Coach Gabby Mottershead shares, in this week’s guest post, a technique she’s used with a client feeling overwhelmed.

Decisions, decisions, decisions

by Gabby Mottershead

‘It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped’ according to Tony Robbins. I have been thinking about him a lot recently as I am working as crew at his Unleash the Power weekend in London soon. I am very excited about this, his events are always amazing. As well as helping the attendees with their goals, I know it will be a great time for me to reflect upon my own journey, and also to connect with some great people.

Helping clients who are stuck with decisions they want to make is an area I get a lot of personal satisfaction from. I know it is sometime easy to feel overwhelmed with the amount of choices we have to make, and many people feel paralysed, unable to choose between two equally great choices, or two equally unappealing ones. This week I had a great result with a client using ‘Parts Integration’, also known as ‘Visual Squash’

This tool is very useful for coaching clients who have decisions to make, and let’s face it, that is most of them.

If you are not familiar with it the process is:

1. Identify the conflict and the issues involved

Key Questions: What does that give you? What’s important to you about that?

2. Create a visual image of each issue and place one in each hand

3. Separate intention from behaviour

a. Reframe (through questioning, what does this issue really mean) each part through chunking-up (getting to the ‘big picture’, the client starts with saying that they want a promotion, the key questions result in the client realising that they want to feel loved. Keep questioning until you find the ‘common intention’ of both sides of the dilemma, this is always the result that they want, which is usually a feeling.

A good example of this is ‘I need to earn more money’ being the issue. Questioning elicits that this means ‘visiting my son in Australia’, which means ‘I can feel loved and know I am a good mother’, which means ‘this will make me feel loved’ much more compelling, and once the client is conscious that this is the driving force, other solutions may appear to them.

b. Identify what resources (skills, knowledge, memories, etc) each side has that would be useful to the other part in achieving their highest intention

4. Suggest hands come together while the two images come together through a series of images that create a third image that is an integration of the two

5. Bring the third ‘integrated’ representation inside

6. Check ecology, to the coach shifts in thinking are very obvious, red faces are common!

7. Test and future pace

Once you have those key words from step 1, it is quite easy to play those back to the client as the driving forces behind the course of action that is right for them

Not only is this good for clients, it is a very playful way to work on your own decisions to be made. I realise that I suffer with serial incongruity, in plain English, I repeat the same patterns in my own behaviour, and just one example is yo-yo dieting. I believe once you recognise these patterns, it is easy to change them; it is recognising them that can be a challenge.

An interesting twist I was recently introduced to was the assertion that there is no thing as self sabotage, only competing intentions. Mmmm some coaches I know talk at length about the self saboteur, so who is right?

I would say, whatever works for you.

I hope this is useful, thanks to Kate Trafford for reminding me about this tool.

I would love to hear from other coaches who use this model, I love it.

Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

About the Author/Further Resources

Gabby Mottershead, founder of Confidence After Cancer, an organisation that provides coaching and support for women after cancer treatment.

Gabby was inspired to start this support and coaching non profit based on her own experience, she was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive breast cancer in 2008 aged 44. Following chemotherapy, surgeries, and radiotherapy, she suffered with depression and lack of confidence .She realised that there is lots of support for cancer patients during their treatment, but when that ends you are very much alone. She started to connect with other people on Facebook, and set up a support group, and was stunned by the numbers of women who contacted her saying they felt the same, and had nowhere to turn to.

It is a sobering fact that that breast cancer survivors are 37 percent more likely to commit suicide, and depression and anxiety are common (Source the Journal of Cancer Institute) and that this elevated risk continues for at least 25 years after diagnosis.

Gabby provides 121 and group coaching and has been approached by local hospitals to run sessions for them, as the medical teams acknowledge that they are not able to support cancer survivors in the way that they would like to.

Gabby is passionate about holistic care, Reiki, NLP and her mission is to inspire healthy minds and healthy bodies.

Follow her

Twitter : @gabbymot

Blog: http://gabbymottershead.wordpress.com/

Website : www.confidenceac.co.uk

https://www.facebook.com/ConfidenceAfterCancer