How are you showing up?

Rebel Thoughts for the

Inspired Woman

Erika L. Davis, CPC, ELI-MP Certified Work/Life Coach

Through my coaching certification, I was trained as a Master Practitioner for the Energy Leadership Index Assessment. This is an attitudinal (versus personality) assessment that helps people identify how they’re showing up in everyday life and also during stressful times. It can identify where a person uses a great deal of positive energy to be successful in certain areas of their life. It can also identify certain blocks (i.e. limiting beliefs, false assumptions and the dreaded “inner critic”) that can keep us all from using our best energy and experiencing our best potential.

I have all of my private clients take the Energy Leadership Assessment (ELI) during our time together and have found it to be really beneficial as a jumping-off-point to understand where there might be developmental opportunities for them.

I have also taken the assessment and have been debriefed by other coaches several times. I am planning to take it again because my overall satisfaction with many parts of my life has greatly improved and I attribute much of that to the awareness I gained by taking the assessment. Here’s one example:

I’ve always considered myself a friendly, outgoing, laid-back and fun individual. Yet there are times when I can really withdraw from people and get downright grouchy, impatient and unpleasant. Sometimes it has felt like an insecurity popping up (i.e. not feeling good enough), but that’s also not something that happens to me very often.

During one of my assessment debriefs, the coach I was working with started to ask me some empowering questions surrounding the nature of this negative energy. The coach provided the space I needed for some self-reflection and I quickly discovered that what really pushes my button is being INCONVENIENCED! Call me immature, spoiled or whatever you like but, it was eye-opening to me how much I let things like a frustrating customer service call affect me! This feeling of being “inconvenienced” also showed up sometimes with family and certain friends too.

I know some of this might sound fairly normal. We all get impatient and angry sometimes with customer service reps (right??😉) but, what I think is most important to share is that this awareness has allowed me to change in these situations. I spent a good deal of time reflecting on what was, at times, a rather extreme reaction to just everyday occurrences and, one of the biggest things that came out of it, was that I just didn’t want to be like that anymore! I didn’t want to do it to the poor customer service rep, I definitely didn’t want to show anger at family member or friends just because I felt I was being inconvenienced, and I didn’t want to do it to myself anymore either. Just the awareness of it allowed me to make the conscious choice to relax, breathe and choose a different reaction when I started to get that feeling.

This is just one small example of a behavior that I was able to identify and modify as a result of taking the ELI assessment. It’s really made a big difference in my everyday life. How do you think the ELI would help you?