To accelerate the positive impact of your coaching success, clients of each type can use the coaching experience and their reactions to coaching itself as a guide for their development. This 2nd blog in the three-part series offers possibilities for clients in the Heart Center of Intelligence, types 2, 3 and 4.

Two clients
Take the time in coaching for yourself and give yourself the gift of working on your own development, rather than focusing on how you can do more for others. This will be a huge developmental milestone for you.

Allow someone else – in this case, the coach – to do something for you without your feeling that you must do something in return. When you feel you should do something to show your gratitude, express your positive feelings rather than trying to take care of the coach in some way.

Know that some of the things you may discover during coaching may not match how you like to perceive yourself – in other words, your ideal self – but that recognizing the areas in which you can develop is part of the self-development process.

Three clients
While you may want to use coaching to increase your skills in becoming more successful, it is more likely that your real self-development will come from examining why this is so important to you. In addition, explore how you define success, working with your coach to expand your understanding of what this is.

Make sure that you are open with your coach, sharing positive and negative feelings as well as successes and failures. Your tendency to not discuss your anxiety, sadness, and areas in which you do not feel confident will limit the positive results from coaching.

Slow down your pace enough so that you have the time to get to know and experience your inner life more fully. Don’t rely on the coaching meetings for this self-reflection; build self-refection into your daily life.

Four clients
When selecting a coach, you may be drawn to someone you can connect with easily. However, the best coach for helping you to grow may be someone very different from you who can likely be more objective.

If you feel at times that your coach does not understand you, pause for a moment and ask yourself: Do I understand my coach and what he or she is asking or offering? This changes your focus from seeking to be understood to seeking to understand others.

Remember that emotional balance is one of the most helpful areas for you to develop. As a result, it is important for you to strive for objectivity and balance as you work through various issues raised throughout the coaching. When you begin to become intensely emotional and feel that you are your emotions, ask your coach for help and guidance.

Ginger Lapid-Bogda PhD, the author of six best-selling Enneagram-business books, is a speaker, consultant, trainer, and coach. She provides certification programs for professionals around the world who want to bring the Enneagram into organizations with high-impact business applications, and is past-president of the International Enneagram Association. Visit her website: TheEnneagramInBusiness.com. ginger@theenneagraminbusiness.com