Being and becoming: Mission reinforced by some exercises of meaning by Paul Foegle (Guest)
The books of personal development are numerous to know a great success. With Jean Monbourquette's « How to Discover Your Personal Mission: The Search for Meaning », I am lucky (as well as others) to find keys to answer the question of how to do find your own search for meaning? How to welcome one’s Mission? How to successfully implement it?
I’ve been practicing professional and personal coaching since 2014. I often use Jean Monbourquette’s approach to guide clients in their own “Life Project”:whether it’s getting out of a long lasting burn out, moving to a new career path, finally helping a charity business, finally daring become an entrepreneur … “Amazing grace” would be the right summary to share the overall impression I have when I do coach with that approach.
At the end of March this year, I had the chance to receive what I will call "a complementary gift": to participate in a 2 day session animated by my friend Giambattista on the existential approach of Viktor Frankl. As I still enjoy it, and integrate into my approach, I would like to share what represents three highlights for me.
1. Remembering the life of Viktor Frankl.
I knew only the most dramatic moments in his life, I did not know his professional intensity. At only 15 years old Frankl wrote to Dr. Freud. At the age of 16 he gave his first lecture on the theme "About the meaning of life" ... The number of people he accompanied before and after the publication of his book "Ärtzliche Seelsorge" (the care of the soul by the doctor) is impressive. Then comes the terrible time that will also be that of heroism, of the humanist and altruistic attitude in the unimaginable situations of the death camps. And finally, the time of reconstruction and transmission.
"What the human being needs is not to live without tension but to
strive for a worthy goal, to achieve a freely chosen mission."
Viktor Frankl
2. Remembering the exercise on values.
To return to the contact of people who have counted, give thanks too, helped me classify my values in my life, and without concession. It was a great way for me to continue receiving my Mission.
3. Exploration through drawing
On several occasions, Giambattista invited us to draw; one of the drawings was intended to represent a city. I placed my house, a church, green trees, people who talk to each other, who love each other, a school, a market and some buildings without apparent function ... It was of course a prerequisite for address some existential questions. Here are a few.
In the chapter "Church": with what do you get to Peace today? tomorrow? What are the most precious moments of your life? What are your ethical values?
In the chapter "Walls and towers": what are your limits? What things in your couple does put you on the defensive mode ?
In the chapter "City Hall": which inner laws do you carry? What are your goals that would be decided by others than you?
How it’s impacted the way I coach
I lived these two days as an acceleration of my “becoming a good coach for my clients”.
I keep the powerful questions about freedom, responsibility and purpose.
I reinforce the soft confrontation part including both compassion and challenge.
For the time being I go on discovering how much appealing and frightening freedom is; appealing as clients want to become independent entrepreneurs and leaders; frightening as they realize how much of their personal power at stake is. Reconciling this paradox appears as a unique coaching value proposal (to speak as innovator would do). More than that : the joy we share with purpose coaching is that it helps clients and myself go far beyond our limits.
"The door of happiness opens to the outside. Who undertakes to pull it inward, what he does is to close it. Who seeks above all happiness, blocks, by this fact alone, the path that leads to it " Soren Kierkegaard
I like this last quote as a good summary about purpose coaching: serve others and trust their own capacity, ie share Purpose and Trust.
Happy to share what’s shaping my coaching approach at the good coach!
Connect with Paul Foegle via Linkedin
I am an executive coach and I train managers in leadership and collective agility. After my engineering degree, I began my career in strategy and organization consulting with a specific focus on business transformation. I later held several executive positions in global retail companies, successively for IS, supply chain, category and innovation management, most often in international contexts. Since 2011, I have specialized in helping managers and their teams to develop trust and cooperation. Executive coach since 2014, I support the development of talents and moderate project teams in innovation and transformation when they face critical challenges. I made « collective performance » and « Purpose coaching » my favorite 2 topics.
Reference:
Monbourquette, J. (2001) How to Discover Your Personal Mission: The Search for Meaning
Frankl, V. (1946) Ärtzliche Seelsorge (the care of the soul by the doctor)
