemic disruptions, social fragmentation, political discord, climate change, wars, etc. happening all around us, coaching from the context of joy offers a powerful and necessary antidote to the current collective state and narratives we find ourselves both coaching and living within.

Our work as coaches is to help our clients see and navigate the many systemic and contextual forces shaping their experiences and influencing how they think, feel, and act. With greater awareness of how the contexts impact them, they begin to see that they have more choice than they realized.

But to do that well, we have to do the same work ourselves. We, too, are operating within many contexts (personal, cultural, organizational, global, cosmological) that are shaping how we coach, what we listen for, and what we unconsciously reinforce. If we aren’t aware of the waters we’re swimming in, we risk colluding with our clients’ limitations and fears rather than disrupting them. We risk reinforcing the very narratives and belief systems that they are trapped by because we don’t see them or because we are trapped ourselves.

Waiting, while understandable with so much uncertainty and chaos around us, can be a costly way to live our lives.

Moving from the metastory of individualism towards deeper and broader consciousness

We are living in unprecedented times where the collective narrative – the metastory – of our world is shifting, and it is profoundly influencing what clients are bringing into coaching sessions. The issues they present are no longer just about career advancement, relationship improvement or achieving personal goals. Increasingly, clients are grappling with deeper questions about life and their place in it. As coaches, we must ask ourselves: Are we equipped to handle this evolution in what our clients need from us?

…is to rewrite the script we’ve been handed.

We are all working from an invisible, inherited story about what work is and how success happens. It’s so embedded in our culture we rarely see it, much less question it.