Branching Out

Last week's coaching lesson was on building self-efficacy. The next one is on the TTM (Transtheoretical Model of Behavior Change). I was introduced to the TTM in school, but now I'll actually be delving in deeper and applying it, so that's cool. One interesting thing I did last week, though, was email my assigned admin person (not part of the faculty but still trained as a coach and working for Wellcoaches). It was about my side interest that hasn't directly related to the material but which I've talked about at length on this blog. How the mind affects people physically. About whether being challenged in life could be a cure to certain problems. She emailed me back some articles to read which have been kind of interesting (on mindfulness, meditation...I have one left right now). But before she even emailed me back, I started to think to myself – am I attempting to say that health and happiness is as simple as merely having an enjoyable, meaningful, and fulfilling career? Can you have a career you love and not be happy or healthy? I don't know. I think it's so relevant to me simply because getting a meaningful and fulfilling career has been a lifetime's worth of effort for me.

Anyway, career counseling is sort of a separate path than wellness coaching (and an alternate one I keep pondering in the back of my mind. What if I'd pursued that instead? What if I'd majored in psychology instead?) But there IS some overlap that I'm learning about through wellness coaching. Wellness coaching is about behavior change and helping people set goals to become their best selves. Doesn't career factor into a person's wellness? Sure. Some of the faculty have been saying they did executive coaching or life coaching...and it all sort of blends together in a way. So maybe it doesn't matter if I majored in one thing or another. Maybe I'll still arrive at the same place. Come to it from another direction.

Thoughts on motivation and exercise

In preparing for tonight's coaching lesson (reviewing the material I read last weekend), I've gotten inspired to write down a few things I didn't think of when I wrote my previous post Fri. night. We're covering motivational interviewing (which I described briefly in another post but which we didn't cover at the time, it was a little premature). I think my nutshell description of it would be 'What is the reason for a particular behavior change?' 'Why do you want to do it/ why is it important?' It's about change talk, determining how ready people are to change, and perhaps increasing their readiness. This afternoon I was thinking about how I've brought myself to make certain changes in my life and what motivated me to make them. Sometimes it's a matter of dissatisfaction with the current state of things. I wasn't satisfied with what I did for a living, so I went back to school for something else. When it comes to physical habits (which constitute so much of what people seek counseling or coaching for), sometimes it's dissatisfaction with how you look or feel. Sometimes physical symptoms/ailments or actual health problems serve as the trigger to change (which I think are stronger/ more urgent motivators). I had physical symptoms which may have resulted from my body control issues, and they prompted me to go to doctors and attempt to make changes. Sometimes necessity makes you change a habit unconsciously or involuntarily. For example, my job demands didn't allow time for certain rituals I used to do and it may have been for the better. (Which leads to a side note about how being busy / challenged can help certain problems in life that result from NOT being busy or challenged).

I happened to listen to another recorded coaching session as part of my lesson preparation. There wasn't anything particularly extraordinary or different about it, but after contemplating again and again how common the issue being discussed was, I just had to blurt out my feelings on it. The issue was feeling like one should exercise more. A lot of people feel they should. There are guidelines for how much exercise people should get (which you learn on like day one of majoring in exercise science). Now here's my take. If you play a sport, you don't really need to worry about it. The nice thing is that sports have a higher goal / aim besides the exercise itself. (That is skill, excelling at it, etc). Exercise is just a by-product. You happen to get it because it's built in. I used to participate in a sport. Sadly, though, sports fall by the wayside for many when they grow up because careers that are not professional sport careers tend to take up a lot of time. What's the alternative? There are people who don't play sports or even exercise for the sake of exercise but who still manage to stay thin because of NEAT: Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis. I learned about this in school. It's basically expending energy by being busy with daily tasks (tasks that don't involve continuous sitting). Even if you have a mostly sedentary job but still take breaks throughout the day to run around the parking lot / get your heart rate up a little, wouldn't you say that it would allow you to stay at a healthy weight? (In addition to coordinating your food intake to match what you're expending). That's my idea of staying healthy. This so-called third option of setting aside time to 'work out' that people talk about? They might think they need to do that. Maybe some people do. Maybe for some people it's hard to manage their daily energy balance without specifically setting aside time to 'exercise.' But I'm just saying there are other possibilities. Like eating right and having the bits of activity like I was mentioning above. Has there been any conversation about this anywhere? Because it's one I'd really like to participate in if I could. (Or start, lol).

And then I could combine that conversation with one about how being busy and challenged in life with anything (whether it involves exercise or not) can make it easier for you to stay healthy, period. Because if your mind is engaged, your body is probably engaged in some way too. It's not being passive the way it would be if you were bored. And if you happen to be sitting but are still engaged with your mind, it's probably gonna prompt you to want to take a break at some point to increase your blood flow because that's what you'll naturally crave. If you're being mindful, that is. Mindful of how you feel. That's important.

