At the core of the coaching I receive from Coach Jodie, the teaching that has repeatedly resonated with me is her use of the 3D perspectives. The three concepts being discovery, decision, and direction. Three simple words that have such a great impact on us, and yet, time and time again we do not realize it. The 3D Perspectives was the first part of my sessions with Coach Jodie that made me take a closer look at myself in ways I had not thought of or had given up on.
The first of the 3D’s is the idea of discovery. Both discovery of myself and the world around me have led me to so many opportunities that I would not have considered if I hadn’t been looking for new things. Discovery is something that makes us inherently human, the drive to find new things about ourselves from the most unique, outstanding trait to the most subtle and elusive of them. In order to begin making these big decisions, to find the direction of your life, it all starts with yourself and the things around you. I never would have gotten where I was today if I did not start to look at myself for what makes me, me. Everything from the things I take the most pride in, to the flaws that I try to keep hidden from the world around me. It is addressing those characteristics, these traits, these human flaws, that have truly marked the milestones of my own self-discoveries. Thanks to coaching, I have turned some of these flaws into some of my most useful tools. My ability to tunnel focus on a task when I am doing it at the last minute has become a crucial weapon in my arsenal when I pair with the schedules that I have worked to develop with Coach Jodie. If I hadn’t discovered these traits and realized how important they are to me, it would have made my journey much more challenging.
The second of the 3D’s is direction. Direction, I think is very connected to the idea of purpose as the two fit well together. However, while purpose is knowing what you want to do in that moment or over the next several years, direction is the means of getting to that purpose and eventual goal. You can have the prettiest dream, or the most ambitious goal, but without direction it will never become more than a dream. There are rarely any handouts in life, and you can never count on those to always be there. What you can count on, are the family and friends around you who wish to see you succeed. The very same dreams and purpose that you wish to fulfill gives you the fuel to begin the final parts of your journey, and we must steer our course to find the way we wish to achieve our goals, be it studying for an important test, working hard for a promotion, or getting into a college with a good scholarship. At the end of the day, we have our tools and our methods to get to our goals no matter how hard it seems. But if we set the path, if we mark how we are going to get there day by day, month by month, year by year, then the direction is achieved. So long as we are sailing toward that goal we wish to achieve, be it past experiences, the people around us, and resources from life coaches, we can make the direction possible and easy to keep.
The last and final of the 3D’s, decision, is something that only came after I had begun the process of discovering. While many only see people as acting on motivation, decision is also about knowing when to stop and take a step back. These days, we take decisions as something that is a crucial, life-changing moment and that can make any small and regular decision seem like a harrowing ordeal. The amounts of anxiety that I have felt when just deciding if I should stay in, what I should eat when other people are involved used to be unbearable. I felt as if everyone was waiting to ridicule my decision and that if I didn’t make one, I would still be looked down upon. That was until, I began my coaching with Coach Jodie and began to discern the difference between the concept of decision and the concepts that other people had of me. I learned that at the end of the day, a decision is made by me and what I feel is best whether it is an everyday decision or a big milestone decision. But most importantly at the end of the day, if I let others influence those decisions, I let other people who I might not even know control my life. It is okay to ask for input on a decision big or small; sometimes other opinions can be very helpful. However, being able to keep those opinions from controlling your final say in a choice is an even bigger show of character and will. Decision, big or small, is a moment of development and growth. And it takes a mature and self-aware individual to realize that their choice is what matters in the end.