Thriving in Your Personal and Professional Life Through Ontological Coaching

Ontological coaching gets to the core of the background moods, assumptions, assessments, and frames of mind that establish our life possibilities.

The most robust and long-term success—in one’s personal life, in one’s professional life, and in one’s emotional life—is achieved by skillfully observing and eventually questioning the ground of our self-interpretations.

We train coaches to skillfully partner with their coachees by helping them uncover life-changing insights that draw on their coachee’s own talents. This fosters a shift in the coachee’s moods, habits, and language, allowing them to cultivate wellness and fulfillment out of their own talents and competencies.

Our coaches learn to navigate not only themselves, but also their coachees through their worldviews, thereby sharpening their capacity to recognize how these views are dynamic, open-ended, and therefore open to re-invention.

Like Socrates, we act as “mid-wives” to our clients and coachees, drawing from their unexplored talents, which are there to ripen.

These are some of the basic principles that distinguish our method, all of which aim at achieving maximum and long-term success for our clients, both in the goals they wish to achieve and in their natural wish to thrive and not just survive in life.

MINDFUL OBSERVERS

Through the ontological approach, our coaches help their coachees clarify the skills needed to deepen their observational skills. The goal is to achieve clarity in assessing the patterns and processes (and emotional, physical and intellectual habits) that shape the possibilities coachees have for acting effectively in their lives. This is part of what we mean by “mindfulness” coaching.

We’ve found that these patterns are also bound up with how we relate to others. By recognizing our interdependence, and mindfully observing opportunities to enrich, enhance, or transform our roles in the flow of our dynamic relationships, we become keen navigators of our life, cultivating a community in which we can individually and collectively thrive.

“LANGUAGE-ING” A THRIVING WORLD

In a mindful and autonomous life, we not only meet our material needs, but also enhance the value, meaning, and emotional rhythm of our lives. The ontological approach recognizes that how we speak our world into being—that is, how we frame, and therefore construct our reality through language—determines the kind of lives we are going to lead.

Based on this principle, we can more robustly observe the kinds of implicit commitments (or lack of commitments), promises, assessments (or ungrounded opinions) and requests (or lack of requests) that shape the outcomes of our actions, and determine the meaning and emotional tone of our lives.

AUTHORING OUR SELF-NARRATIVES

Through sharpened attention to how we act and perform our lives through language, the ontological coach facilitates their coachees to more actively contribute to crafting their emotional, physical, and intellectual life.

Overcoming the default mode of passive living, the ontological method aims to help coachees uncover what they can be sincerely committed to, thereby ensuring coachees take responsibility for their lives. By doing so, we’ve found that coachees achieve an enriched and lasting sense of care for their lives and their commitments, which, in turn, supports them in achieving their personal and professional goals.

These points just begin to scratch the surface of how ontological, ecological, and mindfulness training can transform lives.

However, just these three points—when explored and practiced sincerely—can provide powerful tools for would-be coaches, coaching professionals, and thoughtful, seeking people who aim to thrive in their lives.

Our commitment and offer to you:

You will develop your skills for observing the “ontology” of yourself and your clients.

You will find yourself taking new actions and inventing a more fulfilling life.

You will be able to produce subtle, yet deeper shifts in your coachee’s “way of being.”

You will learn how language is more than meaningful symbols and rules of grammar—language shapes reality, and through language, we invent our lives.

You will learn how to maintain a centered presence and be more relaxed in your own body.

If you’re curious about becoming a certified Ontological Coach, reach out to us.

Let’s thrive and dance together!

© 2017, Ideal Coaching Global, Dr. Kevin Perry & Bettie J. Spruill