Blog

In my circles I have noticed lately – online and offline – a struggle arising from the continued Covid-19 measures. This leads to stress. As a coach, or as a coaching leader, you will undoubtedly recognise this in the questions with which your clients or team members come to you. There is a disquiet that leads to deep-seated stress. How do you deal with this form of stress? And above all: how do you help others to maintain their zest for life? In this blog I give you 5 practical tips.

Online for a year

As you probably know, my training courses have taken place almost exclusively online for the past year. The evaluations show that participants sincerely regret not being able to sit around the fire and experience the atmosphere of the Yurt. I share that regret; I would have liked it to be different. We all had to be very careful to keep the ‘soul’ in the training. We still have to do that.

Over the past year, we have often had to deal with shifts and changes in the rules, which make us feel as if we are taking one step forward and two steps back. This uncertainty causes long-term stress for clients and for us.

Imprint

Transactional Analysis (TA) teaches us that we carry an imprint with us from the past. That imprint is as much about difficult things we carry from our past as it is about resilience to deal with those difficulties. When we – as coaches and leaders often tend to do – focus only on the problem, we confirm the imprint of that problem.

As a coach, or as a coaching leader, your challenge is to do exactly the opposite. You want to confirm the imprint of health. As a coach, you can make a difference by doing this consistently for your clients and being aware of it daily. That is what the world needs right now.

What is needed in cases of prolonged stress: 5 tools

To really make a difference as a coach, we need tools. The 5 tools I am offering below are all practical approaches that you can use to help your client to maintain their zest for life, even when they are suffering from long-term stress.

1. Keep naming the good things to your clients
   Focusing on the good things happening in your client’s life confirms the imprint of health.
2. As a coach, give yourself a compliment every day and write it down
   A good exercise for coaches to keep the positive in mind is to think of things that make you happy about yourself. Write a compliment to yourself every day, preferably at a fixed time so that you don’t forget. You can also offer this tip to your client.
3. Make a planning for yourself (or let your client do so)
   A clear planning makes the ambiguity from outside less impactful. This is a constructive way to deal with the lack of clarity outside. You can apply this tip yourself or give it to your client.
4. Be softer and more careful with each other
   The reaction that you get from your client (or others around you) can be ‘harder’ than you are used to. When this happens, take a deep breath and remember that stress is a factor for all of us at this time.
5. Keep looking for opportunities to grow
   In a time where limitations rule, it is not impossible to keep developing yourself. As human beings, we really need this to maintain our zest for life. This applies to both our clients and ourselves.

Additional tool: Transactional Analysis

TA helps you to understand better your own communication and that of others. By using the models in TA, you can learn to analyse and change your communication patterns. As a result, communication becomes clearer and your relationships with your family and others improve. In my Online Introduction to TA you will learn techniques that you can immediately apply to your own communication and that of your client. When you sign up, you can start right away!