Do You Need A “Thinking” Partner ?

When you hear the word Coaching, what comes to mind? A mentor or consultant who tells you what to do or what not to do? Who needs a life coach? Is Coaching the same as therapy?

The reason coaching is valuable, and a necessary mental well being “service” is because none of us can transform our thinking on our own. We humans are masters at rationalizing hastily made choices, no matter how logical we think we are. We are also exceptional at blaming whomever or whatever we can when those choices turn out badly. A word in our defense, I would like to add is, we all do subscribe to cognitive biases, ego defense mechanisms, cognitive distortions- without our conscious awareness- these phenomena primarily cause us to rationalize or blame shift.

Numerous research studies have shown that we resist self-analysis especially when emotions are involved. To stop adverse thinking patterns someone outside our head needs to disrupt our thinking by reflecting our thoughts back to us and ask questions that prompt us to wonder why we think the way we do. As we age, we become masters at rationalizing our actions, ignoring our emotions, finding what confirms our beliefs. We do not distance ourselves from social pressures. We are too busy to stop and examine our beliefs and choices. Working with a mindset transformation coach will bring to light stereotypes and inherited biases.

By bring beliefs, assumptions, fears, needs, and conflict of values to the surface – a person can better evaluate his or her decisions and actions. In this way we become objective observers of our own stories. This disruption initiates a shift in how we see ourselves and the world – or at least how we are looking at a dilemma we are facing. To go about our daily lives without having to think through every action – our brains develop shortcuts and rules we operate in, these are called heuristics.

A heuristic is defined as a mental shortcut that allows an individual to decide, solve a problem quickly with minimal effort. When information is missing or an immediate decision is necessary heuristics act as “rules of thumb “ that guide behaviour.

Using heuristics, we get stuck in our automatic thought processing and trick ourselves into thinking we are acting consciously. Then to protect our identities and routines, when someone questions our choices we quickly defend ourselves. Even if an argument makes sense, we are more likely to find a reason for our beliefs than recognize the flaw.

Disruption must be welcomed to interrupt our automatic thought processing.

If we see coaching, we are inviting the external interruption that forces us to stop and examine our thinking and behaviors. When it comes to influencing a change a mindset transformation coach activates people’s creative minds instead of their survival mechanisms. Creative thoughts emerge as people pull out and connect bits of stored information in a new way – to answer a question. When people’s thoughts, beliefs, and emotional reactions are held up in reflection, they are prompted to examine their thinking, this activates their brain to quickly reorder information to make more sense of it. This leads to an insight that feels like an “Aha!” moment.

Do you think you need to hire a coach?

To be a coachable client, we must show willingness to question our own thoughts and motivations, and not just seek affirmations for our views. Coaches are thinking partners. We do not see our clients as clueless or needing to be fixed.

Here is a quick assessment you could do to analyze if you need a thinking partner

• Do you want to find solutions for dealing with difficult people?
• Do you need support in facing fears of conflict and emotional reaction in yourself and others?
• Do you want to articulate desires and visions, both professionally and personally?
• Do you want to deal with work and life changes more effectively?
• Do you want to strengthen relations at work and home?

If you answered yes to 3 or more questions, then please book a free discovery session with me . Looking forward to connecting with you !!