MIND FITNESS COACHING: A matter

For anyone, engaging in such negative talk can be very detrimental to our happiness and personal fulfilment.
Adopting an attitude, a mindset or a perspective is ultimately a choice. It’s entirely a matter of choice, for instance, whether I decide that my “life is a failure” or that “life is full of challenges and opportunities”.
A perspective is so fundamental and important to a person’s way of experiencing life because it strongly influences our thoughts, moods and actions.
In other words, it is our perspective, rather than the circumstances we are in, that rules our lives. For instance, if we strongly feel that people cannot be trusted, we either shun them – having nothing to do with them, and being cold to them – or even decide to get them back in some way! Conversely, consider the poor man who is satisfied with his life.
The circumstance of “having less”, is not directly related to “experiencing less” of life.
Ultimately, it is ourselves who control how we think, feel and act. With so many uncontrollable forces that can affect us, it becomes absolutely vital for anyone who wants sustained happiness to change or reframe their mental perspective each time they encounter something negative, be it bad luck, misfortune, failure, loss, or anything that brings us down.
The crux of why certain people can “turn the tables around” is their ability to shift to a more positive perspective quickly, and seeing things in a whole new way. In coaching, this is called moving from a perspective of “significance” to a perspective of “game”. “Significance” here means taking a very serious outlook on the world or events happening around one. “Game” is about looking at the less serious or more positive side of things.
A person who is waiting for his friend in a department store for more than an hour can adopt a “significance” perspective by being really angry with his friend for being irresponsible and unreliable. This same person can be less angry when he shifts to a “game” perspective and tells himself that this delay has given him the opportunity to do some window shopping, which he has not being able to do for a long time! We can do this for almost everything.
So how do we develop skills to reframe our mental perspective? There are four key steps to follow. Firstly, we need to be aware of our own conditioning in terms of our current fixed thoughts and beliefs, and how they condition the way we look at things. Secondly, we need to sharpen our own self-awareness by being conscious of our feelings and mental state, and how they affecting our well-being.
The third step is to suspend our feelings for a while to reflect deeply on them.
The final step is to bravely make efforts to look for alternative answers, and thereby make a mental shift from a “significance” perspective to a “game” perspective.
At the heart of changing our perspective is the use of powerful questioning techniques, not directed at others, but at ourselves. Good questions lead to good answers and bad ones lead to bad answers.
Here are some powerful questions to ask ourselves: How can this be fun? What other ways are there? What will it take to reach our objective? How can I understand the other person’s perspective? What is missing in the way I think?
Our ability and versatility to change perspective constantly is truly the hallmark of an effective leader. Leadership, as it is commonly expressed, is one’s ability to control circumstances, rather than allowing circumstances to control them.
As good leaders, not only are we capable of shifting to alternative perspectives for ourselves, but we are equally capable of having others do so, in order to view a totally new world of opportunities and possibilities.

Note: Corporate Coach Academy is a coaching school in Asia to certify leaders of all backgrounds to become manager-coaches or professional certified coaches in this region. Log in to www.corporate-coachacademy.com or e-mail [email protected] for details.