In my previous life before getting into coaching, I was in the events industry. Six years later, I still get random calls from past and prospective clients asking to hire a tent or some outdoor furniture. It takes a long time to erase an identity you’ve built for two decades. One of the setups I enjoyed seeing at night was fairy lights. I loved how they set the mood and brought cool vibes to an event.
That picture suddenly turned into an illustration this week while coaching a client. Coaching is a profession that keeps on giving. Because oftentimes when I’m doing it, I end up coaching myself in the process. As we unpacked her story, I could see myself in it, almost picking up tips from her as she described her dilemma. This lady is at the top of her game and has grown a great brand in the financial services space for the last 15 years. Yet she feels like she’s far from where she should be.
After some digging, we uncovered that her issue is idle competence. She likened her situation to a Ferrari that’s mostly parked in the garage, and even when it goes out, it rarely tops 50 km/h. I related immediately because I’m currently focused on unlocking my latent potential. I liked the description she gave of how she knows there’s a gap between where she is now and where she should be. A lot of us never really arrive even after we have made good progress on our journey. It may sound like dissatisfaction but I prefer to see it as just continous improvement. We have curated signature events with her, and I must admit she’s a high achiever. Being around people like her puts a certain pressure on you not to slacken or give the bare minimum.
And that’s what the gist of our coaching session boiled down to. We expect the best from others, but sometimes accept mediocrity from ourselves. But because our average can still look like high performance from the outside, it’s easy to miss that we’re only giving a fraction of what we’re truly capable of.
Every time my client concludes a project or activity that goes really well, she gets this rush in her that confirms that she should be operating from up there. One bulb in the string of her fairy lights lights up and shines brightly, then dims soon afterwards as she climbs back down to her comfort zone. The comfort zone is a nice place to be, but most people take a long time to notice that nothing grows there. And if we are not growing, then we are either stagnating or diminishing. We are like a lamp that’s lit and placed under the table in a dark room, wasted light.
My client is going through what we dubbed ‘positive depression’. This is where we are sad or bothered by a state of being, but still have options and/or resources that keep us fairly comfortable. That’s my own definition of it: there is no crisis yet because our past achievements are still carrying us, so motivation is low. The ache to do better is there, but it’s not yet painful enough to get us up. She’s uncomfortable about her idle competence, is aware of it, even knows what she needs to start doing to activate it, but for some reason just doesn’t attend to it. I’m glad she’s taken this important step—seeking an honest conversation to figure out how to jumpstart her life and maximise her second half. That’s usually all it takes to start: mapping the gap, with someone who can help you bridge it.
We would be well advised to find a way out of this comfortable discomfort before we are forced out of it. Life always has a way of getting our attention. To sit and just do nothing, one has to be seated very high up, so it’s best to act before those options dry up. The life she desires is one where the fairy lights are all on, shining brightly. This is achieved by consistently living out our passions, gifts, and talents. The more we exercise them through the work we do, the more we shine brighter for longer and illuminate not just our paths but those of many others. That’s a fairy tale life (ya fairy lights hehe) that we are working towards with this client, and I’m switching some lights on for myself too in the process.
Folks, a lot of life’s experiences have dimmed (maybe even blown off) our lights. Many of us are going through life with very little light shining through us. The darkness has crept in, and that’s an ideal habitat for depression. We need to get back up and start activating idle competencies. That’s what will make the lights come back on. Once we do that, the next step is finding a way to keep as many lights on for as long as possible. For my client, we are starting with some novel ideas she’s been having but has not actualised. It’s one baby step at a time. Once those are listed and prioritised, we set deadlines and track progress. And ofcourse celebrating the small wins along the way. Success is good but it can be a trap keeping us from further progess.
Our plans often fail because we have no way of keeping ourselves accountable. We also often want to start big, and that is often impractical. Our lights then dim and eventually go off if we are not accountable to ourselves or other stakeholders in our lives and work. Our lives are meant to be colourful, folks. Imagine how much richer they would be when our string of fairy lights is working well and giving cool vibes to our existence. That would be a life well setup just like the event my buddy Frank of Crystal lighting has done in the photo above. If you need some good lighting work done, Frank’s your guy (+254721526686)