A really common problem that coaches talk to me about is their struggle with certain kinds of clients. Some coaches struggle with clients who fail to take action, some with clients who are ambivalent about taking action, and some with clients who want you to do it for them. You may even share some of these struggles.
What is common with all of these clients is that they prompt feelings in us. Usually those feelings are difficult to be with, such as irritation, helplessness, frustration or even anger. Though the specific emotions may differ, what is often consistent from coach to coach is the difficulty we experience with such feelings. So what’s the solution?
One potential and powerful solution is to learn how to be with our own uncomfortable feelings. For this, I would like to offer a model from the work of Robert Dilts and his wife Deborah. It’s called the “COACH” model.
Understanding the COACH Model
COACH is an acronym for Centered, Open-minded attitude and state, Aware (alert and awake), Connected and Holding space. Let’s look at each of these.
What happens when you are centered? When you talk about being centered, you’re usually referring to a state of solidness and confidence, an overall sense of being at peace with yourself. In all of the martial arts, being centered is a prerequisite to being able to do the practice. It is usually felt in the muscles and in the belly. Being centered allows you to operate from your power.
An open-minded attitude makes possible curiosity and understanding. It means you’re able to suspend your own idea of what is so, focusing instead on what is so for your client. Your questions are intended to gather information so you can understand what is going on in your client’s life. Curiosity goes hand-in-hand with this state.
Awareness is a state that goes hand-in-hand with open-mindedness. Awareness requires a focus both inward and outward. It is the ability to notice and track what is going on with you. It is also linked to the state of being centered because centering itself requires setting an intent and having an awareness of how to achieve it. Awareness makes possible connection.
Connection is required to do your best work with your clients. Connection makes possible deep understanding and profound change. Connection is what makes NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) possible, and what makes NLP great is high-level connecting. Without a relationship and without connecting, coaching will suffer and might even be ineffective.
Holding refers to holding a space in which change becomes possible or likely. How many times have you said or heard it said, “I just want to hold a space for them”? You may have also heard clients say, “She held space for me so I was able to look at painful truths.” So there is recognition of the importance of “holding space.”
So what does all of this actually mean? It means that when you learn how to provide the four prerequisites: centered, open, aware and connected, you can create the prime conditions to hold space for your clients, enabling them to explore and discover their own truths, which makes change possible.
This is just an overview of the COACH model. There are some specific exercises and processes that can help you master this more easily. Notice that as your ability to manage your own state increases, change becomes more possible for your clients.
Are you ready to learn to use the COACH model for the sake of your clients?
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I would love to hear how well the COACH Model works for you. Share your feedback and comments below.
P.S. Do you want to share this post? Please do. Just be sure that it remains intact and includes the following bio.
About Terry: Terry Hickey, M.S., is a Certified NLP Professional Coach, Business Trainer and Consultant, a Certified Master Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming and the co-owner of NLP Advantage Group. Originator of the Belief Breakthrough Method™, Terry specializes in teaching coaches and entrepreneurs how to rapidly resolve limiting beliefs about wealth and success. His tips and strategies can help you launch yourself into the future you want… NOW. http://terryhickey.com/
Happy Valentine’s Day
CommentsSalka’s message to all of his faithful readers is to have a Happy Valentine’s Day! Go out and take a walk with the one(s) you love.
He also encourages you to have a peek at his latest video:
How Beliefs Play in Politics
CommentsRest assured this post will not be about espousing the beliefs of one particular party over the other. What I do want to explain is how well-intentioned people can come up with widely different meanings from the exact same event.
Beliefs themselves are generalizations from experience or experiences. Once a belief is in place, it is sustained by two processes: distortion and deletion. Distortion means that when an event or occurrence is different from the pre-held belief, we go through a process of making a different meaning or coming up with an explanation that fits our pre-existing belief. Deletion happens when something contrary to our beliefs is ignored—it’s as though it never happened. Beliefs rarely are changed by direct confrontation; the opposite is true, for they tend to become more entrenched.
One concrete way we allow deletion to continue is by pre-selecting the kind of information we expose ourselves to. I don’t think it would come as a surprise to anyone that news channels often have a recognized bias. That is equally true with radio outlets, publications, websites, etc. It is unlikely that you will change beliefs if your reading or listening preferences are not challenged.
