Okay, it’s the top of your coaching session. Your client has arrived punctually, ready to get all you have to give. What’s your first move?
It is so tempting to ask your client, “So, how’s it going?” And then listen. And ask follow up questions. And patiently get all of it. And maybe even invite ‘em to go deeper if they’ve got something pressing on their mind. And go wherever the conversation leads. Because hey: you’re there to be of service, right? And of course for us clients, it always feels good (at least in the moment) to be thoroughly heard out by someone. Especially when we have something big and important on our minds, and maybe we just need to get it out.
And before you know it, half the session is over. Or all of it. And suddenly, your coaching conversation reads far more like a therapy session. Even if your client is delighted by it, and thanks you for it. Which is ostensibly the marker of “mission accomplished”, right?
But you’re not a therapist, you’re a coach. You got to skip all that pesky licensure business, and are here to serve people who are (already) well: well enough to be functioning adults, such that stretching to higher potential is the name of the game (and thus the name of the game is NOT crisis management, nor mental health management, nor even just being a sounding board for blowing off steam).
Your sessions shouldn’t resemble therapy. You’re a coach, so your sessions should resemble coaching.
Going beyond tautological matters (you know, the whole “coaches should act like coaches”, etc.), the problem with rumination in coaching is that rumination is the stuff of looking inward at feelings and putting (potentially endless) attention on them. Feelings are great, they are meant to guide us. But feelings are downstream of circumstances. They are a compass; a means to good ends, not an end of themselves. So, rumination comes at the expense of taking action. At any moment in time, we can only do one or the other. And this is important to realize, for it is action (not rumination) that meaningfully shifts the circumstances, and circumstances are what evoke those feelings.
When you notice you feel cold? You can wonder why and describe how, and pontificate on what it means about you that the cold makes you feel so uncomfortable (rumination), OR you can go inside or put on a layer (action).
My best coaches were the ones who were bold enough to cut me off when I was ruminating, and instead say, compassionately yet also unapologetically, “I’m not hear to process your feelings. Tell me instead what you’re committed to.” And I would, and we would naturally go from there, which is to say we would naturally create whatever there was to create to move me toward those commitments.
“You’re feeling cold? Great, got it. Let’s not talk further about those feelings, let’s get you a jacket.”
Indulging in rumination feels good. It seems like you’re giving us clients what we want. And in a sense, you are; but only in a short-sighted way. That’s why it’s so dangerously tempting. There’s a better path. Invoke whatever compassion you need but have the courage to cut us off and have us refocus on what will actually make a difference.
Having action planning (as offered and supported by CoachAccountable) helps you to move beyond processing feelings and instead focus on what’s done and what’s worth doing.
