Here you have the whole text of the Power Tool that I found really important and that I used as assessment for ICA.

I welcome more than ever your feedback, doubts, questions, tips, or information. Use the comment field that you find at the bottom of this great post.

 

Power tool: Creativity versus Competitive

By ‘Coach Erwin’ de Grave – ã October 2007

 

This is a real powerful and important power tool. To better explain the power of creativity, allow me to elaborate in more depth Competitive and Competition. What I want to point out that this power tool can be used by the coach itself to stay focussed and at the same time he/she can use it during coaching sessions with their clients to support the client to (re-)focus onto the important things. The most genius of this power tool is that, when you combine both, i.e. creativity and competitiveness, in the correct order, you have even an explosive top-power tool. But before given you the secret combination, let us explore both ingredients individually.

 

Competition

Competitive is derived from the verb ‘to compete’. To compete is defined in the online Cambridge Dictionary as “1to try to be more successful than someone or something else; 2to take part in a race or competition”[1], or in the Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary as “To contend emulously; to seek or strive for the same thing, position, or reward for which another is striving; to contend in rivalry, as for a prize or in business; as, tradesmen compete with one another.”[2].

Looking at those definitions, both say that competition is about winning or being better than someone else for a post, a prize, or pride. The interesting part about competitiveness is that you will undertake all the necessary actions in relation to the other side (being an individual or a group). This means that you will determine your actions based upon the other, the environment and the situation, so that you can win. That is what the definitions about ‘to compete’ in general say.

Let us now have a more in depth look and analyse what competition means in your life and how it can affect your coaching and the success of all people.

When you or your client are in a state of ‘being in a pure competitive mood’ (as I call it), this means that you are living and acting outside of yourself. What do I mean with that? I mean with that, in general, as there always exceptions, that you or the client are taking actions and decisions based upon what the competitor is doing or the environment you are in, and that you or your client are taken the shots not tapping in your own knowledge and wisdom. When you would take actions tapping first of all from within you, you would be much more powerful and you would be in a creative mood. I will explain more in detail this creative mood later on.

What are the symptoms of someone who is in a pure competitive mood:

o       You are all the time worried about losing out to your competitor(s);

o       You feel that your energy level is really low;

o       You feel tired as you sleep bad at night (due to the worries);

o       You are afraid for the new kids around the block;

o       You feel enormously stressed and worn down;

o       Your confidence level is low as you think that you are not as good as your competitor;

o       … (Question to the reader: What are your experiences and symptoms?)[3]

If you can identify yourself with one or more of the above points, do not worry at all, as you have the solution here at your fingertips. You can learn and apply to transform all the above symptoms in powerful characteristics. Ready to move yourself and your client to another level?

 

Be creative

An important point that I personally learned in life, and which I want to share with you here, is that you are 100 times stronger, more powerful, more confident, actually more of all the good things when you live and take actions from within you. I mean that you are realising much more things and feel more complete in your life if you do the things from inside to the outside, from your interior towards your exterior. Otherwise explained, you prefer to determine for yourself what is around you and happening in your life instead of your environment determining your life. This last part of the last sentence happens, for example, when you are in a pure competitive mood.

Now, you are probably asking yourself what could be a strong base that you could use to live from the inside out, and one of those strong bases is ‘Being Creative’. Being creative means that you are developing and taking actions and decisions based upon what is important to you and what you want to achieve in your life. Being creative means that you look at what you want in your life and find creative solutions within you to realise those dreams and goals. If you want to compare it with competition, than competition is determining your life from outside in, where being creative is determining your life from inside out. This is also much more powerful, as it is something that comes from you and of which you are proud of.