This plays out in another way also. Political speak on both sides uses words and terms in imprecise ways. For example, you will often hear a politician say, “the American people want ______ (fill in the blank)” as though there is an entity called “American people” that thinks in a unique way. This is particularly interesting when polls often suggest a near-even split about issues.
Words like “always” or “never” go unchallenged, and then there’s the all-time favorite: “everyone knows.” What’s interesting about these patterns is that listeners tend to fill in their own meanings rather than asking for specificity. An example of asking for specificity would be to inquire, “Who specifically knows?”
Another example that can be heard from spokesman on both sides is a variation of “We’re going to take back the country from…” One response to that might be “Take it back from whom, specifically?” or “Take it back how, exactly?” In order for the initial statement to make sense, you have to understand what is presupposed. Somehow the country was “given away” or “taken,” so knowing how specifically one thinks of that helps to create more understanding.
Will reading this cause one to shift beliefs? Unlikely. What it may do is encourage critical thinking. One of the downsides of learning about beliefs is that listening to political speeches becomes a very different experience. I often assign my students the task of listening to debates or political channels so they can catalog and then write appropriate challenges to what they hear. It matters not what channel you choose because there will be plenty of examples to learn from.
So what do you think (specifically)? I welcome your comments below.
P.S. Do you want to share this post? Please do. Just be sure that it remains intact and includes the following bio.
About Terry: Terry Hickey, M.S., is a Certified NLP Professional Coach, Business Trainer and Consultant, a Certified Master Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming and the co-owner of NLP Advantage Group. Originator of the Belief Breakthrough Method™, Terry specializes in teaching coaches and entrepreneurs how to rapidly resolve limiting beliefs about wealth and success. His tips and strategies can help you launch yourself into the future you want… NOW. http://terryhickey.com/
Learn to Be with Your Clients
CommentsThis month’s tip is about the importance of being able to be with powerful and often uncomfortable feelings. When you are confronted with strong feelings, your ability to welcome and be with those feelings will enhance your effectiveness with clients.
Given that you are asking your clients to stay with and process uncomfortable feelings, your ability to model that behavior is as important as any other work that you’ll do with them. It is one of the attributes that high-end coaches must develop.
This is at the heart of the idea of “holding space” for your clients. This also will resonate with the idea that what you resist persists. It’s often the feeling about the feeling that’s the problem, not the feeling itself. For instance, if you are welcoming of your fear, that’s different than being fearful of or embarrassed about your fear.
So in addition to being able to be with uncomfortable feelings, it’s the ability to have a welcoming, curious attitude that will allow you to manage what would otherwise be extremely difficult or even seem impossible.
As always, let me know how I can help. Just share a limiting-beliefs question that has been challenging you or a client, and I’d be happy to address it here or in a future issue of the newsletter. Call me at 520.237.4435 or e-mail me at Terry@terryhickey.com with your question.
Please feel free to share this tip with anyone you think might enjoy it. When doing so, please forward it in its entirety, including the copyright information and the bio below. Thanks, and enjoy!
About Terry
Terry Hickey, M.S., is a Certified NLP Professional Coach, Business Trainer and Consultant, a Certified Master Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming and the co-owner of NLP Advantage Group. Originator of the Belief Breakthough Method™, Terry specializes in teaching coaches and entrepreneurs how to rapidly resolve limiting beliefs about wealth and success. His tips and strategies can help you launch yourself into the future you want… NOW.
Check out Terry’s website, http://terryhickey.com/, to find out more about his coaching, Belief Breakthrough Method opportunities and other services. Be sure to download his FREE audio interview: 3 Most Perilous Coaching Mistakes That Will Stop Your Clients in Their Tracks.
As you may recall, last month’s article was prompted by a question from a reader about how to best use behavioral change techniques. As promised, this month’s article continues that discussion, addressing the application of behavioral techniques in difference contexts.
Before you work on a behavioral change, it’s important to pay attention to the level at which the problem occurs. You need to be sure that you really are working at the behavioral level. (See my blog for information on this topic: Do You Know the Logical Levels for Successful Change?)
The next step is to establish a clear outcome and frame it in the positive. It should be a very clear goal expressed in terms of what is wanted—not what isn’t wanted. Rather than “I don’t want to be broke next year,” it should be reframed to say, “I want to make [specific income amount] in the coming year.”
