Resolving an Overwhelming Challenge Just Leads to the Next

If a challenge is big enough it’s likely to fall in the category of overwhelming, even impossible, and ultimately hopeless.

Have you ever had the overwhelm experience yourself?

Have you coached a person who is in some or all of those states?  Surely, you must have.

Well, I’m up against having been in all three for several months (after years of getting there) … having nothing to do with work or something fixable like that. The battle of my physical state had finally crossed the bridge to OMG.

This blog is about appreciating to potential of resolving a problem that has OMG (now what do I do?) status. It’s this way for clients; it’s this way for me, and this way for you and those for whom you care.

Here is an example of what I’m talking about:

A former client found himself suffering from stress and overwhelm doing work he loved to do. He was even masterful at doing that work. Realizing something was not working for him, he gradually embraced and then fully engaged in some truly “tough love” coaching that allowed him to begin changing how he works with people. Sure, he exclaimed OMG!  The change is continuing, the insights coming faster, the commitment still strong. It was my pleasure to be a catalyst for a whole lot of “heavy lifting” by this client who has begun to enjoy new and positive feedback from his peers.

Now it’s my time to sample the challenge and make my way forward with some tough love for myself.  Prior to surgery, I was privileged to be beautifully coached in an exam. My breakthrough (and it isn't often I have one in an exam, especially an ACC exam) was to "ask for what I want and need." What a revelation and how important it has been for me to learn how to ask.


Since I write this blog I can be personal ... the OMG is finding a resolution. It’s a moving and powerful experience to have a replacement of a part of me … to learn to walk again, to go through rehabilitation every day, to be housebound. All this is my new way to a simple though arduous future that is changing how I walk, how I sit, how I stand and, ultimately, how I feel ... oh, and how I think about things.

I'm ready to be more bold, more audacious, more controversial, more creative,and more unwilling to settle for the status quo in coaching.  Turns out my OMG was all along not about me.