Coaching Helps Prevent the Fixation Problem

Since listening is a very important part of what I do as a coach, I am always amazed how powerful it is to be on the "outside" of an "internal dialogue" that a client may be having- a dialogue that is often fixating him or her in a specific direction and not letting movement occur.

We have all been there, fixated on doing "our way" of solving things, our way of approaching problems, our way of getting the results we are used to getting but…. suddenly it is not working out! 
Perhaps we can recall a time when it happened at school, or in sales situation or a presentation that suddenly is not working out. In the coaching room I often see it in that clients are fixated on a particular thing a person said or mistake they made or "what if" fear that is paralyzing them.

I love the coaching question of "what else?", there is also the "why do you think so" and lots of others that help unravel the client from himself… this article below is wonderful in that it brings research and examples in the medical field, flying and even simple manual problem solving to the "fixation scene". 
I think we can all heed the lesson that is so essential to the coaching and mastermind process: there are many ways to climb the mountain, many ways to communicate, many ways to understand and many ways to live one's life.

How Fixation Error Prevents You From Solving Problems

The mastermind groups tackle Reframing

Reframing is a process that we all do even though we don't call it that or are not particularly aware that this is what we are doing! A frame, or frame of reference are mental models (schema) of unquestioned beliefs, values ,etc., that we use to infer meaning. Reframing- when any part of that frame is changed (hence 'reframing'), then the meaning that is inferred may change.

Reframing is at the heart of what we coaches do, but not only us, as the approach is used all the time by therapists, teachers, facilitators, managers, leaders and… all of us! 
The power of reframing is huge- one can quickly feel it when one reframes:

A problem as an opportunity

A weakness as a strength

An impossibility as a distant possibility

A distant possibility as a near possibility

Someone is 'against me' to something completely different, neutral (it is not really about me')

An act of unkindness as lack of understanding, etc.

You can often change a person's frame simply by changing their emotional state, making them happier, more aggressive, etc. When they are happier, for example, they will be more positive and optimistic (and vice versa).

Actually, reframing can change your life in so many ways, it can help when get out difficult spots emotionally and practically.

Which is why I brought this exercise to the mastermind meetings I ran recently, I knew they would love it and I was not disappointed! Very swiftly and effectively each participant was given the challenge of presenting problems and then asked, along with the small group, to try and reframe perspectives to see what he or she was "missing".

Bottom line? Sometimes it is important to give what you already our doing a name, and our name was "reframe". Once you do that, the power of focus, intent and in our mastermind- collective intelligence- comes into play.  
And then….it is beautiful to watch since

If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. (Wayne Dyer)!