Ok, you maybe already know this, but you are looking for ways that you can apply that in your life successfully, and transform the above symptoms into powerful characteristics. Well then, let us have a look at a possible procedure/process/way that you could use:

ü      A good way to start off is by sitting down for a few seconds and come back to yourself;

ü      Have clear defined goals and objectives (if you do not have them clearly defined, do this maybe with the help of a coach);

ü      Being creative means that you solve and realise things in your life without looking at others, just finding the best solution for you and translating those into actions;

ü      An important question that you can ask is: ‘Am I doing this for me or when I am taking action, do I want to show off to others that I have made it?’ (This is a really important point and method to check if you are really doing something for you or that you are doing something just only to please someone else. If you are in a creative mood, then all the actions and decisions you take are pleasing you, and when you please someone else at the same time as pleasing yourself, pleasing the other person will be much more of fun and gratifying.);

ü      When you are in the creative mood, whatever your decision will be, it will be based upon respect towards yourself and others, and it will be in a mindset of no harming no one;

 

 

Basically, when you are creative, these would be possible sensations:

v     being content with yourself;

v     feel happy;

v     have a high level of self-confidence;

v     the things that you want to realise start to be offered to you (the Law of Attraction at work);

v     you feel strong and satisfied;

v     you have fun doing things;

 

The Secret Combination

Yes, I know, you have been reading all the above to get finally to this point what really interest you (and me too…), and that is that secret explosive combination that is so powerful and is used by successful people. Here is the secret combination: be competitive using your creativity. Is it just that? Yes, that is the formula. Allow me to explain.

First of all, we live in a competitive world and one of the main activities that ‘lives’ on competition is sport. And I would like to take this example to explain you the formula. All the top sport performers and champions combine creativity with competitiveness. The process in which they do it is really important: translate your creativity into positive competition to realise your goal. Taking the example of sport, a champion realises that ultimate result tapping into his/her own creativity and focus, and transforms this in the moment of truth into success. Actually, they are not champions because they are competing with the other participants, they are realising their results by ‘competing’ or challenging their own limits/comfort zones/expectations. This is actually their strength. If you ask a sportsman or –woman the times that they have competed directly with others, they will tell you that they never won. They win and are successful because there are creatively using competition to realise their goals and objectives, no matter who the other participants are.

 

So, to summarise this wonderful power tool, I would like to do this in the following way:

-         as coach, be creative realising your success, and be creative supporting and guiding your client. Your are not in competition with another coach or situation. If you feel in competition with a situation, just relax and ask yourself the reason for this competitiveness. Look at it from your creative eyes, and yes, everyone has creativity within him/herself.

-         As coach coaching a client, take your client to his/her creative mood, and you can do this by empowering, acknowledging, motivating, etc. your client. Use the techniques that you have learned and acquired during your education.

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[1] Cambridge – Dictionaries Online – http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=15602&dict=CALD

[2] Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) – Used on dictionary.net – http://www.dictionary.net/compete

[3] You can share your experiences and symptoms with Coach Erwin at http://www.realiseyourdreams.net/SuccessBlog/?p=22

Have a great and excellent day.

Coach Erwin

What happens when you take responsibility is that you don’t blame any other situation or person for what has happened in your life. Do you want to blame another person for your success? Of course not, so don’t blame any more but be responsibility. You will be amazed with the results that you can achieve with it.

Taking responsibility is also an important part in the coaching process. A coach supports a client to take responsibility in his/her life, and that will help the client to move forward and achieve the success that they want.

So, take responsibility and you will get there where you want to.

Coach Erwin

What does that exactly mean? It means that you should reward yourself for the things that you have realised in your way to success. For example, a celebration could be to go out for a very nice dinner in a nice restaurant, or drink a glass of champagne, or do whatever you like to celebrate.

By celebrating, you will create more of it, so celebrate as much as you can.

Coach Erwin

Most of the times when a person comments you on what you are doing or not doing, and how you should be doing it, a lot of people receive that as criticism and negativity. They get annoyed, aggresive, and their self-confidence takes a plunge.

The interesting question here is really the reasons behind this. Mainly, there are two reasons, one being that each person has his/her pride, and someone else is judging or correcting you, you do not feel comfortable. The second main reason is that people feel at that moment that they don’t do the things right and feel bad about it, and think sometimes that they are a failure.

