This month marks the second anniversary of our coaching blog. As we reflected on our blogging journey, we realized that working together was the most important thing in getting us started and staying with it. Collaboration is also one of the reasons coaching is so effective—most of us are much more creative and resilient together than alone. For us, collaborating helped us learn more about our inner critics and how to listen to them but not let them stop us. By working together, we also felt more confident in doing something new. And not least, working with a common purpose and developing our partnership over time was rewarding in itself.
Beginning to write a blog is like any change we determine to make-- we engaged in a lot of resistance at the beginning and spent many months listening to our critical voices tell us all the reasons we could not and should not write a blog. Inner critics are so committed to the status quo, so committed to avoiding danger and shame sure to follow from taking a risk! And yet… there are other parts of us that long for new adventures and challenges. Collaborating on the blog helped us feel more comfortable taking risks and stepping into the unknown—we could talk ideas through, challenge each other and build confidence.
As we wrote new blogs month after month a new normal was achieved. As solo entrepreneurs, work can get lonely, and jointly writing a monthly blog connects us and gives us opportunities to take turns leading and editing, knowing that our thinking and writing are always better when we work together. We found the blog provided a helpful medium to reflect on our coaching practices; to describe and share themes we noticed in our coaching, enforcing the idea for ourselves as well as for our readers, that we are not alone navigating the human condition.
Like all changes, it takes commitment to stay with the journey and to continue forging ahead to see what lays beyond the next bend in the road. Working together created accountability. Alone, it would have been much easier to skip a few months here and there
due to competing commitments, but doing it together kept us on track. Looking back on our blogging journey, we realize how instrumental the collaboration has been for us. Writing the blog has been less daunting, more successful, and more rewarding because we are in it together. That is something to celebrate!
Sometimes a partner is what you need to make a change or move more confidently ahead—talking things through, hearing what is most important, committing to next steps. If you would like to explore how coaching could help you or someone you know make a change, contact me at info@peghuntcoaching.com.
© 2023 Anne Garing, PhD & Peg Hunt, MS
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