Monthly Archives: July 2012

Coaching with addictions

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Within coaching you will be working with many different areas of a clients life be that personally, career or otherwise.

I have heard that you shouldn’t coach anyone who is suffering from an addiction.

This of course would be down to having a choice as a coach who you choose to work with and how you work as a coach. I am hoping that some of what I share will enlighten and encourage you to think about whether you could help within the parameters of coaching.

You would also make sure to have a preliminary conversation with a potential client around what coaching is and also is not as part of a contractual agreement with how you work as a coach.

Importantly the individual may also be involved in another support network be that a 12 step group, therapy either one to one or group and possibly other interventions. These will also play a very important part in helping the individual move forward and create a bridge to normal living away from the additive patterns that could have been in their life for some time.

Before I talk about coaching within these areas I would like to look at what is classified as “addiction”

Briefly put it is when a person will become absorbed in a way of living that has negative results, where it becomes a problem and their life can become unmanageable because of this. Quite often this addictive pattern will be something “they do” which gets negative results for them.

This can be seen as out of control.

Alcoholism, sex addiction, compulsive eating, gambling, work holism, compulsive spending where life can become chaotic, living on the edge, crisis filled, excessive, and irresponsible.

It could also be over controlling in terms of compulsive non-drinking, compulsive no sexuality, phobic responses, procrastination, compulsive saving and more.

Life can become rigid and empty, the individual may have a fear of being judged, being perfect or living in a way that causes deprivation

The additive pattern takes hold of that individual and other areas of their life may suffer. Friendships, relationships, finances and more.

Along with this is the emotional impact of the addict cycle, which resides in shame and guilt from the very thing that is causing the problem.

The cycle becomes self-perpetuating and also can become progressive in its frequency and negative impact on that individuals life.

The key here and a question that will serve to know whether coaching could help

Are they ready to change? Do they want to move forward and start to create a better life?

A very useful approach when working with addictive cycles is to help the client become aware of the trigger that causes the additive cycle to become activated.

This will be how they are speaking to themselves in negative ways, how they perceive others are seeing them, what emotional impact this is having and how these thought patterns can be distorted.

In other words what proceeds the addictive cycle happening? What has to be present for this to come into play?

Maybe they are mind reading in what they think they are hearing and what this means. They could be using a black and white thinking approach, which does not allow for freedom or choice.

They could be tapping into limiting beliefs of not being good enough or many other belief systems that ultimately could be holding them back and through their own faulty thought patterns this could be causing them to act out in addictive ways.

We help the client to look at life in more balanced ways, allow space to share what they need to without judgement, which can cut through the shame that resides within them.

We don’t leave them here. We encourage them to start to formulate how to do things differently and gain more positive results in their life and to test these new ways of being out.

There is also accountability within coaching and review of this new approach that can be very useful for the client and provide a support stream that sits outside of other interventions.

Cognitive Behavioural Coaching, NLP, and Transactional Analysis which is all part of transformational coaching skills can be extremely useful.

Wrapping this up in a nice easy to digest ending

  • Does the client want to move forward?
  • Have they got the right support for them aside from coaching?
  • Can they see that they are responsible for their own choices?
  • Do you feel confident in the client being able to take ownership of their life?

Don’t be afraid of asking questions, exploring with the client in how you could help and working with individuals that are ready to change and have the right support in place. You could be impactful in their life in amazing ways.

The ideal self

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When you work with clients to help them move towards what they truly desire one of the biggest things that can stop them moving forward will be themselves.

You may be familiar when people say that they are their own worst enemy and the coaching arena is no exception.

People are a complex mix of thoughts, feelings and emotions and quite often will get in their own way of achieving success, happiness and so much more.

In my experience when people are unable to move forward they can become almost rooted to the spot with negative patterns, unhelpful thoughts and resulting behaviours that do not serve them or have become out-dated where they may have been useful before.

When you coach at this level the issue can be that the person you are working with is so wrapped up in this negativity.

The question is how do you get past this and help shift the prospective for the client to look at things more positively.

A very powerful and simple technique to use is called the ideal self-technique.

The name really sums up what the aim is. To be able to help a client start to bring into their awareness a vision of how they would like to be.

At the heart of this approach and within the session is the idea of giving permission for the client to imagine how they could be, what they would prefer to have (or not have) and how they can start to put this into practice.

This by passes some of the negative self talk that clients will no doubt bring to sessions.

How does it work?

Opening statement

If everything is exactly as you want it to be ……………

  • What would you feel like?
  • What would it look like to you?
  • What would you be saying to yourself?
  • How will you be thinking?
  • How will that be useful?
  • Who else could this NEW YOU could affect
  • What else could happen for you in positive ways?

Moving into action

  • With this in mind what COULD you do from today?
  • How would you know this is working for you?
  • When you think about this? How much do you want it?
  • When will you start doing this? What could stop you?
  • What could you then do?

