Here’s a proposition for your consideration: the self-talk that arises in us clients is an opportunity for you as coach. Few coaches have ever been taught that this is so. Fewer still recognize it for the outsized lever that it is, to be either a truly exceptional coach, or a deeply mediocre one.
So let’s think about this now.
When we are working with you, in a healthy coaching relationship that is action- and results-oriented (i.e. it is not just a social hour or a brain dump session with our committed listener), us clients are operating outside of our usual patterns. Put another way, we are stretching beyond our typical comfort zones of automaticity (in other words, we’re not just doing those things we effortlessly do on auto-pilot).
Stripped of that automaticity, we’re going to be more present while doing the work of planning and execution. Because we’re not just going through the motions, our (sometimes inner critic-powered) internal monologue will be running full steam.
Thus the experience of being coached is RIPE for an elevated level of self-talk: good, bad, and indifferent.
Now, because it’s our internal self-talk, it is reasonable for you as coach to treat that simply as our situation to deal with, and give it no further thought.
But can you do better?
Afterall, even if it’s internal, as an attentive coach you generally know its flavor. We’ll often let it seep out in what we say (e.g. “Gee, I dunno coach, I’m feeling pretty confronted about this.”). You’ll also know by ways of tone, body language and context (as in when you think to yourself “Well, my client didn’t do any of the four things he said he would last week and there’s no great excuse… he’s probably feeling a little hangdog about that.”)
So only the most aloof and empathy-deficient coach could maintain he has no knowledge of his client’s self-talk.
So again, can we do better than to treat client self-talk as out of our hands?
To give us something to push against, let’s first examine how we can do worse.
When it comes to self-talk from our clients, there are three ways to manage it poorly: dismissal, indulgence, and aloofness.
Dismissal is when we outright disavow the legitimacy of whatever self-talk is going on. Riding roughshod over feelings these days is viewed as pretty boorish behavior, and for good reason.
The opposite is indulgence, which is to give prolonged airtime to (and sometimes even actively probe for) negative self-talk. This is done with the ostensibly noble aim of acknowledging the importance of feelings and giving them space to be heard. But giving honor and airtime to disempowered thoughts only strengthens them. Insidiously, this can become the stuff of making the client weaker and getting them to convince themselves they need the coach to help put themself back together. Gross1I once attended a conference with a live, on-stage coaching demo. The volunteer, an otherwise headstrong and confident woman, was sobbing softly within 3 minutes. And stayed that way. The audience was generally moved by the power and bravery of raw authenticity on display. I was either too polite or too cowardly to call out the Emporer’s lack of clothing at the time, but that was rubbish coaching. It MIGHT have passed for a quality talk therapy session. Maybe.. Remember how I said how self-talk is an outsized lever to be a deeply mediocre coach? This is how.
Finally, aloofness. Simply ignoring and/or remaining oblivious to it. When it comes to poor ways of managing a client’s self-talk, this is an improvement over indulgence (you’ll keep things more on track and generally more empowered), but it still lacks a certain being with and tracking with what your client is going through.
And so these three anti-patterns collectively outline, in their negative space, the powerful way to attend to client self-talk, which I will now sketch for you:
Be aware. When we’re dealing with this or that, and making bold plans, be attentive enough to either directly see or accurately imagine what we might be thinking and feeling. Let us know you see and hear us, and that what we’re feeling is natural and normal. (There’s nothing quite so reassuring and grounding as being truly gotten by another.)
And then move on. Don’t fill up our session time by drawing out deeper cuts and inviting further rumination; get on with it. Point our attention towards what we’re up to, where we’re going, what we’re committed to. Because I promise that what we’re committed to is NOT our self-talk. So you have license to move quickly past it after acknowledging it.
And we’ll thank you for it.
That change in attention towards something bigger is the best antidote to wallowing in self-talk.
Notes:
- 1I once attended a conference with a live, on-stage coaching demo. The volunteer, an otherwise headstrong and confident woman, was sobbing softly within 3 minutes. And stayed that way. The audience was generally moved by the power and bravery of raw authenticity on display. I was either too polite or too cowardly to call out the Emporer’s lack of clothing at the time, but that was rubbish coaching. It MIGHT have passed for a quality talk therapy session. Maybe.
