‘Life is a field of unlimited possibilities’ – Deepak Chopra
When my son was young, one day, he tried making lemonade for the first time. While preparing he ended up adding twice the amount of lemon as compared to what was needed. Now, you must have guessed as to what followed next. He didn’t know what to do with that bitter drink. But he wanted to have the lemonade. “What are your options?” I asked
“I will throw this lemonade and make a new one” said my son
“What else is the option”?
He thought for sometime and said “ I can add more water, it will get diluted and taste better”
“What else can you do”?
“There another idea” his eyes light up “ I can add more sugar too”.
“What else?”
“Actually I can do both – Add more water and little sugar” He said as he ran towards the kitchen.
‘Endless possibilities exist beyond our belief system’
One of the important concepts that I have learnt in my several years of studying NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) and being a Coach is that in life, all of us have options or there are numerous possibilities.
One of the NLP presuppositions is ‘If what you are doing is not working, Do something else. Do anything else’
If you do what you have always done, you will get what you have been always getting. Therefore, if you want something new, do something new, particularly when there can be more possibilities :
- One way – Stuck
- Two Way – Dilemma
- Three or more ways – Choice/ Freedom and Flexibility
I have worked with several clients who feel stuck because they feel that they don’t have a choice as there are no options. Here are some examples “I hate my job, but I don’t have a choice”, “ I want to lose weight, but I have no time to exercise nor to cook healthy meals by myself, what options do I have?” Or “I want to reboot and start my career from when I left the workforce. But, I don’t know where to begin from? Will I be able to manage my home and job?”
What they essentially are referring to is that they are stuck and not sure how to move forward as they do not see options to get unstuck or figure out a way.
But the fact is that there are options and my role as a Coach is to help them explore various possibilities.
Options and possibilities – Where to find them? How to create them?
One of the methods that I use in my coaching sessions to come up with options is the GROW model.
GROW stands for
- Goal
- Reality (Current Reality)
- Options
- Will
To put it in simple terms, If I want to travel from point A to point B, then
- My Goal is to reach point B.
- Where am I currently ? At point A or between point A and B? In other words, what is my current reality?
- How do I reach to point B (what are my options)?
- Am I committed to completing this journey (how strong is my Will)?
Here are some questions that I ask my clients at each stage :
Goals
- What is the objective that you want to achieve?
- Are you stating it in positive ?
- How will you know when you achieve it? What are the timelines?
- Does your Goal inspire you?
- What actions do you want to take?
Reality
- Where are you now in relation to your current goal?
- What is required of you?
- Have you already taken steps to work on this Goal and what is the result?
Options
- What are various possibilities of achieving the objectives?
- What are your options?
- What could you do differently?
- Give me 10-15 options
- Imagine if you had a bag full of fruits and if each fruit was an option, what would it be?
- If anything was possible what would you do?
- What else could you do?
Will or Way forward –
The options are then converted to action steps which will then deliver the results.
- What are the next steps?
- What will you do now, and when? What else will you do?
- What will you do to keep this on track?
- What could stop you moving forward? How will you overcome this?
You must have noticed that questions offer options and lead the client to think/ introspect.
A couple of years back, when I wanted to quit my full-time job to slow-down, re-skill, be a Coach and spend time with my son, the only thing that was stopping me then was my financial commitment. I worked with my coach. Here are the 4 options that helped me.
- Work on a budget
- Reduce financial commitments
- Save an amount that is equivalent to my 6-8 months salary
- And finally, I wrote down 10 legitimate ways of earning money ( apart from starting a new full time job).
Though all 4 steps were important, the 4th point was what really opened up avenues and enabled me to take the giant leap of faith.
Thanks for taking the time to read this post. I hope you found it useful. The fact you have read this article means that you would like to read about NLP and Coaching. For more on Coaching and NLP, do read my previous articles.