Once you know what the client wants and what they have now, then the next question to ask is “What will bridge the gap?” Sometimes that can actually involve a behavioral technique. For example, someone might actually need a strategy for handling their appointment calendar. If that works, great. If not, you want to go back to the drawing board and ask, “What would have to happen so that you could manage your calendar the way you want to?” That question will likely tease out an underlying belief. If that’s the case, then you know the work is at the belief level.
Some of these questions might tease out a “part of me” answer: “Part of me wants to do this, and part wants to do that.” If that’s the case, you’ll need to do some integration work so that the parts can be in harmony.
As your coaching becomes more focused, you’ll discover that the work you are doing is more at the beliefs and values and the identity level than at the behavioral level.
Please feel free to share this tip with anyone you think might enjoy it. When doing so, please forward it in its entirety, including the copyright information and the bio below. Thanks, and enjoy!
About Terry
Terry Hickey, M.S., is a Certified NLP Professional Coach, Business Trainer and Consultant, a Certified Master Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming and the co-owner of NLP Advantage Group. Originator of the Belief Breakthough Method™, Terry specializes in teaching coaches and entrepreneurs how to rapidly resolve limiting beliefs about wealth and success. His tips and strategies can help you launch yourself into the future you want… NOW.
Check out Terry’s website, http://terryhickey.com/, to find out more about his coaching, Belief Breakthrough Method opportunities and other services. Be sure to download his FREE audio interview: 3 Most Perilous Coaching Mistakes That Will Stop Your Clients in Their Tracks.
In my last post I shared the lower levels of logical change: environment, behaviors and capabilities. Now I’m going to move on to the upper levels. Changes that occur at one or more of these levels—for you or your clients—are more likely to be successful and sustained.
- Beliefs and Values: this level addresses how you organize your experience in the world; remember, a belief is a generalization from experience. Beliefs are adopted early on and become our guiding force, not learning from life. For example, if I believe the world is safe, my experiences will be very different from those of someone who thinks the world is dangerous. Given that beliefs rarely exist independent of one another, we each have systems of beliefs that can create problems when they don’t work together.
Underlying beliefs affect the lower levels of change. Oftentimes changes at the lower levels—environment, behaviors and capabilities—won’t last if the beliefs that hold them in place are not addressed.
- Identity: this level is crucial because it determines who you are in the world and how you think of yourself in relation to others. For example, saying “I am a golfer” represents an identity—who you are—and is different from saying “I play golf,” which only refers to something you do.
Your identity influences how you move through the world and what you do or don’t do. Saying “I’m not the kind of person who takes risks” means that your new learning experiences will be limited. Describing yourself as a “risk taker” has different implications and may result in dangerous behaviors that do not serve you well.
What I understand when I’m working with people is that the identity you hold may need to be adapted or shifted in order for a significant change to happen in your life. Identity has an impact on all the levels beneath it.
- Mission or Purpose: this speaks to, “What’s more important than me?” or “What’s larger than me?” Teachers often answer this by saying that they get to have an impact on children—that it’s the most important thing they can do. Mission is crucial. That’s why people struggle at a job that to them has no purpose. When people recover from illnesses that were supposedly terminal, it is often because of mission, or remission—acquiring a new sense of purpose. For many, having a connection with God or a higher power makes a difference, feeling a bond with something larger than themselves.
Change can happen at any one of these levels, but you need to recognize at what level the work is being done. For example, sometimes a reframe doesn’t quite sell because it’s at the wrong level.
It’s also essential to know at what level a problem exists. Coaches are often trained to work at the behavioral level, yet problems usually are not behavioral—or not just behavioral. There’s often an underlying belief at another, higher level that may prevent a change at this lower level from making a difference.
Understanding the relationships between and among all these levels can profoundly influence the way you work with people. Ultimately, you want to create alignment at all six levels. When everything is aligned for a client, their actions will be more effective and precise, they won’t waste energy, and they’ll have more success.
Are your values, identity and mission congruent with your goals? Do you have a client who needs to make a change at one of these levels to support his or her goals?
P.S. Do you want to reprint this article? Please do. Just be sure that it remains intact and includes the following bio.
About Terry: Terry Hickey, M.S., is a Certified NLP Professional Coach, Business Trainer and Consultant, a Certified Master Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming and the co-owner of NLP Advantage Group. Originator of the Belief Breakthrough Method™, Terry specializes in teaching coaches and entrepreneurs how to rapidly resolve limiting beliefs about wealth and success. His tips and strategies can help you launch yourself into the future you want… NOW. http://terryhickey.com/
When people say, “Well, at one level I believe this, but at another level, it’s this,” it shows that they are thinking about issues at different levels. Whether they know it or not, they are referring to logical levels of thinking or change.
