Practice Proficiencies that Lead to Mastery
Mastery of any skill, art, or vocation takes a long time. It also takes effort. Most life coaches I speak with are hungry to know what skills or techniques they can apply their energy toward to help people in the most robust and effective ways. The following are some skills and proficiencies that, with time, will significantly enhance your coaching process with both relationships and individuals.
Go to the “Woodshed”
Long, long ago, I was an aspiring and over-confident saxophonist starting in my first year as a music student. I waltzed into my first improvisation lesson and sat down across from my instructor—a trumpet player by the name of Willie Thomas, or “Willie T,” as we affectionately called him. Willie was in his sixties and a master of the instrument who had played alongside true legends of jazz for most of his life. He wore an old red fisherman’s hat and half spectacles with the chains hanging down the sides of his face. Willie T’s daily breakfast was raw cloves of garlic and a large McDonald’s coffee. He sat down, mumbled out a few expletives in a scratchy voice, and then said, “Well…let me hear you play that thing.” After I “played that thing” for about 30 seconds, he put his hand up, sat silently for what felt like an eternity, looked at me over his spectacles, and said, “What you’re playing . . . and nothing . . . are the same thing. Cool cat, you gotta get to the woodshed.”
The “woodshed” is the place of practice where you hone your self-awareness, preparation, and people skills. This includes spiritual disciplines such as solitude, service, study, prayer, and fasting, in addition to growing in your knowledge of how the human mind, body, and spirit work together through mentoring, readings, and conferences. The woodshed is not only a place where you practice what you already know but also a place to push yourself into new experiences, new exercises, and new ways of developing yourself and others. Individuals and relationships are incredibly complex, and the coach who has a highly developed sense of self, a keen awareness of relationship dynamics, and effective tools for intervention will not only be successful but will also possess energy and longevity in their work with people. Go to your woodshed and grow there.
Individuals and relationships are incredibly complex, and the coach who has a highly developed sense of self, a keen awareness of relationship dynamics, and effective tools for intervention will not only be successful but will also possess energy and longevity in their work with people.
Un-layer Roots and Undercurrents
While we all know solid questions are key in getting a feel for relationships and their presenting problems, cyclical questions are the key to seeing the patterns of source wounds, motives, perceptions, behaviors, and dreams in the client. Here’s a brief picture of how cyclical questions can work.
Coach: “Share some of your thoughts and emotions about your marriage with your husband.”
Client: “Well . . . I feel angry about the lack of time we have together. He doesn’t make me a priority.”
Coach: “When you have these feelings, how do you express them to your husband?”
Client: “I snap at him and withdraw from him. Sometimes I cry.”
Coach: “What are you feeling or thinking when you start to cry?”
Client: “I’m so afraid that I will forget what it was like to feel close and desire being with him. I don’t want to be lonely. I made a vow after my divorce that I didn’t want to feel lonely in my marriage ever again.”
Coach: “Can you look at your husband now and tell him in your own words how you feel scared and lonely?”
In this example, you see the coach able to discover not only what the client is complaining about but what emotions are under the surface, how she acts, what her needs are, and one of the realities in her life that created the wound. Her husband, who is hopefully listening to these questions, might be able to pick up on something he didn’t realize before about how lonely and afraid she is. It takes some time and practice, yet when a coach learns to link these un-layering questions together, their clients will experience more depth of clarity regarding their problems and the possible solutions.
Allow Space for Emotions to Unfold and Flow
Most of us would not be coaches if we did not have good advice to convey and good interventions to implement. In addition to this, masterful coaches learn how to keep their awareness tuned in to the emotions that are ever-present in a session, sometimes just under the surface. People heal and transform when they can express the unfelt emotions they are holding inside their bodies. If we are too focused on getting the clients to realize something or understand something (cognition), we can risk ignoring the emotion in the heart and actually condition them to keep suppressing these precious emotions with each other.
In the movie The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013), nature photographer Sean O’Connell (Sean Penn) hesitates to snap a photo of a rare snow leopard. Walter (Ben Stiller) is perplexed as to why he is not taking advantage of the opportunity. This dialogue follows:
Walter Mitty: “When are you going to take it?”
Sean O’Connell: “Sometimes I don’t. If I like a moment, for me, personally, I don’t like to have the distraction of the camera. I just want to stay in it.”
Walter Mitty: “Stay in it?”
Sean O’Connell: “Yeah. Right there. Right here.”
When emotions pour out of a client, learn to take a deep breath and resist the urge to speak right away. Sometimes this means allowing couples to fight it out in front of you for a bit so you can get a sense of how they fight at home. It is okay to let that process and emotion play out a little bit if it is not unsafe or abusive. You cannot really coach their dynamic if you never let yourself see it. The emotions seldom come pouring out. In this case, it is helpful to become familiar with the research of Paul Ekman, who studied micro-expressions of emotion in the human face and body. With practice and time, your intuition and perception of emotion can grow to the point where you can identify subtle emotions and help clients find the courage to bring their emotions to the surface. Then, very gently, you can begin to ask clients to use words to describe more of what they are feeling.
Prescribe Meaningful Homework
We must resist the habit of becoming what I call “How are you doing?” coaches. Your clients are making a sacrifice of time and resources to meet with you. Do not send them away with nothing but a prayer and good wishes. Send them with assignments to read books together (and discuss what they are reading), intentional communication exercises, a challenge to go on a certain type of date, have a specific conversation, share a journal, or implement a new strategy or habit. Prescribing and following up with homework not only helps the clients change, but it also informs you about how motivated and resourceful they can be.
Pursue Your Own Healing
Don’t assume God’s solution. Adopt principles that respect single adults and His purposes for them. Help them align to what God has given them and allow Him to determine their path forward. We may want God to honor the relationship we think our clients need, but they will be the most fulfilled when they prioritize and seek the relationships that honor and align with the will of God.
Grant Wood, MS, MA, is a Licensed Clinical Marriage and Family Therapist (LCMFT) and the owner and Clinical Director of Resonate Relationship Clinic, LLC, in Overland Park, Kansas. Resonate is a multi-specialty mental health practice serving over 4,000 individuals and families annually in the greater Kansas City area. Grant works with individuals, couples, and families in the areas of emotional, relational, social, and spiritual development. He has completed advanced training in Enneagram Psychology, Gottman Method Couples Therapy, and Emotion-Focused Couples Therapy. He specializes in premarital and marital enrichment, men’s issues, blended families, and spiritual formation. Grant is also certified in Comprehensive Resource Method (CRM), a treatment protocol that helps clients heal from anxiety and posttraumatic stress (PTS/PTSD) and allows them to again live fully from their core self. Grant is a clinical fellow in the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy and a member of Spiritual Directors International. He has the gift of making people feel comfortable and at peace during the most difficult circumstances, is the father of a teenage daughter and son, a professional musician, an avid kayaker, and a lover of the outdoors. See more at: www.resonateclinic.com
