Visioning is an important part of getting what you want and achieving dreams and goals. Here are a couple of very fun tools to make your visioning come alive.
Unfolding Your Life Vision Kit
This sweet package walks you through a process to make a pocket-sized vision board. Your collage book will be a visual affirmation of your values, goals and dreams. Also comes with a link to a 20 minute guided visualization and video demo. Unfolding Your Life Vision Kit
Dream Card Game
Dreams Do Come True. Discover the magic of playing with this versatile & powerful deck. This set of 56 cards will help uncover and claim your secret inner desires and inspire you to take your life to a new level. do you want to own a Lexus or direct a play? How about climbing a mountain or having your own cooking show? This a great deck to use with a group of friends and get you all dreaming a bit bigger! Dream Card Game
If your specialty isn't career coaching or counseling but you are getting more clients showing up with that as the focus, here's something that will help you serve them well.
It's a Career Coaching Tool Pack that you can customize for your business.
It includes: 1. Boost Your Strengths Exercise 2. Career Discovery Pondering Questions Sheet 3. Career Values Workbook 4. Personal Swot Exercise 5. Reclaim Your Power At Work Exercise.
Did I mention that these are all customizable? this means you can add your branding, logo and custom edits. What a time saving resource.
Affirmations have long been considered a powerful tool for developing new beliefs and building self-confidence. There is a brand new study from Carnegie Mellon University that proves the effectiveness of affirmations to protect against the impact of stress.
The study used self-affirmations that focused on values important to the individual to boost problem solving abilities in stressed-out individuals. Another study said that affirmations helped students get better grades.
It's always interesting when science catches up with the intuitive wisdom of coaches, counselors and healers. Affirmations can play a powerful role in your personal journey and your work with clients.
Here are a few ways to use them with clients.
1. Creating Ritual
Rituals build trust and continuity. Try starting or ending a session by drawing a random affirmation. If used at the beginning of a session you can weave it into the conversation. If you use an affirmation at the end of the session you might ask the client how it applies to what you have just discussed or adapt it for use as a homework inquiry. For example – "I am open" the inquiry might be – "What is it to be open?"
2. Introducing Stimulus
When a client doesn't know what to talk about or is stuck, introducing a bit of stimulus can open things up. Have the client draw a random affirmation. Explore how it lands with them and see where it takes you both.
*If you work on the phone, connect with your client and tell them you have cards in front of you or in a bowl – tell them what you are doing – i.e swirling your hand in a bowl of cards, and invite them to tell you when to pick a card.
3. Supporting the 'Work'
Ask the client to choose an affirmation that will support the work they are doing with you. If they have their own affirmation deck this is easy. If you have the deck, throw out some possibilities. It's important for the client to choose. Through your conversation you can deepen the meaning, adapt the affirmation as needed and connect it to values. Together find ways the affirmation can continue to support them.
Hopefully these ideas will get your own creative juices flowing so feel free to adapt, combine or come up with your own unique approach.
Using affirmations will result in a reduction of stress and a feeling of empowerment as you and your clients embrace new thoughts and enjoy the feeling of change.
Below are three affirmation decks that can support your work with clients. Consider including a deck as part of a new client welcome package.
1. I Love Myself More Affirmation Cards$20.95 Sale $15.95
The 52 cards are filled with inspirational, loving, and healing messages.
"As I love myself more…I know I am safe and protected in all I do."
Marlena Field has been the voice of body centered coaching for many years. If you don't know her work, you are missing out on an amazing resource. Her work has continued to evolve and her newest offering is stellar!
If you want to deepen your skills to
Include mindfulness and the body’s wisdom Marlena's new downloadable training
program will give you what you need. The tools and techniques you learn
will support clients in gaining a greater depth of learning and insight.
You will be able to coach them around limiting
beliefs, decision making and expanding internal resources. You will
learn nine powerful body-centered techniques and listen to live coaching demonstrations of each one.
Some of what you will learn:
The Inter-Relationship of Body, Mind and Spirit
The Practice of Mindfulness
Neuroscience and Mindful Awareness
Reflection
Empowered Listening
…and more
A great way to expand your coaching repetoire.You can find the full training program as a download in the Coaching Toys Store. You can also download components of the training if there is a specific topic that interests you. There are separate training downloads available on: Decision Making, Embodied Resources and moving Beyond Limits. Each with powerful exercises you can use with clients.
One of the tools helping professionals use to build rapport and connect with their clients is empathy. How well do you think you connect with your clients? How do you think your client would rate you?
I attended a 2 day workshop this weekend with Dr David Burns and he shared some very surprising (well maybe even shocking) research with us.
For those who don't know who Dr Burns; He is an adjunct clinical professor emeritus at Standford Medical School and author of numerous books. He is most known for - Feeling Good; the New Mood Therapy and Ten Days to Self Esteem. The workshop focused on rapid treatment techniques for depression and low self esteem.
So what did he share that was so surprising? The fact that clinicians are only 10% accurate when it comes to assessing the therapeutic alliance. Only 10% …What???? That means they are wrong 90% of the time.
This was based on both clinician and client filling out a questionaire after each session and then measuring the correlation between the two. It included questions like: My therapist seemed warm, supportive and caring, My therapist treated me with respect, My therapist did a good job of listening, My therapist understood how I felt inside. There were also questions about the helpfulness of the session, satisfaction with the session, commitment to homework and ability to share negative feelings during the session (like anger at the therapist).
Now you can imagine that all of the attendees believed that they would be in the 10% who assess accurately. Counselors and coaches alike pride themselves on being good listeners and being very empathic. What followed were some very interesting role play's in which the role play clients graded their role play therapists. Pretty much everyone got "D's" It was a wake up call.
Of course he didn't leave us hanging – we received excellent instruction throughout the two days on how to communicate effectively and empathically with our clients. What I walked away with most (besides a bucket load of techniques) is the importance of regularly asking your client for feedback and not assuming all is well. Another option is to form small peer groups to practice and get feedback. Feedback would include the "grade" but also what worked and what didn't. If we don't have a strong and trusting alliance with our client none of the tools and techniques we have will work.
I'm wondering how coaches would do in a similar research project. Any researchers out there? This would make a great research project.
