Coaching practices for The Tao Te Ching in a New Job

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For The Tao Te Ching in a New Job, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• I keep slamming head-on into the same wall on this, throwing more effort at it and getting nowhere — and I’m starting to wonder if I’m going about it the wrong way entirely.
• I walk into everything already sure how it’ll go
• Every gap in my day gets instantly plugged
• Every gap in my day, every pause in a conversation, I rush to fill — and I’ve got a nagging sense that all this packed busyness is exactly why nothing new ever has room to surface in me.
• I lead by directing and correcting and stepping in to fix things, and my team has gone quiet and passive, waiting to be told

Practices that may help

1. The Tao Te Ching, Made Practical
   The Tao Te Ching is a 2,500-year-old Chinese classic attributed to Lao Tzu that teaches the art of effortless action (wu wei), simplicity, and yielding — meeting life with less force and more receptivity. Its wisdom is philosophical and contemplative rather than empirically studied; its practices overlap with mindfulness and acceptance-based psychology, which have a more developed research base.
2. Find and follow the grain of the situation
   Before acting, read the natural structure of the situation and find the line of least friction.
   Wu Wei — the Practice of Effortless Action
3. Pu — simplicity and the uncarved block
   Return regularly to an unconditioned, open state before adding complexity or opinion.
   The Tao Te Ching, Made Practical
4. The value of emptiness — making space
   Deliberately preserve unscheduled, unstructured time as the space from which clarity and creativity arise.
   The Tao Te Ching, Made Practical
5. Find the use of empty space
   Create deliberate emptiness — in your schedule, your mind, your output — and let it do its work.
   Wu Wei — the Practice of Effortless Action
6. Leading from behind — the servant leader stance
   Influence others more through example, listening, and restraint than through assertion and command.
   The Tao Te Ching, Made Practical
7. Trust the natural unfolding of things
   Stop micro-managing outcomes and allow processes to develop at their own pace.
   Wu Wei — the Practice of Effortless Action
8. Knowing when to stop
   Recognize the natural stopping point of an action rather than pushing past it out of habit or anxiety.
   The Tao Te Ching, Made Practical
9. Return to simplicity
   Strip unnecessary complexity from your life and actions — the uncarved block has all possibilities open.
   Wu Wei — the Practice of Effortless Action
10. Act when the moment is ripe
    Notice when a situation is not yet ready for action — and refrain until the right moment arrives.
    Wu Wei — the Practice of Effortless Action

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