I appreciate Jason's excerpted blog post below. It is the reason the coaching approach I use, focused on using simple short questions, has been effective in cutting into the core of "what's important?" and "what really matters?" 

As Jason describes below, clients, in the fullness of time, evolve and embrace their deepest intuitions and calling in their life and work via an emotional process.  Short, clear coaching questions help clients think, reflect, and fully explore their inner realm, including hidden gems that help surface needed issues, again, in the fullness of time.  Result?  Results!  The ultimate goal is helping clients produce effective results and improved performance, and making sense.

via flickr.com

Excerpted:

February 2, 2011

Personal development is ...an emotional process, not an intellectual one, which means it unlocks unexpectedly. You’re just as likely to go from “understanding” a situation to “understanding” a situation—aka feeling it...—while sitting at dinner or walking out of a movie as you are while talking with your coach. (Unless your coach is really, really good.)

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...I was fired by a client once for refusing to use their overly structured format, which was fine with me. ...Five years of lists, accountability sessions, and train-the-coach programs, zero results.

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...I was fired by a client once for refusing to use their overly structured format, which was fine with me. That was five years ago, and I just got a call from them. Turns out, the coach they’ve had working with their executives hasn’t accomplished squat in the past five years. Nothing. Five years of lists, accountability sessions, and train-the-coaching programs, zero results.

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 You can’t unlock the future you before its time. Go live your life.

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....The only coaching that’s going to work for you now is coaching that is presented on the same emotionally charged level at which you’re living today.

That development plan you’ve got? If you’re overly analytical, nix it. Better: if you can tolerate some ambiguity in your world, create a development document that’s not a plan. Take off the milestones and dates. Just list the stuff you need to work on and look at it periodically. Then go live your life and don’t worry about it. You can’t unlock the future you before it’s time. Go live your life.

Be you now.