Coaching provides clients with lifelong learning tools. For a tool to last a lifetime, it must be transformative in nature and solidified in terms of a global mindset. Mindsets help clients focus on their goals and provide them with the blueprint for reaching those goals. In particular, solution-focused coaching and the growth mindset are foundational. Both the solution-focused approach and the growth-mindset are future-oriented, preventing the client from remaining stuck in the past. Being stuck in the past inhibits growth because the client repeats the same mistakes over and over. Rather than letting the past determine the future, the client should simply move forward. The solution focused approach means refusing to dwell on the causes of the problem or on what's wrong, and instead focusing on what is right, or on visualizing a desired outcome. Likewise, the growth mindset helps the client overcome limitations by refusing to believe that talents and abilities are static. With enough hard work and commitment, a client can do whatever he or she desires. These two techniques, solution-focused coaching and developing the growth mindset, should become essential elements in every life coach's toolbox.
As the video about solution-focused coaching explains, people are not machines. It would be easy to solve problems if people were machines, because we could just isolate the cause, remove the faulty part, and replace that part with a new one. People are systems. Focusing on problems and their causes,...
To move forward and achieve goals, the client need to focus on the future. This may require visualization and imagination, such as by asking the client to imagine what it will feel or look like once a goal has been reached. Solution-focused coaching also helps the client to recognize past successes, and learn from those successes. Doing more of what works, and less of what doesn't work seems like a simple process, but it can require a change of mindset. Clients may need to undo years of programming focusing on their failures and limitations, and replace that programming with solutions.
The growth mindset works well in conjunction with the solution-focused coaching method. Both of these approaches help the client envision a positive and desirable future, and create the mental pathways to reach those goals. What is interesting about the growth mindset video is that it points out how people who are born with innate talent often fail. They are like the proverbial hare in the fable of the tortoise and the hare. The hare becomes complacent, because he knows himself to have the innate ability to run fast. Because of his complacency, he snoozes and the tortoise, slow and steady, wins the race. The tortoise was not born with speed. Quite the opposite; the tortoise was designed to be slow. Yet he never gave up on the race. The author of the video stresses the importance of failure and weakness as cornerstones of strength and…
