Hey folks! This is Nick Bosk again for your Coaching 101 Minute, your weekly recap of our Coaching 101 classes. This week, we had classes led by Scott Masciarelli and Lorna Poole.  We had students from all over the globe as we always do, from the U.S., from California, Indiana, from Pennsylvania and from Ohio. We also had students from Canada, from Belgium and from Ireland, Australia and one from New Zealand.

(0:40) Catastrophising is jumping to a negative outcome and expecting the worst

So a lot of great conversations, a lot of great discussions in our classes, but one of the highlights that I want to focus on in our time together for our Coaching 101 Minute this week has to do with Catastrophising. Now, in just saying that word, that sounds like it’s a mystery, catastrophising. Almost sounds like you’re looking into the future or something. But this is really looking at two different parts.

Catastrophising:

When expecting disasters, you notice or hear about a problem and start thinking “what ifs”. What if that happened to me? What if tragedy strikes? The underlying catalyst for this style of thinking is that you do not trust yourself and your capacity to adapt to change. So truly looking at self-doubt, looking at how much you trust or do not trust yourself. There’s a module here at ICA from our power tool sections of class which is all about moving from a disempowering to an empowering perspective… the topic is trust vs doubt.  What is the key to overcoming this negative thinking? It comes down to accountability, not necessarily accountability to others, but accountability in yourself determines your self-trust.

Self-trust is the belief we have in ourselves. If we move away from trusting ourselves, we move away from the foundation of our life. To trust ourselves, we need to know what our beliefs are, what our values are and what our purpose is in life. To lose self-trust is to lose sight of these, to lost sight of what you’re moving towards in life. When we are clear about who we are and know it to be right, then we implicitly trust what we are doing and we move forward very strongly. We feel energized and driven. We begin to breathe. We feel the whole world as a possibility and everything is clear to us. So before we can trust others, we must trust ourselves.

So a lot of what we do in coaching is helping our clients to really trust themselves to see their own truth. Really seeing, as cheesy as it may sound, is believing. So you see yourself and then you begin to believe that. So looking at this whole concept of catastrophising. There is a tool that I often use with my clients who may be stuck in this negative thinking and it’s called extreme perspectives. First of all, it’s meeting them where they are right now and having them talk about what is the worst case scenario, what is their biggest fear, what could go wrong? And then flip that around and have them look at what is the most positive, what is the best case scenario. Now chances are, you’re probably going to find your reality somewhere in the middle. But I usually find with my clients once we do that, once they see and even have written down the positive or the negative, the most extreme of each other case. The middle ground, the reality is much easier to move forward with, because the unseen isn’t so scary.

Often when we aren’t looking directly at something, it becomes bigger than what it really is and it creates more power and takes our power away from us. So it’s about truth, it’s about seeing, seeing the world around you, seeing the best case, the worst case and understand that there is actually the reality of somewhere in between. So trust vs doubt, to overcome this concept of catastrophising.

Other great questions from class included.

We covered these questions as well as talked about trust vs doubt and catastrophising in our class. So if you want to learn more about these topics, I really invite you to come along to our Coaching 101 classes next week. Take advantage of this free resource offered by CoachCampus and International Coach Academy. Have a wonderful time everyone. This is Nick Bosk for your Coaching 101 Minute. See you next week.

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