Coaching Quote of the Day 5th February 2014
“With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts.”
(Eleanor Roosevelt)
thoughts
Let your body do the talking 1
Coach Charlotte Green shares some of her expertise and knowledge in today’s guest post:
Let your body do the talking
By Charlotte Green, founder of Inner Confidence for Women
I am often asked whether ‘feelings’ and ‘emotions’ are the same or different – are they interchangeable words or do they mean different things?
Feelings and emotions are certainly related concepts and that is why they are often confused and treated as the same thing, and in many cases that works well. But when we, as coaches, are helping clients to really know and understand themselves, it can be really useful to differentiate between the two.
So what is the difference?
Feelings are in the moment. They are what we experience physically within our bodies and through our 5 senses. It’s useful to refer to them as physical feelings. Unlike our emotions, they do not involve the mind. Emotions on the other hand are a mental interpretation of the feelings we are experiencing mixed in with our thoughts.
When asked how they feel, I notice that people respond on one of three levels. Some respond with a thought – “I’ve got so much going on” – others give an emotion – “I’m finding it hard to cope” – or they go inside and describe exactly what their body is telling them – “I feel so tense and exhausted. Everything aches.”
Here is a table to show examples of the 3 levels:
[table width=”600″ colwidth=”75|175|75|275″ colalign=”centre|left|left|left|”]
,,,,
Level 1:,’no one will help me’,Thought ,An idea or opinion produced by thinking / a mental picture – imagined and contemplated in the mind influenced by life experiences
Level 2:,’I feel anxious’,emotion,A combination of thoughts and physical feelings – an interpretation
Level 3:,’My shoulders feel really tense and my stomach is in knots’,feeling,Physical experiences within the body and information received through one of the bodies 5 senses (touch/ taste/ smell/ sound/ sight)
[/table]
So, which level do we want to be working with?
We are a holistic system and need information from each of the 3 levels to be fully resourceful and yet, in the western society we overemphasise the importance of the mind. This means that thoughts can dominate and hijack the system resulting in stress and overwhelm.
By paying attention to all the messages we receive from our thoughts, emotions and feelings we maintain a balanced and informed system, each giving us feedback that helps us be safe as well as to develop and grow. Imbalance occurs when one level dominates or hijacks another or we shut one down. There is no hero or villain in this situation – each part of the emotional system is equally valid and essential and deserves attention.
EXAMPLE – Inviting client to connect to themselves at a deeper level
Here is an excerpt from a recent coaching session (I have client’s permission to share this) where I was inviting my client to connect to themselves more deeply. They move down through all three levels shown in the table above. For those of you who use NLP, this can be a great tool for accessing positive states to anchor.
Coach: How are you feeling today?
Client: I’ve had a good day (thought)
Coach: I know you said that you have had a difficult few weeks so that’s really good to hear. How are you feeling?
Client: I’m happy (emotion)
Coach: How do you know you are happy?
Client: work went OK, got time with my partner tonight and looking forward to getting together with friends tomorrow (thoughts)
Coach: they sound like a lot of good reasons (thoughts) why you might feel happy. Let’s go inside more and find out how you experience that within your body. How does your body let you know it’s happy? What do you notice about your body right now? How do you feel?
Client: I feel a bit tingly all over and I have a big smile on my face (feelings)
Coach: Just sit with that feeling for a moment. You can turn up the volume if you want …
Client: (smiling) Wow! I feel lovely. My breathing has really slowed down and deepened. I feel really calm and relaxed.
How to apply this to your coaching
- Introduce the emotional system to your clients and encourage them to check in with themselves regularly throughout the day:
- Simply ask yourself “how do I feel right now”
- Then notice at which level you answer
- Practice moving up and down the levels, particularly going down if you tend to start from thoughts
- Moving from thoughts to emotions “how am I feeling right now”
- Moving from emotions to thoughts “what am I thinking about right now”
- Moving from emotions to feelings “what am I physically feeling in my body”
- As a coach, remember to walk your talk and check your own emotional system is flowing and that all 3 areas have your attention. It will improve your intuitive abilities to coach and help you build rapport with your clients.
- You can shift physical feelings simply by being present with your breath (mindfulness) so this is a very effective method of managing stress. Give your breath your full attention – it takes practice but in my experience the calm comes quickly and feels really good.
