Welcome to the first of a four part series to help you create your own Personal and Professional Development Plan focusing on the four Mastery areas for every coach. This article explores your sense of Mastery of Self.

Please keep in mind that "Mastery" isn't about mastering everything there is about you. Instead mastery is more about the process and knowing where you're going. Will you suddenly "arrive" as Mastery of Self? I'll dare to say "no" because once you achieve the benchmark you're after, you'll likely set a new and higher benchmark to work toward next.

This is all part of the simplest model of coaching:

• Raise Awareness
• Make Decisions
• Modify Behaviour / Take Action

Below are a series of questions for you to explore about YOU as a person, not necessarily just you as a coach.. You may want to write your insights in a notebook or some other manner that works best for you. As you increase your awareness, consider what decisions you want/need to make next. Then you can continue to work from there to establish a plan of action. Remember that if you're already working with a coach or have plans to start soon, it could be highly beneficial to share your insights with them and together co-design your plan.

Ready? Here goes!

• What are your core values?
• How consistently well are you living by those values?
• What are your top strengths?
• What could be a top strength with a bit more focus applied?
• What are your biggest opportunities for improvement?
• How satisfied are you with your health at the moment? (Include mental, physical and emotional)
• How would you describe your Emotional Intelligence?
• What areas of knowledge and/or skill do you want to pick up or enhance?
• What behaviours and habits are working well for you?
• What behaviours and habits are not serving you well?
• What sense of "balance" do you have in the various areas of your life?
• Where do you dedicate the most energy now?
• Where do you feel you need to be focusing your energy?
• How well is your social life going? What could improve?
• How satisfied are you with your financial situation? What's working well, what's not and what can you do about it?
• Do you have a financial plan? Are you sticking to it?
• How good are your family relationships?
• How good is the relationship with your partner if you have one?
• How good is the relationship you have with yourself?
• How would you describe your spiritual health? (You will also need to define with "spiritual" means to you.)
• How positive of an attitude do you believe you have? When is it challenged?
• How resourceful are you?
• What resources / help do you need?
• How good are you at asking for help?
• How satisfied are you in how you give to or serve others?
• How good are you at attending to your own needs first so that you're in a better position to help others?
• How grateful are you and for what?
• How good are you at receiving feedback? How about compliments?
• How good are you at saying "Yes!" enthusiastically when you really want to?
• How good are you at saying "No!" respectfully when you need to?

There are numerous other questions you could be exploring here including how you will celebrate your answers you like and how you'll respond to those you don't, such as setting goals and creating an action plan to achieve them.

The next instalment of this series will explore Mastery of Coaching, or in other words what you need to develop in terms of knowledge, skill and/or behaviour that would be of service to your clients.

Noel Posus is a master coach with 20+ years experience as a professional educator, coach and author. He won the prestigious "Coach of the Year" award in 2008 and 2009 and is an ambassador/leader for the coaching industry. www.noelposus.com