The Confident Allison Bough
After 25 years in the non-profit industry, Allison Bough created her own non-profit consultancy company. She spent five years growing her business and serving her clients, but Allison felt she could do better. She saw herself as her own worst roadblock.
That’s when Allison heard Kim Ades speak at a non-profit fundraising conference. Kim’s talk was all about thinking and mindset. It was about stepping back and thinking about your thinking rather than focusing on the actual results. Everything Kim spoke about resonated with Allison, but what really hit home for her was when Kim asked two questions. “What do you really REALLY want?” and “What is standing in your way of your getting that?” Allison said, “no one had ever asked me those questions before. I had to really think about it.”
Within 48 hours of Kim’s talk, Allison reached out to Frame of Mind Coaching™ and was matched by Kim with Lynn Stevens, one of the team of FOM-Certified coaches. Lynn was professional, but also warm and friendly and showed genuine interest in her. Allison said, “Lynn was very experienced and natural in her position. She is REALLY good at what she does.” Lynn helped Allison get out of her own way, both professionally and personally. Lynn didn’t concentrate on Allison’s business directly, but rather focused on Allison’s thinking and helped Allison work through the thoughts that were getting in her way.
Before Lynn, Allison had self-doubts. When a big event or project would come up, Allison would occasionally look at the past and fixate on a tiny, insignificant moment where she messed up. But with Lynn’s help, Allison was able to put those self-defeating thoughts away and trade them up for evidence of success. With Lynn’s help, Allison discovered that there was actually a lot more evidence of her success than failure.
Over the course of her coaching journey, Allison learned three big lessons:
- Your mindset and thinking underpin everything that you do and feel.
- By asking questions, you can discover how you show up to others. Allison not only discovered her strengths, but she discovered that everyone around her already saw these strengths. She just hadn’t been able to see them.
- Everyone is just doing their best. Cut everyone some slack – yourself included.
Lynn not only helped change Allison’s professional life for the better, but she also helped her improve her personal life. Allison enjoyed a good relationship with her husband, but she was often frustrated that he didn’t do enough household tasks. He wasn’t cooking or cleaning or doing laundry often enough, and Allison was frustrated. When Allison told Lynn about her frustration, Lynn asked one simple question: “What DOES he do for you?” So Allison made a list of all the things her husband did do, like taking the car to the dealership, going to work at 7 AM, taking care of the dog, and more. And Allison realized that just because he didn’t do those specific household chores, that didn’t mean he wasn’t contributing. To this day, Allison looks at her list when she feels a little frustrated and reminds herself about how much her husband actually does take care of. Her vision of her husband has improved tenfold, and her frustrations have decreased by just as much.
After being coached by Lynn, Allison continued her journey with Frame of Mind Coaching™, taking the next few steps to become certified in the FOM Methodology. She attended the 4-day intensive FOM Methods workshop and learned to coach others through practical co-coaching at the 10-week virtual FOM Foundations program. Since graduating, Allison has been implementing all that she’s learned at her own company with fantastic results.
Now the question is, what do you really REALLY want and what is standing in the way of your getting it?