Coaching 101: Find a solution

Basic coaching skills are simple to understand and easy to apply, if you’re keen to boost your experience in work and life.

I am a big believer in sharing knowledge and so, in the interests of increased collective excellentness, I have created a series of blog posts to do just that.

So here, lovely people is the first instalment of Coach Yourself 101: Find a solution.

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When you’re stuck or stuff isn’t going so well, it can be easy to fall into the trap of buying into the problem: you look at everything that’s going wrong, you feel bad about yourself, you don’t think you’ll ever get out, all you can see is problem. ProblemProblemProblem.

It can be much more effective to take a solution-focused approach:

• Explore goals: what do you want to achieve?
• Look for exceptions: when has the problem not arisen? What were the conditions and how can you replicate them?
• Identify resources: both internal and external, to draw on.

It’s exactly the approach I take as an evidence-based coach.

Just say you come and tell me that you’re finding yourself struggling in social situations: you enter a room full of people and you feel overwhelmed. And you’re anxious that your anxiety is holding you back in your career because you’re avoiding networking events, which are critical in your field of work.

Instead of going into the why [I think it stems from my childhood! My parents told me that I was too shy! They said I would never succeed!] or delving into the finer traumatic details, I’ll start to explore the good stuff:

Your preferred experience –

We’ll find out that you would like to be able to turn up, have meaningful conversations with a few key and authentic people and then go home, get into your PJs and not stress about what you did or didn’t say.

Exceptions –

We’ll discover that you were recently able to walk into a meeting of female bloggers because you’d already met some of them online and felt that you already have a point of connection.

Resources –

We’ll identify your strengths, which include a real capacity for empathy and understanding others and a talent for writing.

And from all of that will emerge a Solution:

Before the next networking event you’ll consider who might be attending and send them an email, introducing yourself and sharing a common interest that you’d love to explore when you meet.

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Regardless of the situation, a focus on solutions allows for opportunities to emerge. And that’s always a great thing.

Tags: life-coaching, Melbourne, women