Changing the rules

Check out this blog post by Chianne Buckle, one of our Corporate Coaching Managers:

In Irvin Yalom’s The Gift of Therapy, he describes a client who is stuck in his relationship with his father. Yalom suggests that the client call his father to communicate his decision to hire a rental car rather than meet him at the airport. His client protests and says that he?“never”?calls his father. Yalom replies:

“So many rules. So many fixed family rules,” I mused. “You say you want things to change with your father? For that to happen, some family rules may have to be changed.”?

I loved reading this anecdote. It reminded me that we each create a set of rules for life and that we can relieve our sense of “stuckness” by being willing to change those rules.

How often do we notice ourselves or our clients using the language of “always” and “never”? How often do we notice ourselves or our clients use the language of “should”, “ought”, or “must”?

Through coaching, we can help people notice and challenge these patterns.?

In cognitive behavioural coaching (CBC), this is one of many cognitive distortions. These thoughts do exactly what they say on the tin: they distort our understanding or experience of reality and can lead to self-defeating behaviours. We can use powerful questions to challenge these distortions and bring our rules, assumptions or beliefs to the surface. Once these have been uncovered, we can begin exploring alternative and hopefully, more helpful perspectives.?

A question I love to ask when I hear a client drop the “should” bomb is “who said that you should?” This often leads to a rich line of inquiry and discovery for the client into their ways of thinking and viewing the world.

How willing are you to change your rules?