Although I have been a coach since 2006, I have specialised in working with women for the last 4 years, and more recently with young adults, both of which are hugely rewarding. In my experience, developing a complete emotional language has been a massively influential part of my client’s successful transformations.
Women in particular, who are often so tuned into and committed to the wellbeing of other people’s emotions, have found that having the permission and skills to tune into themselves has enabled them to break free of limiting behaviours, thoughts and habits and be able to create a much more balanced and satisfying life.
I hope you and your clients enjoy exploring your emotional systems.
About Charlotte Green
Charlotte founded Inner Confidence for Women in 2006 after a fascinating corporate career managing an international training team for a global electronic publisher where she and her team ran workshops within Universities and Government organisations across Europe, Middle East and Africa. Although she gained invaluable experience and skills from the corporate world, her real passion lay within personal development.
Inner Confidence for Women specialises in self confidence, self esteem and emotional wellbeing for women and young people. Charlotte is incredibly passionate about her work and reaches her clients through running courses, workshops and through 121 coaching.
Charlotte was inspired to focus on working with women after the birth of her daughter in 2010. “Being around so many women who put their own needs to the bottom of the pile while they made sure everyone else was OK really spoke to me. I love helping women find themselves again, or for the first time. It is a joy to encourage women to raise their self esteem and self confidence so they can embrace their lives”
As a professional trainer as well as a coach, Charlotte is able to reach a wider audience creating and delivering workshops to inspire young adult carers in Suffolk. “When an 18 year stays behind after the workshop to tell me excitedly about how they used the new tools and techniques to improve a situation that normally spirals out of control, it is one of the most rewarding feelings in the world”.
Charlotte believes that unexpressed emotions are like a drunk relative at a wedding – they corner you and won’t leave you alone! As an accredited Peer Support Network trainer she co-runs courses on behalf of a local Mind charity, Suffolk Mind, helping people to learn how to notice, accept, express and understand their own emotions so they can increase their confidence and wellbeing.
Charlotte is passionate about helping people to believe in themselves “when you believe in yourself, anything is possible”
Find out more, get in touch, like, follow, tweet (!) …
Twitter : @ICforWomen
Blog: http://innerconfidenceforwomen.wordpress.com/
Website : www.innerconfidenceforwomen.co.uk
Facebook: www.facebook.com/Innerconfidenceforwomen
Coaching Quote of the Day 26th September 2012
“The solutions to outwardly complex problems created by misguided thoughts will not arise from complicated analytical theory, but will emerge as an insight, wrapped in a blanket of simplicity.”
(Sydney Banks)
Coaching Quote of the Day 9th August 2012
“If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.”
(Andrew Carnegie)
Coaching Quote of the Day 9th May 2012
“Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.”
(Frank Outlaw)
Coaching Quote of the Day 18th September 2011
“I am thankful that thus far today I have not had any unkind thoughts or said any harsh words or done anything that I regret. However, now I need to get out of bed and so things may become more difficult.”
(Sylvia Boorstein)
Do coaches need to be confident? 6
I’m often interested to see the searches that people do that lead to this blog for coaches. Some are quite frankly mystifying but one recently attracted my attention as it was the simple question, “do coaches need to be confident?”
So my coaching related post today is going to give my own personal answer, with reasons. I invite you to consider your own answer, as well as how that fits into how you are currently coaching.
Now considering one of the programs I offer to support coaches is “From feeling a fake to confident coach” my actual answer may surprise some. No, I personally do not think that coaches need to be confident. I think that it is perfectly possible to run a coaching session without feeling confident.
Confidence is one of those things that we cannot nip down to the local supermarket and pick up a tin of – it means something slightly different to each person. Just so that I am perfectly clear, I’m talking about feeling confident. I’m not talking about someone’s competence with my previous statement.
For some it may be true that a reason for them feeling a lack of confidence is genuinely because their skill levels have not been developed – it’s not always the case, hence my statement that you do not need to be confident to run a coaching session.
I do think that there are many benefits to being a confident coach. Here are just 7 of my initial thoughts:
It’s often makes coaching easier
How does your lack of confidence effect your coaching? If you are not confident then it’s easy for your client to start questioning the coaching and shift their focus off what they want etc.
It feels better and is more enjoyable!