These questions are not set in stone but in my experience they can really help someone to see things more clearly and positively.

The trick is to believe that your client can change and by asking simple and purposeful questions this can create the change that they want with amazing results.

Dancing with ego states

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You may have heard of Transactional Analysis, which was first introduced by Eric Berne in the 1950s and brought to the fore by the well-known book The Games People play in 1964.

His starting-point was that when two people encounter each other, one of them would speak to the other. This he called the Transaction Stimulus. The reaction from the other person he called the Transaction Response.

Transactional Analysis became the method of examining the transaction. Berne also said that each person is made up of three structural ego states:

Parent, adult and child.

Within these areas of existence there are also functional ego states, which breaks down further each of the structural ego states in both negative and positive ways.

Within the parent there is critical and smothering which would be deemed as negative and from the positive would come structuring and also nurturing.

Within the child there is resistant and also immature which would be considered negative and from the positive would come co-operative and also spontaneous.

You would then have an adult state that accounts for a persons logical, clear sighted and authentic thinking in response to their current situation.

In daily life people will go in and out of these states quite unknown to them.

The idea here is that people will flow from one ego state to the other depending on circumstances, and who they are in dialogue with. This will happen at an unconscious level.

As a coach how is this important?

This provides a great opportunity to help clients to understand themselves and also their relationships with others in more purposeful and useful ways.

Firstly we need to help a client realise from our coaching conversations, which state they could be operating from, how is this a problem and how they are being ineffective in their communication with others.

This can be a big reveal for people to really take an honest look at how they are living their life according to these dynamics and how they are acting out these roles in certain areas.

The slippery downward road and the pitfall to be aware of when we are coaching on any level is becoming part of this very dynamic and what I consider to be dancing with the client’s ego states.

There could be a buying into the story – you in fact could be part of the story if you also are going into your own ego state reactions in the session.

Are you fuelling the fire and making the situation more concrete in the client’s experience?

Maybe you are becoming the care taker (smothering parent) the teller off in the session (the critical parent).

Maybe you revert to a child like state yourself and be less than. Think of the immature child here and how you could be reacting in such a way from what a client brings to you and what they say in a session.

The key here is to start to work on being an adult. This may seem obvious but if the client is wading around in a child ego state you may need to bring them back to an adult position in order for you to continue to coach them in the best way for them.

You want the client to take responsibility for themselves and the choices they make. You are not responsible for them and don’t need to fix them.

A coach’s role is not to be a parent to the client but rather the facilitator of positive transformation and change that will help the client move forward to where they want to be.

Next time you are coaching ask yourself who am I being in the clients dance of life.

Progression not perfection

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I realize that this may not come as a revelation to those who are reading this.

Knowing just how much coaching can help people in such a wide range of areas and also knowing that clients will come to coaching to “change their lives” it is very easy to get caught up in the complexities of how to ask simple purposeful questions, hold space, actively listen, reflect, clarify meaning and use feedback.

This is before you start to bring into the mix specific coaching models and techniques.

It is true to say that you will make mistakes and not get it right at times within coaching sessions.

I have been thinking about this and rather than strive for perfection it is useful to be aware of some of these areas of challenge before they happen.

Learning comes from the times that things don’t go as well as we would like them to and it’s how we utilise this learning that makes a difference for our future interactions and success.

I will share with you some of these key areas and with this knowledge you will have a pathway to coach effectively and with the client in mind and at the heart of the change process.

  1. Be aware of your own agenda creeping in to sessions – what you want for the client might not be what they want or in fact need to help them move forward
  2. Mind your own negative chatter. It is so easy to give yourself a hard time and beat yourself up for not getting it right. Is this useful? Is this how you would treat someone else? Probably not
  3. Don’t bombard the client with a stream of questions, keep it simple and allow the client time to think of a response before going in with another question.
  4. Keep your conversation open and curious not closed and judging
  5. Allow the past to surface naturally – don’t go digging around in the clients past to make a point. This isn’t beneficial.
  6. Do challenge on limiting beliefs, how they see themselves compared to how others see them and also on behaviours that are not getting them what they want.
  7. Drop your own need to be perfect
  8. Don’t know it all. You are an explorer in the client’s world, in new terrain without a guidebook. You are not expected to be the font of all knowledge.
  9. Silence is crucial in coaching – it is one of the most powerful tools you have in your coaching armoury – use it well and with confidence
  10. Be aware of becoming enmeshed in the client’s story or self created drama – we don’t want to add weight to the story but rather start to allow them to see things differently and uncover new ways of being
  11. It is ok to judge people – we all do it but not letting this judgement be seen or felt in the session is key here. Check in with why you are judging and take ownership for it.

This is not an exhaustive list but rather a small users guide to help you coach with congruence, authenticity and by keeping it real and also simple you will learn so much more about yourself and be able to watch as clients transform their lives.

