There’s only one difference between a coached mind and an uncoached mind:
The uncoached mind believes every thought it thinks.
The coached mind doesn’t believe every thought it thinks.
That’s it.
An uncoached mind thinks ‘I’ve nothing contribute here’ and believes it. The thinker of that thought stays quiet for the duration of a meeting and then comes out and gets annoyed that she didn’t say the thing she was thinking and which her colleague then said and everyone thought he was amazing for saying it.
The coached mind thinks ‘I’ve nothing to contribute here‘ and the thinker of the thought recognises that this is simply old patterns at play in her mind. She doesn’t believe it. She knows from having coached her mind that this thought doesn’t have her showing up at her best and redirects it to remember what is also true about the meeting that has just started:
This is a thought I’ve thought 100s of times before.
My brain is offering me this on default.
I get to choose whether or not I engage with this thought.
I’m not going to engage with it.
I usually always have something to contribute.
I’m showing up here engaged and listening.
I get loads out of meetings I show up engaged for.
I love being the most engaged person in the room.
What I have to say, I’ll say.
An uncoached mind thinks ‘I don’t even know where to start’ and believes it. The thinker of the thought spins out in where she should start and what’s the best thing to do first, responds to non-urgent emails and answers the phone reflexively when it rings even thought she knows it’s a non-urgent call.
The coached mind thinks ‘I don’t even know where to start’ and sees her brain offering up a thought it’s offered up 100s of times before. She doesn’t engage.
She reminds her brain that she always feels better once she has just started.
She decides what to do and begins.
From there she gets clearer and clearer and gives her day positive momentum.
Soon she’s starting – without having had to really exert much effort – to think ‘I know exactly where I’m headed today.’
It would be so amazing if we could just de-programme doubt, uncertainty, overwhelm, confusion, hesitancy and tap into flowing confidence at the flick of a switch. Our brains just don’t work that way, though.
Coaching helps us redirect our brains to achieve outcomes that we want to achieve when old thought patterns would take our day, our impact, our goals off piste.
Learning how to do this is a skill we learn the same way we learned everything else we’ve ever learned, in 3 steps:
1. Understanding
2. Doing
3. Repetition
Those are the three steps to building up mental flexibility.
Incredibly simple. Enormously effective.
Ready to build up mental flexibility?
I’m ready to help you do it.
Book a free consultation with me here to discuss exactly how we’re going to make it happen.
