I completed my NLP practitioner training in 2008 but never considered how the skills I learned could help me in my coaching practice.
First, I never knew the whole +-7 rule; in retrospect, this makes me think of every communication I had and my tendency to share too much at once. This applies not only to my training, presentations, and emails but also to when I am coaching, where I tend to either overexplain my question or layer it for further clarity.
In fact, this raises a concern for me as I fear finding it hard to unlearn bad habits, as discussed in my previous reflection. I guess practice and feedback are the only way to form an unconscious, competent new behavior.
The NLP communication model posits many considerations. I now realize that I generalize much to filter what I hear in a coaching setting, creating loud internal chatter. This would be my mind trying to make sense of what I am hearing through my own model of the world and my own lens; this can sometimes prevent me from being fully present, misinterpreting messages, and even missing key points that the coachee is sharing.
The piece about how our internal representation or thoughts create our state or feelings, which influences our physiology, makes this change that I need to work on all the more important.
During coaching practice today (day 4), I sat on the floor determined to make precise observations related to body language. I was surprised to see as an observer how much I miss when I am coaching. That could help me help the coachee by better understanding what is going on inside their minds or how they are feeling.
When one of my fellow peers was coaching another, I could see him accessing his emotions by observing his eyes and patterns. I liked it when Dr.it when Dr. Haris asked him what else he was not sharing; I felt it, and for me, it was intuitive. Were there other indications that the coach saw to ask such a question?
When she was being coached, I could see how she only sighed deeply when talking about her work. Her breathing shifted when discussing her stressful job so clearly. I wonder, if I was sitting in the coach’s seat, would I have seen this?
My friends say I am so transparent that it shows very clearly on my face when I think of something or have a certain feeling about another. If I assume this to be true, my clients will surely read my thoughts, which could immediately impact the rapport I work so hard on building.
Franda also said something yesterday: Clients never say too much; coaches say too much. So this makes me wonder if I was getting it all wrong when I used to wait for that moment the client stopped sharing the
little details of their story to redirect them to its meaning and then the impact it has on their present and possibly on their future-focused objective – was I taking away from their space to share?
Dr Haris said, “Clients are the experts, and we, as coaches, are the learners.” This is an excellent reminder of the dynamics of a coaching session and that it isn’t about me.
Not to mention, ‘projection is perception,’ so if I am generalizing and forming an opinion internally, on top of what I mentioned earlier, this can impact my questions as they will project how I make sense of everything I hear. This whole piece is so intertwined and requires a lot of my focus and dedication to overcome. I am confident that through the rest of the CPC course and SCPC level 2, I should be able to learn how to regulate this.
