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This goes right along with the Celebration module for me, since it’s about lightening up! Although I coach people into figuring out what they want to be when they grow up, it doesn’t mean we have to stop playing games.
And while we did talk about when and why to bring significance into a session – significance meaning putting too much weight on a situation & being all grave about it – the focus was getting a round-up of tools to use that will bring “the game” back into the situation. These tools included:
* visualization
* making a joy list
* celebration
* reframing
* asking what the client would do if they had $5m
I look forward to next week & hopefully more tools!
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Today I’m grateful for Barack Obama (even though I missed the speech for class)!
I’m so glad there’s another part to this class, and Angela isn’t on vacation for another 2 weeks!
There were so many lightbulb moments today that I have to freaking bulletpoint them:
* Power is perception. It doesn’t really exist.
Did you just get the chills that I did? POWER DOESN’T EXIST! Holy crapballs that’s exciting – especially when what is disempowering me are my own thoughts (particularly the thoughts that tell me I can never make a living at this)! Turning this on it’s head really empowers me. Who woulda thunk it?
* “With great power comes great responsibility”
I forget if this was Yoga or Superman, but I know that my (adorably) nerdy pre-husband will be proud that I was the one that finished that sentence! That wasn’t as earth shattering as realizing the converse effect:
With disempowerment comes a sense of not needing to be responsible.
If you feel like something is beyond your control, there’s no responsibility for you to change it. It seems like a silly example, but I automatically think about picking at my nails. I’ve been wanting to stop for years (and no more so than when I got my gorgeous engagement ring), but it hasn’t happened. My fingers always wander to the fingers on my other hand. When someone asks why I do that, or why I haven’t stopped already, I say “I can’t help it.” As if it’s someone other than me picking at my nails! Duh again.
Oh! And I think the quote is from Spiderman. Or Batman? No, I think it’s Spiderman. Either way, it’s one of those guys.
* You take away someone’s power by assuming what is right for them.
When we tell someone our problems, aren’t we subconsciously (or consciously?) asking them to solve it for us? Well, in doing so you take away their ability to assume responsibility for it. You’re disempowering them, you disempowerer you!
Instead of giving them answers, tell them what you see. Not showing them the truth will just make them think you accept their bad behavior. Angela says you shouldn’t be attached to them liking you, but that is too huge of a UAC for me to accept and put into practice. Oy, there I go disempowering myself again!
* If you don’t speak about a lightbulb moment, you’ll lose it. You need to verbalize what you’ve learned and state what you will do differently, now that you know what you know.
That’s why I love this blog! I do find it difficult to keep up with the-things-I-want-to-do-differently, though. Maybe I need a list? Who am I kidding. I need another list like I need another head.
* There are two ways to deal with a problem: find a solution or get rid of the problem
I think I’m going to tattoo this on my face. And then show it to my girlfriends who are getting crapped on by the same (type of) guys over and over again.
* There’s always a reward for allowing ourselves to be disempowered. Understand your reward.
This is a recurring theme with Angela, and one that I want to have keep sinking in. It seems amazing that there could be a reward for negative behavior, but that there is. Pretty insane when you start thinking about what those rewards are.
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Today I’m grateful for a fall day during a hot summer.
Michael is one of my new favorite teachers! He has a unique style all his own that was engaging and dealt specifically with serving your clients (sometimes these classes could be vague with how to apply these models in a session, but we spoke about that at length). Or maybe I just relate to him because I love gay men and have been around them my whole life? Either way, great class!
Powerful Requests is fairly self-explanatory, but we spoke about what made a request powerful vs what Michael called “field work”, which is something not as challenging that the client might have already stated that they were going to do. I really feel like I want to be the type of coach to give my clients a powerful request every week! Since I already give them “homework”, I should step it up a notch and see how they react. Is there a limit to how many “scary” challenges to give someone?
I also offered up a powerful request for myself: to take 1 hour this week just for me. Whether it’s reading a magazine on my roofdeck or taking a bath with a glass of wine, I NEED to calm my brain and recharge. This wedding is only getting closer!
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Today I’m grateful for new pajamas.
I feel like I’m ahead of the curve on this one, as it seems like this class is meant to be taken before you start peer coaching. Well, if that’s the case, they should offer it more often! I’m unable to take the rest of these parts until the end of the year anyway, as they don’t offer them at night before November.
This was still a helpful class, though, since Paul went over different tools we could use and some basics of coaching. I liked how he says to his clients, at the beginning of every session, that they should stop him if the session starts going someplace they don’t want it to go. We as coaches have to remember that the client sets the agenda and negotiates how the session will go – we are just the guides.
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Today I’m grateful for a day off, & a beautiful one at that. Yee ha!
This was another coaching session based class, which was OK. A few of the same challenges we spoke in the class before. The main thing I walked away with is that, without having our clients move forward, we are not coaching and they are not making progress. Without action, we’re just having a discussion with the client. If there’s no action on their part, it might be time to refer them to a therapist.
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Today I’m grateful for my bed. Ah….bed.
This class was amazing, basically because I was coached for 30 minutes on my UAC! Very selfish of me, but true.
Without going into all of my own crapola, what I loved most about this class was speaking about how you get what you tolerate in life. To expand on that, if you tolerate someone disrespecting you, they’re going to keep doing it – and that’s what you’ll get for that relationship. The same goes for power: you only get what you don’t give away.
Without getting into too much detail about my UAC (not that I don’t want to talk about it, but because it’s 11:11p and my brain is mush) we also spoke about how the “shoulds” that are brought up by the client go back to expectations that were formed during childhood. I need to watch my “shoulds”.
Sigh. Another class where 10 minutes is spent on checking in and “sharing” and 40 minutes was spent listening in on a session. I know that I’m supposed to like these, but it’s 50/50 for me. Sometimes they’re worthwhile, sometimes they’re not. This one was down the middle. I think it’s just my 3rd class of the night and I’m tired. So blech.
The best thing about this class was when we spoke about what questions to ask our clients they feel invalidated. That really was useful.
Now, time for bed.
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Today I’m thankful for my acting skills. They come in handy.
I took Accountability 1 & 2 back in May & June (with a different teacher), so this one had been sitting around for a while. But I wasn’t lost or confused – I eased right back into the material, which was nice.
Angela lead the class into a discussion as to when we were resistant to take accountability (since that’s the way most of our clients will come to us), how we felt and what we thought. She helped us verbalize that feeling of disempowerment when we’re down for the count, and conversely that feeling of control that you have when you decide to take responsibility.
The big tidbits that I got from this class were:
* Passive behavior is an aggressive act, and aggression can come from feeling powerless. Cool, huh?
* Everyone is trained to be a victim. Victims are the one who are acknowledged, given attention, and looked after
* With responsibility comes freedom – not the other way around.
All of these points hit me for different reasons, but the bottom line is where you choose to live:
above the line, where you’re responsible, accountable, and empowered or below the line, where you live with blame, denial, and justification.
Where do you live now? Where do you want to live?
I LOVE that the challenge I assigned Client B paid off in spades! It led to a huge breakthrough for her. OK, I probably shouldn’t say breakthrough, as there hasn’t been action taken yet. It’s clarity. A big fat amount of clarity. But now comes the hard part: What to do next? How can I have her change her perspective without saying “How can you change your perspective?” At least, though, because she can see that her current choices do not serve her anymore, she will choose to make some new ones. I’m hoping that this week’s challenge opens that up for her.
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