The darkest time in one client’s life resulted in the most positive change in her mindset. Thanks to a cognitive behavioural coaching approach, she was able to return to the workplace she thought she’d never go back to.Vanessa Wears reports
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) changed my life: it allowed me to alter things I thought were ‘just how I was’.
As I finished CBT, I continued to use the strategies long-term to stay well and to keep my life moving in the direction I wanted it to go.
In the meantime, I was doing some reading around career change. I’d read that when people say they don’t know what they’re passionate about, actually, they really do know. They know what they think about, which articles they’re drawn to, which websites they like to read, what conversations they want to get involved in. And I knew that what I spent my time thinking about was using CBT in my life. So I did some exploring, discovered the cognitive behavioural approach to coaching (www.centreforcoaching.com) and found a name for my passion.
Background to CBC
When I say cognitive behavioural coaching (CBC) though, people often hear cognitive behavioural therapy. I enthusiastically (if a little pedantically) explain that it’s kind of the same, but not the same. Basically, CBC is CBT in a non-clinical setting.
I like Michael Neenan and Stephen Palmer’s (Neenan and Palmer, 2001) description, which in summary says that CBC:
- Is derived from the principles and practice of CBT (Beck, 1976; Ellis, 1994).
- Emphasises that how we react to events is determined largely by our views of them, not by the events themselves. Thus if we examine and re-evaluate some of our less helpful views, we can develop and try out alternative viewpoints and behaviours that may be more effective in dealing with issues.
- Is time-limited, goal-directed and focused on the here-and-now. In other words we use what’s gone on in the past if necessary, but we don’t bang on about it.
- “Does not offer any quick fixes to achieve personal change or ‘magic away’ personal difficulties; it does emphasise that sustained effort and commitment are required for a successful outcome to your life challenges” (Neenan and Dryden, 2002)
The ultimate goal of CBC is for individuals to become their own coaches.
Adopting a CBC approach with a head teacher
This particular client was a head teacher, ‘Jemima’, who was off work with “out of control anxiety”. She described “usually being able to bounce back, but not this time”. I was recommended to her by another head teacher. We had five telephone coaching sessions over three months. By the fifth session, the client had returned to work stating that she was “in a better position than ever”.
The main themes that emerged were a fear of failure and perfectionism, with the client describing being “chased by a tiger that had finally bitten me”.
What I think made the biggest difference to the client was practising different behaviours to collect her own evidence and addressing underlying thoughts and beliefs.
The client thought that always trying to get things right had become unhelpful and so agreed to deliberately practise the skill of getting things wrong. By doing so, she could see for herself what happened when she got things wrong – was it really as bad as she feared? – and begin to tolerate the discomfort.
So starting small, the client agreed to deliberately get something wrong each day for two weeks, eg, missing something off the food shop, burning dinner, not cooking dinner. It’s important to acknowledge that when these types of experiments start, ‘starting small’ can actually feel huge.
In our next session two weeks later she said: “I’ve realised it doesn’t really matter. It is not as hard now. My reaction to it has changed, I’m more realistic about it. People haven’t even noticed. I’ve spent most of my life trying not to let people down but they haven’t noticed when I do something wrong. It has shifted my whole mindset.”
The client had collected evidence to show that when she makes a mistake, it’s OK. As in the folk tale, she is not Chicken Licken and the sky hasn’t fallen down. No one could have told her that.
Once the discomfort decreases, the practices can be stepped up, increasing the discomfort once more. Bit by bit, our tolerance for the discomfort grows. Eventually, when we make an unintentional mistake, we’ve learned to respond differently, we’re not blindsided by feelings and thoughts that get in the way of our response to the mistake. It’s now just a mistake.
Thoughts and beliefs
From a CBC perspective, our thoughts and beliefs largely determine our reactions and responses.
In my head teacher client’s case, her reaction to getting something wrong was determined by her views and beliefs about making mistakes. By us examining these thoughts and exploring more helpful ones in coaching, she became more able to practise telling herself something different alongside the new behaviour.