There are six levels that I hold as important in whatever change work I do. They can be useful for understanding change from an individual or an organizational point of view. Let me explain…
- Environment: change at this level implies making a change in one’s environment; it could involve bringing in an organizational specialist to rearrange an office environment in support of a mission or job, or it could be as simple as reorganizing furniture, adjusting the temperature or making ergonomic changes.
- Behaviors: this addresses what you do; to create behavioral changes you might bring in the same organizational person to teach a set of behaviors to maximize the environmental changes, which could range from new methods of doing simple tasks to things such as assertiveness training or behavioral intervention.
- Capabilities: this refers to how you organize your behaviors—the strategies people come up with to carry out behaviors, whether for work or play; it involves thinking at a higher level about how behaviors are organized. (For some the problem is that they don’t have a strategy on this level. For example, many people claim they don’t know how to make decisions, but the actual problem is that they don’t know how to put one set of criteria ahead of another; they don’t have a strategy for making their decisions.)
Before I describe the rest, keep in mind that there is a hierarchy to these levels. These first three—environment, behaviors and capabilities—are the lower levels of thinking. It’s tougher to successfully make a change if you intervene at a lower level, at least in terms of making systemic changes. I’ll share information about the upper levels in my next post.
In the meanwhile, can you think of a change you’d like to make at one of these levels? Is there something in YOUR environment that needs to be adjusted to support your goals?
P.S. Do you want to reprint this article? Please do. Just be sure that it remains intact and includes the following bio.
About Terry: Terry Hickey, M.S., is a Certified NLP Professional Coach, Business Trainer and Consultant, a Certified Master Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming and the co-owner of NLP Advantage Group. Originator of the Belief Breakthrough Method™, Terry specializes in teaching coaches and entrepreneurs how to rapidly resolve limiting beliefs about wealth and success. His tips and strategies can help you launch yourself into the future you want… NOW. http://terryhickey.com/
Many subscribers have told me that they really enjoy my newsletter, especially the hints provided in Tips and “How Tos.” This post represents the first of a monthly offering of tips based upon reader questions. If you are not already signed up for my newsletter, you can subscribe here (FREE):
Several subscribers took up the recent challenge to ask me a question. One reader sent this question: “How can you help people move forward rather than creating resistance?”
The quickest way to create cooperation rather than resistance is to make sure that you have a clear agreement about what you’re working on. This is also known as “the goal.” It is important that the goal states what they want, not what they don’t want.
For example, if someone starts with the goal of “I don’t want to be in debt,” that needs to be framed differently. One alternative would be to say that they “want enough income to be able to pay down my debt.” This is much more than a subtle distinction.
Another important part of this process is to ask, “What will happen for you when you achieve this goal?” This question will link you up to what’s really important for a person, which will increase their motivation.
Make sure that you’re using their words and descriptions, not changing the language to fit your ideas of what they want.
Just doing these two things will vastly cut down on a client’s resistance or “stuck-ness.”
As always, let me know how I can help. Just share a limiting-beliefs question that has been challenging you or a client, and I’d be happy to address it here or in a future issue of the newsletter. Call me at 520.237.4435 or e-mail me at Terry@terryhickey.com with your question.
Please feel free to share this tip with anyone you think might enjoy it. When doing so, please forward it in its entirety, including the copyright information and the bio below. Thanks, and enjoy!
About Terry
Terry Hickey, M.S., is a Certified NLP Professional Coach, Business Trainer and Consultant, a Certified Master Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming and the co-owner of NLP Advantage Group. Originator of the Belief Breakthough Method™, Terry specializes in teaching coaches and entrepreneurs how to rapidly resolve limiting beliefs about wealth and success. His tips and strategies can help you launch yourself into the future you want… NOW.
Check out Terry’s website, http://terryhickey.com/, to find out more about his coaching, Belief Breakthrough Method opportunities and other services. Be sure to download his FREE audio interview: 3 Most Perilous Coaching Mistakes That Will Stop Your Clients in Their Tracks.
This month’s article was prompted by a question from a reader about how to best use behavioral change techniques. This is a good question for two reasons: First, we have access to many behavioral techniques, so we get to ask, “Which technique do you use for what problem—and when?” Second, we get to ask, “What actually makes behavioral techniques work in different contexts?”
