Self Alignment is an exercise that looks at all the areas of a student’s life and applies the insights that have been discovered through the Academic Life Coaching sessions. It’s offering students the opportunity to reevaluate their perceptions about themselves and decision-making skills.

Self Alignment is for students to become consistent in their values and actions, not solely in the specific areas they examined during the first part of the coaching session, but in all areas of their life. It’s really the icing on the cake of a powerful session that’s been designed to help students clarify what’s most important, and to imagine what the future will look like when they put those conscious decisions into action. In pinpointing the time and space they’ll have the leverage to make those important life decisions, and they’ll have the confidence to apply those values immediately and relevant to their lives at the moment. Their health, academics, and overall stamina will improve.

The concept of “jet-lag” is a metaphor for a life coaching session. A student will have a new insight about themselves and they’ll feel like they’re in a different place, though they still may have habits both in their thoughts and actions that haven’t yet caught up to that new insight. It takes time for those internal perception changes to manifest themselves in their external reality–there exists a gap. Much like when we travel to different time zones, the actual time difference takes some time to adjust. Lessons learned through the exercises from the Academic Life Coaching program take a bit of time to become habitual. There is also the concept of “interpersonal jet-lag”, in which another person will not recognize the changes in a student for quite some time, as it can be difficult to shake those understandings that have been molded in their character for so long.

Coaching is about personal growth and change. It can be a challenge to keep up with all the new terms, ideas, and insights. The Academic Life Coaching program is so successful because it gives students space between sessions to integrate the concepts they’ve learned into their lives, as the coaches understand this material can be quite heavy and difficult to absorb. The Self-Alignment Exercise serves as a review and a way to solidify and submit the insights into the learning that has happened over the past few sessions.

Jet-lag is to be expected. It’s important to understand it and have compassion for someone who is in the process of changing habits is essential to helping them move forward effectively. As a parent, you can be empathetic toward the changes occurring in your child, and supportive of the positive changes they are making, even if there are challenges in the transformation.

These notes are intended to keep the family on the same page. As Academic Life Coaches, we only coach one member of the family system, but it takes a family to ease the transitions taking place with your child.

From the Academic Life Coaching Workbook:

It’s like taking yourself to the chiropractor. You have to get realigned every so often, especially when you’re making the kind of big change that you’ve been making over the past weeks.

Using the Wheel of Life, take a value or a new system that you’ve created and look at the impact it has on all the other areas of your life.

Have your coach lead you back through, reinforcing the work that you’ve done and the progress that you’ve made.