What is Mindful Solution-Focused Coaching?

Imagine your encounter a problem.

Imagine you are equipped with a flashlight.

Awareness (mindfulness) is a bit like the flashlight. Whatever you direct the beam towards becomes visible in the dark. Oftentime you direct its beam toward the problem you encounter – and all the rest is in darkness.

What’s important is to widen the beam of your flashlight. By doing so, coaching may shed light on new and useful areas of you, facets and details become visible that previously had been in the dark. The focus of your awareness (mindfulness) widens. You are able to perceive other parts of your reality, re-describe how you in the past dealt with a similar situation and thus generate more options.

You have become more Mindful about your actions, observing without being caught up in it, and by not identifying with your actions you have set the stage for re-describing your problem, and focusing in on a solution – you have become aware of your expanded choices, you are now Focused on a Solution.

One very central effect of Coaching, and the Transition Coaching I do, consists of your increased self-confidence in your own ability, and trust, to master a difficult situation. Confidence is a prerequisite for taking small steps for change. The coaching creates a framework in which you, my client, become aware of your competencies and resources and are able to access them – you become aware of the competencies you previously used to master situations that were as difficult as the one at hand, re-describe, re-discover, and if you trust in yourself, you will be able to try something new and different to reach your goals (and a solution to your problem).

This is what Mindful Solution-Focused Coaching is, and that’s my approach in my Transition Coaching service I offer.

Get Ready 4 Change. Have the Life you want! Get the support you need.

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Mindful Solution-Focused Coaching – what is Coaching…?

The word coaching is indeed widely used – from management support services, to a wellness coach in our fitness club. For clarity, let me explain what I mean by coaching.

For a moment, think about the arts and crafts of frame making…framing a picture in such a way that it can unfold its full expressivity is an art that few people have mastered. Rembrandt was quoted as saying that during his whole career it was more difficult for him to find an appropriate frame than to paint the picture!

Now, think about coaching as framing a piece of art…As a coach we create a frame (of thought) for the individual or team in which his or her goals, solutions, and first steps can shine. The frame constructed by the coach consists of goal-oriented questions, reinforcing feedback. present listening, and useful summary.

It is the task of coaching to ensure that the individual or team receive the appropriate frame. But just like the frame maker, the coach would never start actively creating the picture.

ThinkLARS – Life stress relieving Awareness and Resources for your Success 

A helping hand…coaching

Mindful Solution-Focused Coaching – what is Solution-Focused?

Being Focused on the Solution of a situation rather than the cause – the problem – is the driving force behind SF coaching.

The idea being that it’s more useful to focus attention on building solutions for problems than on analyzing causes of problems, trusting that any person is competent to solve his or her own problems, but may need help finding solutions that fit his or her unique circumstances; individualized solutions that are really owned by the coachee/performer/team. 

• Problem talk is negative, solution talk is positive and future focused.
• The future is both created and negotiable. People are not locked into a set of behaviors based on history and problems of the past.
• If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. If it works, do more of it.
• The solution is not necessarily related to the problem. Talking about and acting upon what will be different is the focus, not uncovering why the problem occurred.
• No problem happens all the time; there are always exceptions that can be utilized. These exceptions can be used to create the solution.
• Small steps can lead to big changes. Being solution focused means using a series of small manageable steps to build the path to a Solution.
• Again, problem talk is negative, solution talk is positive and future focused.

ThinkLARS – Life stress relieving Awareness and Resources for your Success!

 

Being Solution Focused…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mindful Solution-Focused Coaching – what is mindfulness?

Mindfulness is awareness of, and an alert observing of your thoughts, emotions, body sensations, desires, memories, images, personality dynamics, attitudes, motivation, behavior, etc.

When you are mindful of something, you are observing it, not caught up in it and not identified with it. With people, you become more settled into being fully there with them, more peacefully relaxed in awareness of them and you and what’s happening, less identified with pleasant or unpleasant reactions that arise, less caught up in the past or future or sense of needing to make something happen. We can feel it immediately when someone else is mindfully present with us; similarly, others can feel it when you are that way yourself.

Hmm…being in the presence

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ThinkLARS – Life stress relieving Awareness and Resources for your Success!

Mindful Solution-Focused Coaching – what’s different?

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, M.B.S.R., and Solution-Focused coaching operate out of the understanding that by being aware of, and learn to consciously and systematically work with stress, pain, illness, and the challenges and demands of everyday life, by not turning away from them, but learning to be resilient with and through them, and to be willing to “own them”, YOU, together with your Coach, can design small do-able changes that will help you be more aligned with your beliefs and values.

