A Touchstone of Strengths-focused Coaching: noticing when your mood lifts

There are two touchstones of strengths-focused coaching. These touchstones help you achieve your goals and realize your life purpose. This blog post is about the first touchstone, noticing when your mood lifts.

Giving importance to how you feel will naturally result in your making better choices. In the long run, it can guide you from the roller coaster of short-lived pleasures to a reliable feeling of well-being that is independent of external circumstances.

How You Feel Matters

Consider the following example. Ray has nightmares when he watches horror movies. He enjoys joining his friends in something they like. He even enjoys the attention he gets as his friends rib him about being afraid. However, his pleasures are shallow and short-lived compared to the price he pays in nightmares. After Ray watches a horror movie, the images from the movie tend to revisit Ray, and make him uncomfortable for days. His negative feelings are more keenly felt, and last much longer than his positive feelings. Giving real importance to how he feels would guide Ray to say no to horror movies. Until he gives importance to how he feels, he will continue to make his choices based on what other people think, feel, and do, as well as on his habit patterns, and on short-term pleasurable feelings.

In the language of Yoga Meditation, saying no to watching a horror movie would be a satvic choice for Ray. Satvic choices result in peaceful or uplifted feelings. Satvic choices are informed by our innate knowledge of what is right and wrong for us. Strengths-focused coaching helps clients make choices that pay off in good feelings that are reliable and lasting. 

Noticing When Your Mood Lifts

At Ray's house, every one over the age of 13 cooks dinner for the family one night per week. Ray enjoys cooking. He is really good at combining flavors, and can improve on many recipes. Of all the people in his family, Ray is the one who likes cooking the most. He has always been the best at it, and every year, since he was 13, he has been improving. When he is cooking, Ray feels happy.

Being an average and ordinary person, however, Ray does not give a lot of importance to the uptick in his mood. Sure, he likes to feel good. But like most people, he assigns greater significance to feelings that he associates with problems. On a day when he enjoys cooking, he might still end the day focused on a disappointing grade at school, or a conflict with a peer. Strengths-focused coaching helps clients shift their attention to what is going well. Paying more attention to our positive experiences pays exponential dividends in our sense of well being. It gives us the courage of our convictions, and helps us present ourselves to others in a confident, positive way.

A strengths-focused coach would support Ray in valuing his positive experiences with cooking. Maybe Ray would contribute an amazing dip to the next horror movie night, but skip the movie. After he gave importance to how he feels, it would be difficult to persuade Ray that he was making the wrong choices. 

Strengths-focused Relating

Strengths-focused relating is intentional and structured. After reading this blog post, you will be able to give it a try. The intention of strengths-focused relating is for two people to commit a period of time to focus on each other's positive experiences and positive qualities, or strengths.

Strengths-focused relating can be practiced between intimate partners, any two family members, two friends, two co-workers, or two acquaintances who have made an investment in exploring the different modalities of Strengths-focused Living.

People might try strengths-focused relating as an intervention in a relationship in which there is unwanted negativity. Then again, they might try strengths-focused relating for the simple pleasure of intentionally holding a positive focus in a valued relationship. There is joy in thinking about and sharing positive experiences and articulating our own and each other's strengths.

The formal structure of strengths-focused relating is important in building a strengths-focused relationship. Follow the provided structure for a minimum of 6 months before introducing your own variations. This structure is carefully thought out. There may be benefits that are not immediately clear to you that unfold over time. For example, it may feel vulnerable to say out loud what you are good at. This structure has no room whatsoever for a critical response. It is 100% safe.

Set aside 40 minutes, once a week, for four weeks to meet with your strengths-focused relating partner. That is the minimum investment that will be effective. That is enough time to determine whether this practice is valuable to you. Then, you may decide with your partner to continue your meetings.

You can meet by phone, through a computer program such as Skype, or in person. Make sure the time and place for your meetings is clear. It is best to meet at the same time and in the same place for each of your first four meetings.

Before your meeting, prepare to share a positive experience with your partner. The experience can be a recent one, or any positive experience from your life. A positive experience is any event which causes your mood to lift. Also, reflect on the positive qualities, or strengths, in your personality that you were using during this positive experience. Be ready to tell your partner some of the positive qualities you noticed in yourself. Not every positive experience will work. For example, it may be a positive experience to eat a lovely meal, but this positive experience may not be one in which you are using your strengths. All the same, if you were particularly good at savoring a brussel sprout, were very grateful to the host, or made a brave decision to skip desert.... Only you know when you are using your strengths.

Please do not be surprised if this preparatory work is not easy. Many of us are more accustomed to noticing and sharing what is not working than what is working. We may be more used to noticing our weaknesses than our strengths. That is precisely why it is useful to practice relating in a strengths-focused way. As you move through the four introductory weeks, it will definitely get easier.

You will listen in a special way during your practice sessions. The listener has a very important job! You might call it extreme listening. Your job when listening is to keep your attention on the words and tone of your partner. You will demonstrate that you heard your partner by saying back what you heard. You will use a combination of mirroring, or using the exact words your partner used, and paraphrasing, or putting what you heard into your own words. Listening this attentively requires us to set aside many of the habits of everyday listening. For example, we set aside reflecting on whether we agree or disagree with what our partner is saying. We also set aside rehearsing what we are going to say when it is our turn to speak. We set aside evaluations, thoughts of whether what is being said is good or bad, and reflecting on similar experiences of our own. We set aside competitive thoughts, such as whether we have as good an experience to share. Whenever the mind wanders, we bring it back to the sound of our partner's voice, and the words our partner is saying.

On the day of your meeting, bring a watch, a smart phone app, an egg timer, or some other means to keep track of the time. Bring a print out or a digital version of these instructions. Arrive on time for your meeting. Show your respect for your partner's time, and for the process you are undertaking together. Each minute is accounted for, as you will see below. If you want to have some social time, schedule that for before or after your strengths-focused relating practice time.

Decide who will share first.

Follow this 20 minute process for each partner.

5 minutes: Tell your partner the story of a positive experience.
3 minutes: Your partner will reflect your positive experience back to you. Your partner will show that they listened attentively by using some of your own words, and paraphrasing others. They will not embellish on what you said with their own comments.
2 minutes: Elaborate on what your partner mirrored. Draw attention to the most important points and share additional details.
3 minutes: Share the positive qualities you were using during this experience. Take your time, and express yourself in a way that is personal and specific. Your partner can help you by asking for more information. For example, if you say "I was smart." Your partner may say something like, "Tell me more about being smart. What were you doing at that time?" Be as clear as you can in saying what your strengths are. Tell your partner what you are good at, and what your positive qualities are as you experienced them during this positive event.
1 minute: Your partner will reflect your strengths back to you using your words.
2 minutes: Clarify or embellish your ideas about your strengths and how you showed them. Invite collaboration from your partner only if you want it. Allow time for silent reflection as you reach deeply to express yourself clearly.
1 minute: Your partner will suggest a strength that they noticed as you spoke. They may mention a strength you have not mentioned, or underscore one that really stood out for them. They will give evidence of the strength from the story you told. "When you _____, it showed that you ________."
1 minute: Take time to consider the strength your partner shared. Decide whether this is a strength you feel within you. If so, put it into your own words.
2 minutes:  Celebrate! Acknowledge that you have followed through on your commitment. Share your feelings. You may ask your partner to share their informal thoughts about your story if you wish, but that is not necessary.

Learn more about strengths-focused relationships at Jerald Forster's website www.strengths-focused-relationships.org

Krishnamurti - Who am I?