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Welcome to Coaches to Know a podcast short by IDEMX Radio. This brief
podcast is designed to demystify coaching and help you our audience, understand what coaching
is and how it can help you. I'm your host, Jamie, and
today I'm here with Coach Rachel. Coach Rachel has a background in coaching,
particularly in soccer and scuba diving, which she is an expert at helping people
overcome their fears, and she is well versed in education and has a patent
ployer. She's well versed in education and has an m A and positive psychology
coaching. She has one for three years as a career fulfillment and leadership coach.
In addition to her deep background and education, her clients are people seeking
a meaningful career transition growth in their current industry where they work on gaining confidence
and leadership skills. So welcome Coach Rachel, and thank you for joining us.
Here today. Thank you so much, Jamie, and thank you for
that introduction. So today we're briefly going to discuss what is positive psychology coaching.
So let's open up with that question and if you could define for us
in our audience today, what is positive psychology coaching? Yes, thank you.
So I always like to kind of give a definition to a positive psychology
beforehand. A lot of people aren't as familiar with that science, and it
is fairly new and it's applied science. Excuse me. With the history with
positive psychology or psychology in general, it used to have three main missions,
which was helping the lives of people seek more fulfillment in their life, and
then identify and nurture higher talent, and then treat and cure mental illness.
So those were the three main missions of psychology prior to World War Two.
And then after World War two, with PTSD and other issues we have with
veterans association, psychology just started shifting to mainly focusing on mental illness and curing
people, and we's kind of stepped away from looking at what people already do
well how to make people thrive. So positive psychology and it's the founder with
Martin Seligmann. He wanted to bring that back because we were kind of missing
that in a lot of the psychology practice. And so positive psychology coaching is
a way to help people work toward their goals, looking at their lives in
a holistic way, but looking at what people do well already. So it's
a scientific study of what gives meaning and purpose to life and studying people's strengths
in virtues so that it enables individuals and communities to thrive. So what that
means is when I'm coaching somebody is positive psychology coaching, I'm incorporating that science
and those tools into my coaching practice. And I would say the biggest example
would be when I'm working with a client, rather than trying to focus on
things they need to improve that they don't do well, that maybe they've been
told they need to improve over the years from being socialized or just at work
demands with their job. Instead with my coaching in positive psychology coaching, it's
looking at what people already do well and focusing on that and then finding ways
to educate them on those strengths strengthening them. So focusing on how can we
take steps to start incorporating them in to their lives professionally and personally. And
then positive psychology also focuses on things like gratitude, enriching positive emotions, aligning
your goals, motives, and values, and then working towards goals that are
important to you, but not just important, they're meaningful and satisfying. Thank
you, Rachel. A lot of good, good information there, So it's
quite interesting. First, I just want to recap the history, which psychology
used to have a much broader FOT or three focuses that we're not just focused
on problems, Yeah, but we're focused on an individual and sort of mental
space generally speaking, and the human generally. And then because of World War
two and PTSD, the the definition or practice narrowed. Maybe maybe also because
of specialization and how we've increasingly specialized, maybe that had something to do as
well. Yeah, but you know that's that's that's quite interesting. And so
now your practice, particularly as I understand it, focuses on helping people figure
out what they're really strong at and then using that knowledge or self awareness to
then excel from a leadership perspective or excel in your career or maybe in your
life. Is that correct? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, okay, and
so could you speak a little bit further about sort of given you know,
provide us with a little bit of a concrete example of you know, a
client, what why when they come to you? Is there a trigger moment
that normally happens that that they sort of come to you with or is there
a typical example of why a client comes to you? Yeah, and I
that's why I like using the term career fulfillment, not just career coaching or
career transition, because positive psychology is not just looking at, okay, what
are your goals, but it's also looking at okay, what are your goals
but with a purpose, and then how does that bring meaning to your life?
Because those are all attached to positive emotion, increased happiness, and so
a typically, you know, somebody's coming to me, they're for a career
change, but they're looking for or you know, leveling up in their own
career with leadership development, but they're looking for more meaning and purpose. And
so a lot of times what we'll do is looking kind of get the clarity
on what are your interests, what are your values, and then take it
a step further and then what are trains and how can we kind of combine
the two. Where's the where can we align your you know, what your
natural skill set are with what your interests and what you feel like maybe a
higher purpose is in your life. That's amazing. That's a very approach to
helping. Helping. I feel like people find that fulfillment in life and in
work like more and more. You know, you read about how people are
leading jobs or they feel and fulfilled or they feel burned out. Yeah.
I believe a lot of that is connected to the fact that people, you
know, they work in a job, maybe they have goals without thinking about
that additional layer of purpose and which provides them with the meaning in working towards
those goals. Yes, exactly how long do you normally work with clients and
sort of how long does the does it usually take to refine you know,
what the goals and purpose is for a client? Yeah, And I think
it depends too on obviously what the clients end goal is if they're looking to
step up in a leadership position. A lot of times there's we do want
to look at the strengths, because how can when we talk about strengths too,
it's also a source of sustainable energy. So oftentimes when we feel burned
out, when we feel like at the end of the day we just don't
feel satisfied or very tired and drained, it's often because we're working outside of
our strengths. And so if you're stepping up in a leadership position, there's
also going to be more demands, more hours potentially, and you really need
to be operating with those natural strengths as much as you can so that you're
getting that fuel. It's sort of like a sustainable energy that you can tap
into. So that's kind of like what I like to say to people.
