(Principles are basic truths that, when applied, cause success to come to you easier and quicker.)

 

[I’ve only written the S3MC in the first person one other time in 14+ years, but I’m doing so today because it’s the best way I know to deliver the value of a learning which happened for me last week. I trust you will benefit by applying my learning to your life.]

At a meeting, we were talking about business situations, opportunities, and setbacks. In the course of the discussion someone said he knew his clients didn’t need him to be perfect in order for him to serve them very well. While he said that as merely a passing comment, it hit me dead center! I realized that I held a belief that was the opposite — I believed that my clients DID expect me to be perfect.

Now understand that in twenty-two years as a coach no client had ever said that to me, but I realized that, nonetheless, I operated from that unconscious belief.

What a burden! What a drain on my energy! What a mistake. I had been using unconscious energy to live to a standard that was neither possible nor necessary. The instant insight caused instant relief. My new standard is:

“My clients don’t require me to be perfect.” Period.

They know that I’ll always show up, do my best, add value in all the ways I do, care about them, want the best outcomes for them, and celebrate their growth and wins. But not be perfect.

 

Coaching Point: Do you carry the belief that people expect you to be perfect?

 

Copyright 2009 Steve Straus. All rights reserved.