How did I encourage her to practise using new thoughts? I explained we can’t help the thoughts that arise in our head, but we can help what we tell ourselves. So when a thought appears that isn’t helpful, the client could practise replacing it with one that was. For example, she might have the thought that: “If I get it wrong, I’ll let people down.” She could then try telling herself: “It’s not the end of the world. I’m not responsible for everyone.”
Using new thoughts in the form of a mantra, the client saw an “immediate change; they made a massive difference to how I handled everything”.
The tricky bit here is for her to remember to tell herself something different. Jemima jotted reminders in her diary and used sticky notes with mantras, moving the sticky notes and changing their colour, so she didn’t stop seeing them.
As success breeds success, the client’s success with “getting things wrong” was then replicated with her quest for perfection, again establishing behaviour and thought homework assignments.
The strategies on their own aren’t what make CBC effective though. As Neenan and Dryden (2002) say, they don’t ‘‘magic away’’ personal difficulties. It requires a lot of commitment and graft from the client. What makes the approach really work is the client taking what’s been explored in the session into their day-to-day lives in the form of homework assignments.
The client’s perspective
What did Jemima think made the biggest difference?
“Being able to analyse the patterns of behaviour I had fallen into, exploring the impact this had on me personally (it made me look at me rather than my constant questioning of everyone’s thinking/perception of me). I had spent too long thinking my value and worth was in the opinion of others, and had fallen into the trap of focusing on the negatives rather than my own perception of self.
“The coaching was not intrusive but left a lasting impact after each session. What felt like simple steps actually made a massive difference and made me think about the bigger picture. The focus on the negatives were making me less efficient in my job and not be authentic in my role or to myself.”
How did the coaching help her return to work?
“I hit rock bottom and at the start I never thought I’d walk through a school door again. Even when I was recommended to Vanessa I was cynical and not in a place to return or even contemplate a return. The head space Vanessa afforded to me to think about the impact of my thought processes on my behaviour and responses, put what was perceived by me to be a huge issue and barrier to returning to work, into a healthier perspective. I moved from considering myself as both a victim and inadequate in my role, to realising that I am my biggest critic and I am the one who sets myself up to fall into negative mind traps.
“I’ve returned to work in a healthier mindset than ever before. I still care, when previously I thought if I wasn’t incredibly self-critical, I wasn’t ‘caring’. I can rationalise situations much better and even though sometimes I am overwhelmed with the weight of responsibility of my role, particularly during the current situation, I often hear Vanessa’s voice reminding me of specific mantras which help me to focus. I even bought a T-shirt with one of my favourite phrases – perfectly imperfect! In fact, I take great delight in celebrating with family, friends and even colleagues that I am perfectly imperfect. I don’t see this as a negative now, I see it as a positive. And celebrating it with others, apologising for mistakes, acknowledging human behaviour and reactions, makes my reactions, both personally and professionally, much more authentic.
“What was the darkest time in my life actually resulted in the most positive change in my mindset and I now feel so fortunate to have been in a position that I had to ‘reprogramme’ my thoughts and behaviours. I would not be back doing the job I love with the passion I have without the support and challenge I received from Vanessa.”
The coach’s perspective
As a coach, why do I think a cognitive behavioural approach made a difference?
I think looking at behaviours and thoughts helped create the change the client wanted. Without the cognitive focus it’s quite likely that she would have got in her own way, as we all do. Our beliefs and thoughts are powerful drivers for our behaviours, and it makes sense that addressing them will increase the likelihood of us creating change so that, as Jemima summed it up: “I get to be who I want to be.”
As a coach, what did I learn?
One thing was how important it is to stay out of the client’s business!
As I’d been recommended by another client, I was nervous about “getting it right” and not wanting to “let them down”. So when the focus of the sessions emerged, I could really relate to the issues being discussed. I had to work hard to keep myself out of it; this was the client’s journey and not mine.
- Vanessa Wears is the founder of Right Coach and has trained with the Centre for Coaching
- www.rightcoach.co.uk
- vanessa.wears@rightcoach.co.uk
References
- M Neenan and W Dryden, Life Coaching: A Cognitive Behavioural Approach, London: Brunner-
Routledge, 2002 - M Neenan and S Palmer, ‘Cognitive behavioural coaching’, in Stress News, July 2001, 13(3)