It's hard to talk about coaching without talking about thought work.
In so many ways, thought work is what we do most of the time. However, thought work, as an only tool, as the solution to everything, as be all end all of the coaching magic can get toxic fast because although it does work most of the time, it isn't the answer all of the time.
What we do not want to do is weaponize our client's thoughts against them or teach them to gaslight themselves in the name of thought work - and unfortunately, those things happen more often than anyone wants to admit.
Recently at The Coaching Guild, one of our groups spent several weeks unpacking their own thoughts, understanding dynamic thought work, and learning how to recognize and avoid toxic thought work in our coaching work with clients. It is hard to distill all of that into one post but I thought it might be helpful to share the three red flags of thought work.
The thing about the coaches who are all about the thought work and only about the thought work is they will read the above red flag warnings and say:
"I would never do that."
"She doesn't really understand thought work the way we do."
"Haters gonna hate."
However, I have worked with too many clients who have been harmed by thought work that weaponized their thoughts against their well-being. Coaching that makes thought superiority the process and the goal, as a solo tool often dehumanizes truly important human experiences. It harms people and leaves damage in its wake.
Humans are complicated. There are no one-size-fits-all tools for every client all the time. Even if there was a one-size-fits all tool, it wouldn't be thought work.
The Coaching Guild is a training coach training program specifically designed to nurture dreamers, artists, creatives, outsiders, rebels, and good troublemakers. It is a multi-instructor, multi-disciplinary approach to training that prioritizes learning innovative foundational coaching skills and marketing training.
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Lisa Hayes, The Love Whisperer, is an LOA Relationship Coach. She helps clients leverage Law of Attraction to get the relationships they dream about and build the lives they want. Lisa is the author of the hit books, Score Your Soulmate and How to Escape from Relationship Hell and The Passion Plan. Lisa also trains the worlds best coaches at www.thecoachingguild.com.