And then the other the other aspect with people who are looking for career transitions,
just yeah, how to look at like I said before, how to
align the with their interests and then so for something like a leadership would I
would say usually the sessions can be anywhere from six to eight sessions, and
then with career transition it might be a little longer. Are there's that time
of okay, maybe they want to change industries. Oftentimes people do kind of
hitting a roadblock. I feel stuck, not satisfied, I think, and
in particular with the pandemic, I had clients who. It really was a
time for self reflection, I think for a lot of us, but especially
people who may have lost their jobs or we're like, this is not what
I want to be doing with my life. And so there's that added clarity
piece. And so people who are looking for career change and might be anywhere
from eight to twelve sessions just so we kind of developed that clarity, the
strengths aspect, the confidence piece, and then getting an action plan to help
them move toward their goals, because you know, are a career change can
be a big it can be a big change in your in your life.
So not making it this quick process really thinking about it, especially if people
who want to make it an intentional change or they want more satisfaction and fulfillment
in their career. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that you know,
change takes time, and yeah, mentality particularly, I would even say
that, you know, I personally grew up where you know, if you
weren't good at something, you just try harder to be good at, right
and the whole Yeah, work hard at the things you're not good at and
you will get good at them. Sort of that was the formula at least,
you know, when I was young, and and I think that when
you lean into your strengths and you use that, as you said, as
the sustainable fuel, you can actually probably then accelerate change a little more quickly
than if you're trying to perfect out everything, right. Yeah, exactly.
That's a great example. I think, like I was saying earlier, with
being socialized, you need to do this better. You need to do this
better. And if it just doesn't feel like you, it's not who you
are, and you're trying and trying the science of positive psychology, he says,
actually you'll reach thriving and flourishing faster and more when you're operating in the
things that you that come easy to you and that you enjoy. So that's
kind of the basic definition of a strength is something you enjoy doing that you
are also good at naturally. Yeah, that's a very very interesting. Um.
Just one final question before we reap Okay, you know, one of
the things that you had highlighted is that positive psychology coaching is directly connected to
well well being, and I would love to for you to unpack sort of
that connection, which I think we've already done a bit um more explicitly,
and our final question here. Yeah, so there's I mean, that's kind
of the essence of positive psychology. It's to help increase positive emotions, UM
and sense of meeting in people's lives, increase confidence, boost mood, increased
happiness. So it's very overlapping with this idea of well being coaching or well
increased well being in general. UM. You know, I like to think
of as when people are making these changing changes, they're making it an a
sustainable way that's looking at them holistically. So it's not just Okay, how
can I get to my goals? It's not just how can I get to
my goals? But am I going to enjoy those goals? Am I going
to enjoy this process? And is that doesn't fit me? Well? Is
this going to be something that I'm going to enjoy doing for a while?
And I like, for instance, one example, an exercise I might offer
to a client rather than a gratitude journal where you know you're writing down things
you're thankful for. I always like to say that sometimes I can get it
can get I mean, for me at least personally, can get old because
it's sort of sometimes becomes repetitive. The same thing. What you can actually
do is a different exercise and at the end of each day write three things
that went well and can be really simple like someone complimented my hair or I
got a free cup of coffee or things like that, because sometimes we tend
to at the end of the day focus on, oh this this issue came
up, this problem came up, like I did you know this driver cut
me off? And so if you can pick out those three things, and
I suggest to people try it for a week and see see if you notice
any changes and that kind of thing, can you know again boost your mood
emotions. And then the other piece with you know, with the career fulfillment
coaching and the coaching that I like to do is helping people find I think
a lot of people are yearning for this sense of purpose and meaning in their
lives. And if anyone's read that the book May and Search for Meeting by
Frankel kind of excuse me. Victor Frankel, the Holocaust survivor who went on
to teach about this stuff. Afterwards, he noticed in the concentration camps,
you know, obviously going through very inhumane conditions, he noticed people who found
a source of meeting or purpose larger than the experience they were having. For
him, for example, he had this vision that he would teach about this
after he got out of the camps. So he kind of held on to
that, Okay, this concentration camp, even though it's completely awful and terrible,
it's serving like it's going to serve a purpose for me later. And
he saw that people who had that tie to a purpose had more hope and
it kind of boosted their overall well being, like they were able to endure
those conditions more. And that's a very like oversimplified explanation of his book,
so but just an example. Thank you for that recommendation and on that hopeful
note. Yeah, thank you today for your time, and you know that
we appreciate your insight and we look forward to connecting with you again. Yes,
thank you so much Jamie for having me on. Thanks for listening.
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