Too much choice?

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Today I overheard someone in my local coffee shop saying to a member of staff whilst browsing the varied menu

“ I don’t know what to have, there is too much choice!”

It really got me thinking how this same dynamic can show itself within coaching. When you first meet a client they can come to a session with so many areas of life that they would like to improve or change.

The challenge here for coaches is where to start. People will quite often look at their lives as a whole in terms of overall unhappiness in how they are living and can get very bogged down in negativity in what they are not achieving and the frustration that this can lead on to.

Clients will frequently come to sessions not knowing where to begin or afraid to take the first steps to help them move forward.

This is very different from the types of clients who are clear in what they are looking to accomplish and change and may have already started on the journey to get what they want.

In my years of experience in working with clients in various areas the key to this is to keep it simple and not get bogged down in what the client is unhappy with.

If we do, we risk becoming enmeshed in what the client is doing and can very easily slip into the role of care taker and fixer.

This is not what we are there to do.

In the event of clients not knowing where to start, we need to ascertain from them what they are most unhappy with. What would they consider is the part of their life that by coming to you as their coach they see as most beneficial to change?

It is also true to say that by concentrating whole-heartedly in one area of life and changing this in positive ways it can have a ripple effect in amazing ways that start to permeate into other key areas to create a more balanced view of how a client could be currently seeing things.

Choice is not always such a comfortable menu. We may need to work in a detailed way with clients to start to narrow down these choices which may also bring into the mix realism in what they want and how they can achieve it.

I have heard in the majority of cases clients needing more clarity in both how they might currently be dealing with situations and what they would like to be doing instead.

It is also true to say that people are not frequently in a position of being truly listened to, encouraged to speak about what is really bothering them and what they how they would like to be living.

The power in coaching is that we help this to happen. We help the client gain greater clarity in their thought processes, feelings, behaviors and results.

We create space for self-realization.

The next time a client say I don’t know what I want. Start with the end in mind focus on how they would prefer things to be and help them create the life that would be better for them.

It sometimes isn’t about complete transformation but living life better. What don’t you want can help to unlock what they do.

Challenging within coaching

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I was recently coaching someone who felt that they kept falling into the same types of personal relationships.

From this initial conversation and according to what she said the end result was that she wanted more clarity in doing things differently and also wanted to work on the next steps involved.

In some traditional coaching methods used this could be deemed as the way to focus the session with a high concentration on what can you do about this? What are the best steps towards the end result? And how will this be achieved?

STOP…. Take a step back.

Why is the client not able to get clarity herself? What about the next steps? What is the challenge in the client coming up with these by her self?

It really is a simple equation.

Someone wants to change but they aren’t… so what is stopping them?

Unless we focus on what “isn’t” happening it will make no difference to the end result, regardless of how wonderful the new option of living could be for them.

It is true to say that you can look at the bolder, brighter version of how they could be living but in my experience this simply may not be enough.

Transformation comes at the level of self-awareness and inner reflection from the client. Unless they can understand the impact of what they are doing or not doing and the results they are getting or not as the case may be they will not be willing to let go of how it currently is which will clear the path for them to move forward.

People do what they do (or don’t do) for a reason.

I will take a risk here, one that is worth taking.

How many of you reading this find yourself in patterns of behaviour that you are unhappy with?

Be that continually dieting, procrastination, falling for the same relationships with the same types of people ( and wondering how that happened!, in a job that you say to others that you cant stand? in fact I am sure there are many more situations and the above is not exhaustive.

Very simply I ask you why are you doing this? If I said to you right now you could have anything you want to have without restrictions would you be happy?

People do what they do for a reason, even thought this may not be initially clear.

The process of transformational coaching will help someone understand how he or she could be creating his or her own life dramas and stories based on the view that there is no choice! What a complex race we are.

Is this comfortable for people to be presented with, to face up to their life and take ownership for it? Possibly not

The power and simplicity comes  – and believe me when I say this from being able to hold someone to account.

Challenging is a crucial part of purposeful and client centred coaching. As a coach it is your responsibility to help create a new of being for the client and this could involve a certain level of emotional discomfort for the client.

I have seen many times people allowing emotions to surface. This isn’t always tears and regrets, but stubbornness, frustration and a general barricading of what they are so desperately holding on to and yet at the same time wanting to let go of.

Here is when your personable skills come in, your empathy, sense of connection and presence with the client.

Above all you want to loosen up the clients view and self-perpetual cycles of discontent by asking simple and yet challenging questions in what you hear and what you feel intuitively and what is being shown to you in the session.

Does coaching help people move forward? Yes

Do people always move forward willingly and without a fight in giving up how they have been living even with negative results? No

It is not only your role but a requirement of good coaching to challenge when you need to within a session.

Give it a go your client may just thank you for it!