For many, October is the month when we pay special attention to ghosts.  But ghosts are with us all the time, sometimes overtly informing our work as coaches and sometimes operating on a more unconscious or covert level. 

We can just hear you asking yourselves, ”What, have you guys lost your marbles?”  But stay tuned…

There are many names for the ghosts who inhabit our daily lives and the lives of our clients - from children to high-level corporate executives.  Sometimes these ghosts are called gremlins, the inner critic, or “the committee”; and they usually sit invisibly but not so silently on our shoulders and whisper in our ears.

Let’s take a look at how this works.  We can use Dickens’ A Christmas Carol as a powerful coaching case study in helping liberate clients from their ghosts of the past. Ebenezer Scrooge demonstrates powerfully how our ghosts (beliefs, interpretations of how the world works, default settings) can keep us from fully experiencing and enjoying the present.  Scrooge also shows us how kindness, compassion and help separating the facts from our interpretation of the facts can help clients to deal with their ghosts, anchor themselves firmly in the present, and by doing so focus more fully on the journey toward realizing their hopes, dreams and goals for the future.

So, in October let’s propose a toast to working skillfully with ghosts!