All of us are bombarded constantly with tasks to do and requests to respond to. In a busy day, our planned schedules are easily disrupted by unexpected events or demands. This can have consequences for our developmental meetings with our partners whether mentor/mentoree or coach /coachee.
One way to avoid rushing to a meeting is to take a few minutes before your actual meeting to center yourself in preparation for what you hope to accomplish in your session. Centering need not take long or be elaborate. It can be as simple as stopping what you are doing and taking a deep breath to gather yourself together and focus on what you’ll be doing next in engaging with your partner.
Focusing on breathing in and breathing out for a few minutes has the effect of bringing a certain calmness to the moment. This provides an opportunity to remove any distractions that may impede your ability to be fully present in the session. These distractions can be problems you still need to resolve or can be emotions of anger or frustration over a recent event. If you don’t put these to rest prior to your developmental meeting, you may find that these distractions will affect the quality of your experience.
One technique that may help is to write down on paper the issue affecting you and then put it to one side. This simple act has the effect of allowing the issue to be laid aside until you pick it up again when your developmental session is over.
So when next you meet with your partner, take a few deep breaths to clear your mind and put on paper any lingering issues that bother you so you can pick these back up after your session. It will improve your experience of mentoring or coaching! Do any of our readers have other suggestions for being more present in a mentoring or coaching session?