About a year ago I had a huge “a ha” moment.

It happened during a couple of coaching sessions of my own. 

i.e. I was the client instead of the coach.

One of the topics which came up on the calls was social anxiety.

There’ve been times in the past where I’ve been sitting in a meeting with colleagues, standing in a networking room with new faces or even down the pub with some pals and I’ve felt intensely self-conscious. And, as result, I’ve noticed myself avoid eye contact with people, avoid speaking, or even avoid going to the meeting, networking event or pub in the first place.

A year with a therapist didn’t do much to change this.

If anything, raking over a bunch of anxiety-inducing examples from my past made me feel more anxious, not less.

But I always suspected there would be a way to ease some of this anxiety and I thought these coaching sessions were worth a shot.

Turns out I was right.

Halfway through the second session, my coach made a comment which stopped me in my tracks.

It got right to the nub of the anxiety I felt and I knew what the coach was saying was true, even though it had never occurred to me before.

So what was the sentence?

Actually, it's not important.

I know that might sound like the mother of all cop outs.

But relaying the sentence would strip away all the magic and make that sentence sound like something it wasn't.

See, the impact wasn’t just the words in the sentence.

Instead, it was the words in that moment. It was having a coach sitting opposite me, 100% present and connected to me, guiding, pointing and exploring with me and suggesting a new way of looking at anxiety which had simply never crossed my mind before.

A way rooted in The Subtraction Method which I coach from too.

And a sentence which was part of a wider conversation which followed the previous session - a session where I wasn’t just open to hearing something new, but ready & willing to take a look at the truth of what I was hearing.

So the words in the sentence were one tiny part of what made that sentence so impactful.

And you know what?

Over the last few months, I’ve genuinely noticed a real, tangible change. 

That one sentence means I can look someone in the eye now and most of the time not feel self-conscious or anxious.

For instance:

A while back I went to an evening meet-up for an online community I’m a member of

(geek alert!)

In the past, I would’ve played that meet-up over & over in my head for days before. I would’ve kept a low profile when I arrived, sat on the edge of the group, had a beer before I arrived, another beer in the first ten minutes, then a third beer, and then I would've left.

Depending on how my day had gone I might’ve even skipped the meet-up altogether.

But during the evening in question I was out of my head, totally not self-conscious and I actually enjoyed being at the meet-up.

Sure – I wasn’t the life and soul of the party. That’s not my style. 

But I was chatting to people, getting to know my fellow geeks and sharing stuff about my life. I even swapped details with another London-based coach and ended up running an ad in her newsletter. An ad which snagged me a few new subscribers and left her happy too.

So why am I telling you all this?

Because I’m trying to impart the power of coaching and how effective the Subtraction Method is.

I’m certainly not saying every coaching session is littered with life-changing sentences.

But I am saying that the right approach and a fresh & impactful perspective can be remarkably powerful.

If you’d like to read more about my coaching, here’s the link:

https://waitinglist.followingfulfilment.com