Whilst your client may or may not have a suspicion about how you are feeling there are two of you involved in this coaching conversation. There is nothing to say that, as a coach, you can’t enjoy your work – in fact I personally encourage you to enjoy your work. 🙂
It’s easier to focus on your client if you’re not afraid someone is about to discover that you’re a fake etc
Coaching is much easier when you are listening and focusing upon your client and not any negative thoughts in your own head. I wrote last week about 3 ways to keep your focus on your client and not on your inner critic or negative thoughts etc.
If you trust your skills and coaching instincts you will ask the questions/give the feedback that you think will make the difference.
Often if a coach is not confident they can question yourself about what they will think about you, if that’s the right question etc and hold back from asking a question or giving certain feedback.
You will allow yourself to take the coaching in a different direction if the first one isn’t going anywhere
Coaching conversations are like any other conversations, they can take a turn in a different direction at any time depending upon the response the other person gives. Sometimes I see coaches/trainee coaches think negatively of themselves because they either haven’t got a plan about how a session is going to go or any plan they had alters as the session progresses.
You don’t hold yourself back from taking action just because you don’t feel confident
To run a coaching session you need a client. I’ve often seen coaches who share that they don’t feel confident reluctant to take action to actually get a client – either paid or unpaid. What action would you take if you were more confident about your coaching?
If you are “selling” the idea of working with you, a potential client is more likely to say yes if you appear confident in your own service and skills.
I’ve already mentioned that to run a coaching session you need a client. There are many strategies that you can use for marketing and sales and this isn’t a post about the numerous approaches that could work for you.
Even if you are not asking for an exchange of money you are asking a potential client to invest their time and effort. If you don’t appear confident and appear to be questioning if it will work etc how likely are they to say yes?
At the start of this post I said that coaches do not need to be confident to run a coaching session. What do you think? Feel free to share your comments below.
3 ways to keep your focus on your client and not your own inner critic/ thoughts
So how do you avoid being distracted by your own thoughts when you are coaching? This is a conversation and question I often get asked.
My answer normally is that there are many different techniques and approaches that you can use. And finding the ones that work for you is, in my opinion, beneficial.
Shut up/ don’t listen
One of the coaching skills that is highly valued is listening but in a coaching session it’s probably useful to listen to your client not any negative thoughts inside your head 🙂
There are many different techniques that you can use to quiet/not connect with any thoughts that you are finding distracting.
On day 4 of my confidence e-course I share five different ones. Here is just one technique that you may like. It just turns down the volume of that voice that was yakking away.
Imagine that you have a control panel, now this is your control panel so you can have as many buttons, dials, slider switches etc as you want. You will notice that one of these actually controls the volume of that voice and in a moment you can just reach out and gradually turn down the volume of that voice. Do that now and notice that voice get quieter and quieter and quieter.
Personally, because I believe that the coaching session is a time for the client not me I found saying to myself a simple “shh, later – their time not yours” works for me. Whilst that may appear to invite a deluge of negative thoughts after the session – in reality those thoughts are not relevant afterwards.
I’ve also found that the more I used this, the less I’d actually needed to use it. It’s become habit to fully focus on my client and not any negative thoughts.
Preparation
Make life easier for yourself by not having your thoughts go at thousands of miles per hour. Do whatever you know to do to slow those thoughts down prior to your coaching session.
I know some coaches who do a short meditation, others who listen to a particular piece of music, whilst others use other techniques to get into a more useful state.
Personally, I don’t think there is a “right or wrong” way, just ones that will work for you as a coach!
Don’t get caught in a loop
If you notice during a coaching session that you have momentarily been distracted by a thought what do you then do? Curse that you have “done it again”, followed by various other thoughts and stories about how this is just more proof about how bad you are as a coach etc?
Getting caught in a loop of negative thinking or telling yourself a much longer negative story about what that must mean is a very common reaction. Yet, it doesn’t have to be the only way.
What you can also do is to congratulate yourself for noticing and bring your attention back out of your head and to the client in front of you.
You’ll find that you attention returns to your client a lot faster when you don’t start interacting with other negative thoughts that may pass through your head.
As a coach, over time, you will develop your own style. One that you are comfortable with and that works for your clients. As far as I’m concerned, there is no reason why you shouldn’t also find the way that works for you to focus upon your clients and not negative thoughts whilst coaching.
If you have a particular favourite technique etc you use feel free to comment below.