Séamus has very deeply held beliefs and values around coaching, mentoring, training, learning and change. They form the foundation of the work he does with his clients, mentees, trainees and learners, and he feels that they are core to its success.
For Séamus, creating an optimal environment where learners, trainees and coaching clients feel comfortable is essential, as is humour. He feels that developing curiosity and creativity is core, as well as integrating a multi-sensory and multifaceted approach. It’s also important to him and for him that everything that happens in the process has clarity of purpose.
Ultimately, Séamus sees his role as fostering independence and eventually doing himself out of a job; the sooner, the better!
Some of Séamus’ more important core beliefs around learning and change are listed below.
Learning is learning in a state of curiosity.
One of the things that stands out with young kids, especially as they learn and make their way in the world is their sense of curiosity. That child-like sense of curiosity has always been at the centre of evolution and fomenting, which is an essential role for the teacher, trainer, and coach.
We learn by a process of approximation.
Mis-takes and errors are an essential part of the learning process. Therefore, learning itself must be an attitude, an attitude of exploring, discovering and experimenting. Learning is letting go. Learning is taking risks or exploring and experimenting with a sense of adventure.
We like what is familiar but we learn from what is different.
Learning is built on the ability to see differences, and the greater the difference, the quicker and more effective the learning. As a result, the more you go outside your ‘familiarity zone’, the more opportunities for learning at a deeper level.
You should expect and welcome confusion in learning.
It is an essential part of the process and precedes understanding. Confusion is a temporary state. In some ways, it can often mean unlearning. Just as the greater the difference, the quicker and more effective the learning, the greater the confusion, the greater the learning when that confusion is cleared up.
You can never be fully aware of what you are learning as you are learning it. You can only really become aware of all that you will have been learning from the perspective of the future looking back.
So any conscious awareness of what we have learned up to now is always going to be incomplete. As a result, more learning will come into your conscious awareness over time. There’s always more to learn, and there’s always more to realise that we have already learned.
You can get in touch with Séamus at seamus@useyouredge.com
