Choosing Who You Are

There are many different coaching methodologies. I practice Ontological Coaching. So what is it?

Say you hike into the woods for a picnic with a really exciting date or with your husband or wife on an important anniversary. On a stream bank, you spread the cloth, break into the bread and cheese, and pop the cork on a bottle of wine. Without warning, lightning cracks the sky, thunder crashes, and rain falls.

Do you shake your fist at the heavens, angry and frustrated that your afternoon has been ruined?

What would it be like if you could put your anger and frustration to the side and instead—sing in the rain?

Ontology is the study of being. Or, from a coaching or pragmatic point of view, it is developing our ability to purposefully choose our being (at your soggy picnic: choosing joy over anger) regardless of the circumstances. Ontological coaching trains you in how to choose the way of being that best enables you to fulfill what is important to you.

Ontological Coaching Expands Our Capacity to Choose

To a certain extent, we already do this. For example, if someone says something offensive to you, your default or reflexive way of being may be to get angry and snap back. However, instead of staying with the anger, you count to ten, take a breath, and calm down before responding. You have chosen to be calm instead of angry; to respond from a considered place instead of an aggrieved one; to choose your being instead of being on automatic. This is power.

The Benefits

Think for a moment of a person you know who is collected, centered, and grounded and who responds appropriately (that is, from power, generosity, vulnerability, or love) regardless of the chaos, upsets, or frenzy that are swirling around them. This is a person who can powerfully choose their being.

Ontological coaching expands our capacity to choose. No longer are we driven by our “default” behaviors; instead, we have the freedom to choose who we wish to be.

This capacity enables you to accomplish your goals, to deepen your relationships, and to live a life that is rich and rewarding.

The choice is yours: You can shake your fist at the sky—or sing in the rain.