Let’s look at that definition in more depth and let’s start with Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. Ralph Waldo Emerson said “What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.” Mindfulness is about being fully aware of whatever is happening (good or bad) in the present moment, without filters or the lens of judgement. It’s about being aware, and living in the here and now. You may say, that’s fine but how does that reduce my stress level I live with day in and day out…?

What if you could become mindful of your stress reactions and learn to respond to them in a more constructive and harmonious way than for example respond to being stuck in traffic by cursing, becoming agitated, angry, frustrated and honking your horn as if that would open up a lane for you to drive away and escape the bumper to bumper traffic…?

The tension throughout your body, rapid or irregular breathing, gripping the steering wheel so tightly that your knuckles are turning white, or the more hidden impact of anxiety and irritation, such as elevated heart rate, blood pressure, or body temperature CAN be reversed by becoming aware (being mindful) or your physical tension, return to the present moment and release your death grip on the steering wheel, breath mindfully, which will gradually regulate other internal symptoms of stress, including heart rate and blood pressure.

In short, mindfulness allows you to see your experience of being stuck in traffic clearly, and it can help you become more aware of how stress affects you, making you a more active participant in your health and well-being and experience any moment, no matter how difficult or intense, with more balance and peace.

You have just chosen a more “skillful” response to being stuck in traffic…

ThinkLARS – Life stress relieving Awareness and Resources for your Success!

Mindfulness…10 Simple Ways to Live a Less Stressful Life

“If you ask what is the single most important key to longevity, I would have to say it is avoiding worry, stress and tension. And if you didn’t ask me , I’d still have to say it.”

– George F. Burns

 

1. One thing at a time. Do it right now. Remove distractions.

2. Simplify your schedule. Learn to say no. Leave room for down time and fun.

3. Get moving. Walk, hike, play a sport, go for a run, do yoga.

4. Develop one healthy habit this month. One habit at a time – for example eat fruit and veggies for snack, drink water instead of soda.

5. Do something calming. Find what calms you down. Housework, yard work, meditation, nature walk, reading, taking a bath.

6. Simplify your finances. Automate savings and bill payments and debt payments. Find ways to have fun that don’t involve spending money.

7. Have a blast! Have fun each day, even it’s just for a few minutes. Laugh a lot and often. Smile.

8. Get creative. If you like to write, do so. If you prefer to paint or play music or sketch or make pottery or do interior design or build things…Just do it!

9. Declutter. Take 20-30 minutes to just to through a room, getting rid of stuff you don’t use or need anymore.

10. Be early. Schedule some buffer time to avoid being late – because being late can be very stressful…and if you get somewhere early, meditate!

 

Now your life will probably never be stress-free – I don’t think that’s even desirable, even if is possible, because stress is something that challenges us and helps us grow. At a reasonable level. But when stress gets too high, it causes us to be unhappy and unhealthy.

Mindfulness…

“It is indeed a radical act of love just to sit down and be quiet for a time by yourself…It is only love that can give us insight into what is real and what is important. And so a radical act of love makes sense, love for life and for the emergence of one’s truest self.” —– Jon Kabat-Zinn

 

The Secret of Happiness… :)

Expression of Joy – photo by Lars

Begin & end each day with an Expression of Joy! Then you know you have done something that day to not only add value to your own well-being but in the process you have touched so many others – many whom you’ll never see again, some you’ll wake up next to in the morning.

The key to understand joy in the things you see or do is awareness. Awareness is knowing what is happening around you. Self-awareness is knowing what you are experiencing. When you truly accept, choose or take responsibility for your thoughts and your actions, your commitments to them rises and so does your “expression of joy”… Being aware of who you are is also about knowing your interests, attitudes and values – for more about that contact me for a free consultation!

What’s Important —- Really?

An act or a thing is important to you because you make it important. You are in control of what you make important — no one else. What’s important to you is a choice you make…

And that’s all it is. Like choosing vanilla or chocolate. Do you have a reason for choosing one flavor of ice cream or the other? No, you simply choose. What you make important is just like that. No reason. Just choice.

A choice is an either/or deal, because choice is always a relative thing. Do you want this or that? To go here or there?

You will choose what’s most important to you at the time. To help you make choices that forward your progress, simply ask yourself: which choice serves me best right now?

Then you commit…commit to your success…Now, as soon as you’ve made a commitment, you’ll be tested. You will doubt yourself — and your commitment. Don’ worry. (Be happy.) Just re-commit. And you may (I’m sorry — you will) have to do that again, and again, and again.

If you need help finding out what’s most important to you, learn how to commit and have someone backing you up again, and again, and again when you doubt yourself – and your commitment, try me Values Staircase™ for free. Click here for a free 20 minutes consultation!

Take the first step in Faith…

“Take the first step in Faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”

– Martin Luther King