Back in Oct, a client seemed slightly different from his usual self..
He’d been working with me for three months, so I thought it might be a good time to check our progress, ‘How are we doing against your goals? Are they still the same? Are your plans still the same?’

He was quiet, almost seems to be tearful. Gosh! It seems that I hit a nerve! They say the best coaching question is when the client struggles to answer!

It turned out that he was sad because the promotion he was originally earmarked for is no longer going ahead, since the organisation is changing plans. Instead, he will keep doing what he does, but in a bigger role, in a bigger leadership capacity.

Then I suddenly thought of the exercise ‘Be Grateful’. ‘Please write down 3 things you are grateful for each day. In 21 days, you may notice the difference.’

It’s been 2 months. He’s noticeably happier. Funny enough, the things he said he’s grateful for are ‘having extra time for a lie-in, being able to cook a healthy lunch for myself, having a good chat with some friends’. It’s not ‘getting a promotion in my role, making more money than last year, buying a new car’.

Thinking about it, it seems to be a good exercise for the end of the year!
I’m sharing my three from today.

• I played Round The World Challenge for the first time and won twice in a row. I’m grateful I had the chance to travel and know a lot about different things about different countries.
• I’m grateful to have unusual Chinese parents who let me play the piano because I loved it, who let me study history of art because I loved it, who didn’t make me study law, economics or medicine, but are still proud of me. (Recently realised from other people’s experience that this is not a given!) 😮
• I feel lucky to have the taste bud to taste smoked salmon. 🙂

What about yours?