Browsing through some emails earlier on I was struck by two messages. With one I found myself reminded me of the things I hadn’t learned properly in life. Just a bit later another one had a headline suggesting that reading the message I’d find the five workshops I need to reach a successful life.

Both messages contained relevant information. Personal responsibility indeed isn’t taught as it could. Maybe it’s also me who didn’t learn it properly as I do find myself confronted with that question every day. It happens in every coaching and with every intervention I do. Helping others is the tight rope of personal responsibility. Looking at the workshops on offer I know out of experience how useful they are.

It’s not the content of the messages that I found challenging. It’s the approach. Both were an invitation to take up a norm, one that enables us to do the right thing. It’s reinforcing the idea that what we have to do is to follow the teacher.

Writing a blog can put me in the same position. I’m sharing ideas, see things that don’t feel right, others that feel right. I thus might be subject to the same approach of putting up a norm.

What I’m actually searching for are ways to trigger our ability to think and gain flexibility in seeing available perspectives. While there might be a large number of situations in which there is one approach that works well for me, it hardly ever will be the case, that it is the only viable one or the best.

To me, the art is to find an approach that works for us and serves others in the way they need it. It starts with a conversation.