By now you’ve all heard us share the definition of coaching — Coaching gets you from where you are to where you want to go.
But what if you don’t know where you want to go? 🤔🗺
We asked two of our coaches for their insight: Dorit Price-Levine and Lulu Cheng. 💬
In this month’s Grand Coaching Spotlight, we’re going to dig into to that question. You’ll get to hear directly from our coaches about how they help people figure out where they want to go.
Dorit Price-Levine
Meet The Coach 👋 : I've always been passionate about understanding people, their stories, and supporting them to navigate life’s challenges as they arise. It was this desire to help people that drove me to attend law school. After becoming a lawyer, I had a bit of an existential crisis: I didn’t want to practice law anymore.
Through supportive mentors and friends, I was able to pivot to a career in peacemaking, I found my dream job as Senior Facilitator and Deputy Director at the national nonprofit organization, Resetting the Table. I am also a Senior Associate at Consensus Building Institute.
💡 What is your approach at helping people get where they want to go, especially if they are unsure of the steps to get there?
“The hardest part is often knowing where we want to go. 🧭 As far as I’m concerned, when people already know where they want to go in coaching, they’re way ahead of the game and much more than halfway to their destination! And as a coach, I begin by reminding people of how normal it is to feel this way. From there, I like to help uncover more of what is drawing them to this new destination. ✨
Some questions I might ask:
What are the aspects of your future destination that are most appealing? 🔮
In what ways is the ‘there’ different from the ‘here and now’, and what does it offer you?
Do you know anyone who is ‘there’ now? What do you notice about that person and what questions might you ask them to learn more? 💭
This helps people to imagine the possibilities of the destination and have more clarity on the change(s) they seek. Then the focus often turns to the “how” and “when”, and I help them focus more on questions where they break down the nature of the gap between where they are now and where they want to be. From there, we create a framework for accountability in the group and set the expectation that the timeline and steps may evolve along the way.
Some questions I might ask:
What kind of timeline do we want to give ourselves to make the change? 3 months? 1 year? 3-5 years? 🗓
Can we make this shift in a gradual way, taking on new steps slowly over time, giving ourselves time to try things and make mistakes?
Or, alternatively, does the nature of this shift require an all-systems go type of transition into a whole new reality?
Making change is hard and scary, in part because we know that if we strive for what we want and fail along the way, it will feel terrible. Often, we imagine that would feel worse than not having tried at all. Therein lies so much of our work as coaches. We support people to feel more comfortable in that discomfort. We acknowledge the fear and validate how natural it is, while also providing the support and scaffolding for them to continue taking steps forward toward the change they seek.” 🏔
Lulu Cheng
Meet The Coach 👋 : I was born in Beijing, grew up in Texas, and have spent much of my life exploring questions of identity and belonging. I love creating experiences that help people feel understood, less alone, and inspired to step into a fuller expression of self.
My own journey to live a life more aligned with my values has led me through the worlds of finance, technology, and now human potential. Influences that I bring to my coaching include nonviolent communication, improv, and mindfulness practices, especially vipassana meditation.
💡 What are some coaching techniques you like that help people to access their inner intuition?
“Our intuition is a powerful and often under-appreciated tool for cutting through the noise and clarifying what we want. Research has shown that while conscious deliberation produces better results for simple choices, we are more satisfied with the results of complex decisions when we leave them to subconscious thought. As a coach, I have a few go-to techniques to help people unlock their own intuition. 🗝
One technique is a breathing exercise. 🫁 The reason that many mindfulness practices focus on the breath is because it’s one of the only functions that’s controlled by both your conscious and subconscious mind — you can’t tell your heart to stop beating, for example, but you can consciously regulate your breath and it also happens naturally when you’re not thinking about it. Your breath can actually help you build more awareness of what’s going on in your subconscious mind. I love to introduce the concept of the box breath in coaching to help people slow down enough to notice feelings and physical sensations that might offer important clues to what they want. 🔎
Another technique is centered on guided visualizations, which help to quiet our analytical brains and tap into our creative, non-linear brains. 🧠 Visualizations are powerful because they invite us to focus inward and create the space for big perspective shifts. People are often surprised by how a visualization exercise can simplify a complex problem they were wrestling with.
A recent technique that I learned from a fellow Grand Coach, Seisei, is a coin flip to tap into your intuition and gut response. The next time you’re struggling to make a big decision, take a coin and assign each side an outcome for the decision you’re facing. Flip your coin and look at the result. This next step is important — notice what your immediate reaction was to the outcome before your conscious brain can start analyzing. That instinctive response will shed light on what you actually want.” 💡
ICYMI:
Be sure to check out The Grand Cat to tap into your intuition with a decision you might be facing! 😺
We will also be featuring a coin flip decision-making framework in our upcoming Clarity Council event on Wed, May 18th at 12:30pm PT hosted by Robert DuBois. Clarity Council is a free online group coaching event and open to everyone.
Keep an eye out for the next Grand Coach Spotlight!
💌
Cher