Now, I have learned to deal with that and to transform this into feedback. So, basically what I am doing is that whenever someone is telling eme something about what I am doing or not doing, I see that purely as feedback. I see it as if they are helping me telling me how they see the things. This creates for me the following:

- I stay in control of the information that comes to me and I keep the responsability in my own hands;

- As I stay in control, I decide if I am going to use or not use the information that was given to me;

- I stay in my own confidence and I keep focussing on the things that I want to achieve.

So, see criticism just as feedback, and you will see the transformation and the strength that it will give you. Give it a try. And if needed, contact a coach that can support and guide you in this.

Coach Erwin

Now, what is perspective? Perspective is the way that you look at someone, a situation or issue. A perspective is formed through life experience and what has happened in your life until now.

A small change in your perspective can initiate and make such a big difference in your life that things really start to fall in place. This is one of the aims of coaching, i.e. support and guide you to have the right perspective so that you can move forward. One of those powerful tools that can be used to perceive things differently is by re-framing your mental attitude and how you look at things. An exercise that you could be using to reframe is by observing how you look at the situation, and than change one aspect in your perception, and you will be amased at what you can achieve.

A coach can be the right person for you to help and support you to change some perceptions that will help you to move forward and realise what you really want.

Have a great and excellent day.

Coach Erwin

Now, what would you be needing to move forward? One of the main things that will enable you to take action is having clear identified goals. If you know where you want to go, it is much easier to take the necessary actions as you know which actions you need to take to realise your goals.

So, get your goals clear, and that on it is own is already taking action towards your success.

Coach Erwin

The Coaching Model shows you on one page how the coach works to support you towards your success and how the coaching process will be. The Coaching Model is basically the front door to the coaching process. It shows you in one view what this coach can offer you and if you feel that is or not what you are looking for.

If you want to, you could see the coaching model as the promotional tool for the coaching practice. If you would have different coaching models in front of you, the coaching model that attracts you most will probably be the coaching that you will suit you best.

The aim of my coaching model is that it inspires you to become successful and that you put it on your vision board.

Here is ‘The Coaching Model and Your Success’ of Coach Erwin:

 If you feel that this is the Coaching Model you were looking for, contact Coach Erwin now to get your FREE Discovery Session.

If you have any feedback or comment, you are more than welcome to leave it here.

To your success and have a great and excellent day.

Coach Erwin

Coaching is a process where the client, i.e. you when you step into a professional relationship with a coach, is guided and supported to grow, develop and realise those things in life that he/she want to achieve. What basically a coach does is being your supporter, challenger, empowerer, acknowledger, listener, questionar, pal, etc. Through the process of questions and analysis, the coach, i.e. me, will just help you to encounter within yourself the solution and the right way to go. A coach is NOT an advisor, nor a consultant, nor a therapist. A coach is just the person that makes you make the steps to grow and develop.

Now, what is success… Success is realising something that you want and that you have worked for. For every person that is different, which means that success is specific to each one of us. But generally sopken, success is realising, achieving something that you are proud of and of which you are very happy that you have achieve it. So, what is your success?

Combining the two words ‘coaching – success’ and the explanation here above, you probably realise that coaching, in my opinion of course, is the perfect tool or way to realise your success. Through coaching, you will be able to become more self-aware, self-confident, self-assured, self-realised, and of course realise your successes, be complete, being one with yourself and with the universe. With coaching, you stay and keep your own respect and stay your own master of your destiny, and you realise your successes quicker, better and with fun.

Yes, coaching is a fun, successful and enjoyable process. Do you know why, because a coach just support an guides you to realise the things YOU want. That is correct, coachinga and success is all about you, you become successful, you growing and you becoming complete.

Do you want to learn more about coaching and your success? Just book your free discovery session with me at

If you have any comments or questions, feel free to put them here.

Have a great, excellent and successful day.

Coach Erwin

P.S.: A little about me, Coach Erwin. I am a coach, an advisor, a challenger, an empowerer, an acknowledger, a supporter, a listener, a pal, and other roles that are necessary to guide and support you towards your success. I have a vast experience and knowledge in success building through the management comnsultancy and I am a great follower of the Law of Attraction. With the correct state of mind, desire, beliefs, confidence, etc. you can be successful too.