Before you can choose what behavioral technique to use—or even if you will choose a behavioral technique, you need to know what your client wants. Make sure both of you agree on this outcome or goal, because otherwise you will be working at cross-purposes.
Next, explore in depth if anything would get in the way of doing the technique. Can he or she commit congruently? If so, proceed, paying close attention to what your client would have to believe or hold as true in order to get the desired outcome. If you discover that changing a belief is part of the equation, then you will need to use a belief change technique before you can use a behavioral change technique.
Ultimately, the skill you must develop is knowing when to explore belief change processes. This requires a long learning process, but it is crucial, because continuing to try behavioral change processes at the wrong time will only frustrate you and your client. Behavioral techniques should only be used after any necessary belief changes have been addressed.
As for what makes behavioral techniques work in different contexts, I will address that in January. In subsequent posts I will cover how to understand what skills are required to make determinations about what process to use and how to know when you are working on areas of belief processes.
I would love to hear how well this approach works for you. Share your feedback and comments below.
P.S. Do you want to share this article? Please do. Just be sure that it remains intact and includes the following bio.
About Terry: Terry Hickey, M.S., is a Certified NLP Professional Coach, Business Trainer and Consultant, a Certified Master Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming and the co-owner of NLP Advantage Group. Originator of the Belief Breakthrough Method™, Terry specializes in teaching coaches and entrepreneurs how to rapidly resolve limiting beliefs about wealth and success. His tips and strategies can help you launch yourself into the future you want… NOW. http://terryhickey.com/
In last month’s article How To Stop Convincing Your Clients To Change—Gather 5 Essential Components of Information That Turbo Charges Change, I described the basic components involved in effective problem-solving.
These five basic components, known by the acronym S.C.O.R.E. (Symptoms, Causes, Outcomes, Resources and Effects) represent the minimum amount of information coaches need to help their clients change and heal:
- Symptoms are typically the most noticeable and conscious aspects of a client’s problem.
- Causes are the underlying elements responsible for creating and maintaining the symptoms.
- Outcomes are the particular goals or desired states that would take the place of the symptoms.
- Resources are the underlying elements responsible for removing the causes of the symptoms and for manifesting and maintaining the desired outcomes.
- Effects are the longer-term results of achieving a particular outcome.
There are specific questions connected to each component that will allow you to understand your client’s perspective. In this article I offer one key question to elicit symptoms from your clients so you can get the “right” information, leading you to take the most effective action.
The one key question for symptoms is this:
In which context do you experience your symptoms?
This question is intended to reveal whether your client experiences the symptom within a specific event or context or whether the symptom is experienced in several contexts. For example, your client may feel nervous only when making presentations. Or your client may feel anxiety across many contexts in relating to people.
If the symptom occurs during a specific event, context-specific resources to build confidence—such as changing how your client pictures the event or adding resources of confidence and enjoyment—may be sufficient.
But if your client feels nervous across many contexts, then the intervention needs to address a “deeper” level within the client. It is likely the client identifies with being a nervous person, and the resources will need to be more robust. Coaches then need interventions to transform the client’s limiting identity and create an identity capable of creating the results the client wants. For example, asking, “Who will you be when this issue is far behind you?” will begin to open your client’s mind and call her/him forward to future possibilities. Sometimes interventions are also needed to relieve limiting childhood events and beliefs.
While training high-level coaches in belief-changing techniques, I have found that a common major error is not discovering the depth of clients’ issues right from the start. This leaves both coach and client disappointed when the suggested actions don’t create immediate results.
This question helps you immediately recognize the depth of the issues and sets you and your client on the most productive track.
So with your next three clients, ask,
In which context do you experience your symptoms?
I would love to hear how well this approach works for you. Share your feedback and comments below.
P.S. Do you want to reprint this article? Please do. Just be sure that it remains intact and includes the following bio.
About Terry: Terry Hickey, M.S., is a Certified NLP Professional Coach, Business Trainer and Consultant, a Certified Master Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming and the co-owner of NLP Advantage Group. Originator of the Belief Breakthrough Method™, Terry specializes in teaching coaches and entrepreneurs how to rapidly resolve limiting beliefs about wealth and success. His tips and strategies can help you launch yourself into the future you want… NOW.http://terryhickey.com/
