How to Coach Yourself and Others Essential Knowledge For Coaching | Page 425

Another way to deal with the flood of disturbing thoughts that can
accompany emotional extremes is to re-frame the way we are thinking
and interpreting the situation. This requires that we alter some the
thoughts and beliefs that are taking place.
Try these techniques to help re-frame the thoughts that may be
triggering you.
What would you tell in friend in the same situation?
A great technique is to consider what you would tell a friend in the same
situation. If you are considering someone you care about, wouldn’t you
give them positive uplifting advice? Of course you would! You would
offer them support and encouragement to deal with their struggle.
Often we are much harder on ourselves than we are on others. Maybe
you’re saying critical and belittling comments to yourself and making the
situation more difficult to handle. If you wouldn’t tell a friend these
things, why would you tell yourself?
Learning from past experience
In retrospect we would probably deal with many situations differently.
Fortunately learning from our past experience offers a great technique to
help change troubling perspectives. Consider how you have handled a
similar situation in the past. Did it work out well? What did you learn
from it?
Reviewing a similar situation from the past helps us to understand what
we need to do to get the results we desire. This can be a reminder that
some of our worries may be exaggerated and we have been able to
successfully deal with a similar situation before. Or, it may just be a
chance to pause before acting to make sure we don’t impulsively make
an unhealthy choice.
Do a reality check
This is where we consider if we may be overreacting and exaggerating
what is taking place. We may tend to catastrophize and think of the
worst possible scenario, or we might using restrictive words like always,
must, and never.
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