I love the coaching mindset. Not sure all coaches have the same mindset, but I am referring to the one that is empowering the client and helps him reframe challenges or mistakes/failures into opportunities. Wouldn’t it be great if all your friends could have this positive mindset to support you in your journey? I know I would like that. So, as I did a bit of reading on coaching, specifically solution-focused coaching, I want to share with you a very nice exercise I found on feedback versus failure.
When something negative happens to us, when we go through something we label as a failure, we tend to analyze it by employing a process that we learn from childhood, one that is a bit negative I would say, and it is focused more on a failure strategy (see below).
The failure strategy
So, when we encounter a problem, in a “failure” case, our flow of thinking goes like this:
Problem (what’s wrong?) → Failure (whose fault is this?) → Why (why did that happen?) → Limitation (how could this limit you?)
From an evolutionary point of view, our brains are scanning our environment to avoid danger, and so it pays special attention to negative events and to causal relationships. We notice the problem and then try to find a cause by asking “whose fault is this?’ and “why” (why did it happen). Despite finding or not someone to blame for what happened (us or other), we seem to ask the intrusive “why” that leads to a because or to a story. This why is not one that relates to the importance of the fact (as in coaching, why is this important to you?), but rather to a formula called ”why-because” that, many times, leads to an inward focus – I am to blame because I am weak, not good enough etc. And this inner dialogue is the voice that cements our negative habits in a never-ending loop. And moreover, it feeds our limiting beliefs about ourselves.
The feedback strategy
Now, to change this way of thinking, we have to take a different approach, a solution-focused one.
In a feedback case, the flow should be like this:
Outcome (what happened?) → Feedback (what is the feedback here?, how can I learn?) → How (how did that happen?) → Opportunity (how is this an opportunity?)
This feedback strategy has open-ended questions that have a very different and useful result. After the event (the problem) has happened, you develop focus and curiosity by asking “what I am learning from this, what is the feedback in this situation?”. Then you further explore what happened by asking “how” (not why) it happened, how to study what happened, how to do something different next time. And these “how“ questions guide us to see more opportunities in the situation. We move towards success, rather than going through the above approach of spiraling down into negative beliefs.
Try it
Your turn now. Choose 3 events from your life (career, family, school etc) that you label as “failures” and take them through the feedback strategy. Ask yourself, for each event, the questions one by one: what is the feedback, what did you learn, how did it happen, how is it an opportunity.
Learn to use the feedback strategy to see how life events can help you grow, to celebrate wins, and to develop for yourself a positive mindset that helps you succeed in life.
Resources
Atkinson, Marilyn: The Art & Science of Coaching: Inner Dynamics of Coaching