Writing As A Coaching Process

By Yvette A. Hyater-Adams, MA-TLA
Reprinted from Writers Block
January 2005

One of the greatest gifts of writers is having the ability to access imagination and creativity and to translate it into written words. Why not use this same ability to grow personally and professionally?

As a writer and executive & life coach, I feature writing as a central part of my coaching method. Coaching is a process where action and learning create change. My role as an executive & life coach is to pose provocative and challenging questions that reach your own inner wisdom and knowing. Using the written word to explore these questions helps make sense out of life experiences and begins to integrate new awareness and learning. From this process, you can begin to articulate and clarify what you want and learn what you need to know, believe, and say. You’ll be designing a road map to achieve that success.

How Writing-As-Coaching Works:

  • Start off by creating an imaginative story of what you envision as living a full and prosperous life. Play and create a scene: character is living a full and prosperous life…what is happening…see, feel, smell, taste this delicious life. You can build up a story line and give the greatest of detail and even write it in first or third person. The point is to make the story about what’s important to you.
  • After creating your story, step back and reflect using journaling techniques. I find the most effective journaling technique is one where you write naturally, without grammar rules or boundaries, where there’s a mixture between the written word and drawings for when there are no words to describe how you are feeling. Talking on paper is a powerful personal growth and healing process. You can also use this same technique to evaluate your progress.
  • Use planning and organizing writing techniques such as brainstorming ideas, mind mapping, creating lists and outlines for action. When I am organizing my environment to write, I tend to plan a list of items I need to do to get the right “vibe” in my work space. Writers who publish their work are constantly on a deadline and have to plan time to write as well as organize their writing. Why not use this same process to plan and organize what is important in your life?

Here are a few challenging questions to address in your prosperous life story:

  1. What is working in my life that feeds my prosperity story?
  2. What led up to me not having what I want out of my full and prosperous life?
  3. If I had free choice, what would be my top 5 picks?
  4. What would need to happen to shift toward these choices?
  5. If there were small steps I could take to realize one of my picks, what would it be?

Let your story unfold into a powerful tale where you can take what once felt impossible and begin to narrow it down into small achievable steps. Now here’s the fun part—go out and start living that story…TODAY!

Yvette A. Hyater-Adams, MA-TLA, is a writer, educator, and executive & life coach. In addition to running her consulting firm and TLA writing practice, she publishes poetry and writes articles for professional journals and websites. She can be reached at Yvette@renaissancemuse.com.