As part of my MSc in Applied Positive Psychology and Coaching Psychology, I am interested in investigating how people can increase levels of meaning in their lives. I think that meditation is by far the best ‘self-help’ solution, but not everyone wants to meditate. I see coaching as being a great facilitation process because of its tendency to use humanistic open questioning, enabling rather than directing the individual. I think the lack of stigma attached to it compared to counselling and therapy also makes it a more attractive proposition to people.
As a life and career coach, I see the coaching process can encourage you to come into contact with yourself, improving your concept of your true-self. After bringing that concept in a closer alignment with your true-self, coaching can then encourage you to examine your current way of being in the world, and help bring this way of being into closer alignment with your improved self-concept, leading to greater authenticity. The final stage in the process is being coached through the process of bringing your relationships and life into a closer alignment with your true-self’s wishes.
There is something else. If we look at the concepts and difference between true-self and self-concept, I also believe that it is possible to encourage true-self to make a direct appearance in an individual’s way of being, bypassing self-concept and therefore cognition altogether. Cognitive decision making is limited and slow moving because it can only be informed by previous experience. Although this is all very well and good in many instances, historical detritus can build up leading to a severely limited decision making capacity. This is typically when individuals feel lost, bored, sad, anxious and many other of the 21st century ailments we see on the rise at the moment. Because of permanently dismissing ways of being and doing due to negative experiences in the past (physical or mental pain, vulnerability, etc), individuals close potential doorways into ways of being in the present. These ways may not have served them once, but by closing them off forever, individuals end up in a cognitive jail cell, where all ways out are blocked.
Dependence on external ‘props’ become a way of coping with this severely limited self. We add to this limited self by projecting onto the external world: other people, material possessions and social media personas become part of us, but ultimately disappoint us. Coaching can encourage you to start to put down external props and start opening internal doors. By opening doors, we encounter a richer, fuller and more satisfying self.
If you would be interested in finding out more, contact me today for a free consultation.
I been working in career consultancy, recruitment and coaching since 2006. Having successfully completed an internationally recognised coaching qualification in 2015, I am now studying an MSc in Applied Positive Psychology & Coaching Psychology and am the founder of Grow [for humans]. I can coach you in person in the Bedford, Northampton or Cambridge areas.