Goings-on

Last week in coach training we had a practice session where we split into pairs and did another exercise with empathy reflections and an exercise with the 2^nd step in appreciative inquiry (the 'discover' phase). The topics we coached each other on were challenges in our wellness journey and our best experiences with wellness. I made my area of challenge about control issues with my body. But I have to say this week has been better. Being busy at work has helped with that, I think. My whole theme that I've been trying to repeat to myself ever since I first went back to school is that being healthy mentally (or being in a flow state) is something that contributes to physical health. And that in whatever way my physical health may have taken a hit, it was likely due to not having mental fulfillment. I know I may have questioned that before, but I'm coming to re-embrace it a little. I want to have some kind of signature thought or contributing idea to wellness (or simply an area of interest?) and I want that to be it. But I haven't gotten to talk about it much yet in the coach training. I'm hoping there might be opportunity for it soon.

Also, it's cool to hear about the backgrounds of all the different instructors we have from week to week. A trend I'm noticing is that they all make their living from both teaching the coaching classes and working their own private practice. I like the idea of having different sources of work that are related. I guess I'll see what happens for me.

As for my day job right now, I've gotten comfortable with the main task assigned to me that I trained on. When there is a large amount of it to do, that's when I'm happiest. On Wednesday there was a large amount that kept me busy the whole day. But on other days there wasn't as much. That's when they sometimes have me do other things. Yesterday I shadowed someone on a task I didn't get as well, so I hope I don't have to do it later, lol.

I guess that's it for now. Really looking forward to when the day job ends and I finish coach training and get certified and then get a job coaching!

Time

I'm doing my update a little early this weekend (Friday night, Halloween, hehe). I got off work early so I have a little time. And instead of talking about work details or even wellness coaching details, I just have some general thoughts. Mainly about the difficulty of my routine. I'd been mentioning feeling lucky that I'd managed well up to this point, but I finally broke my pattern this week. Not intentionally, of course. Nature always decides to mess with you even when you try to maintain things. But is it a bad thing? I think it relates back to control issues. And the gray area that surrounds where to draw the line between mindfulness and neurosis. Because being healthy means being mindful of how much you sleep, eat, and move around (physical activity). But how mindful is too mindful? That's the eternal question. What I realized this week is maybe it's okay to not have one specific pattern dictate everyday life. A work schedule is usually specific, but that doesn't mean your daily habits have to be. Maybe it's okay for me to have one day where I eat less and move around more and another where I eat more and don't move around as much. Things will eventually balance out. And sometimes your body will tell you when you need to adjust things. (Instead of you telling your body what it needs).

I do want to mention how different things are when I get to leave work early versus when I have to stay the whole eight hours. It's not that I mind the work itself, it's the issue of time (not having enough of it). Working the whole time means driving at rush hour, which means it takes twice as long to commute as it does when driving at any other time of day. It means getting home later and basically eating dinner, checking email and facebook, talking to my boyfriend on the phone, and going to bed. There's very little turn-around time between getting home and having to go back again. I hate that so, so much. That's why when I get to leave early, it offers the chance of maybe getting home slightly before dinnertime where I can check email beforehand and have a little time to myself after dinner before getting on the phone. That's so much better. I feel like I can breathe. And stretch and do better by my body. (Because as much as I'm trying to not overly control my body, you have to admit it's easier when you aren't bound to the sedentary job for extended hours. I think that's an indisputable fact). So I kinda go through a lot of days wondering if I'll get lucky with the schedule. But I hate to rely on luck because it almost makes you live in fear, you know? And that's no fun. But at least I won't be at this job forever.

So tomorrow I'm off work again (I've only had to work one Sat. so far but there will be more later, they say). This is the week where I didn't have any lesson preparation materials for the coaching class again so maybe I'll jump ahead to next week's lesson. Otherwise I guess I'll just read and do my other normal things. (Things I don't usually write about but which are usually on a to-do list anyway. Like websites to check, things to clean, people to call, shows to watch, magazines to read...things I don't allow time for during the week because there are days when I don't have time, as I was mentioning). (Except the shows if they're on when I'm talking to boyfriend). So yeah, it does sound like a lot now, hehe. (Oh, and writing blog posts like this...also on the to-do list). Did I mention how much I value time?

Another check-in (mostly work & coach training part 3)

I'm getting to like doing weekly updates now because I have enough going on that I have stuff to say. Tonight is lesson 6 of coach training and tomorrow starts week 5 of my job. I had a normal weekend this weekend (yesterday and today off). Yesterday I read more from another YA novel I started a few weeks ago (it takes that long when you only have time to read a chapter or two every now and then) and I visited my grandma...it was a really nice day. (I didn't have any coaching lesson to study because I did it Monday when I was off and next week is another practice session with no prep materials). Today I'm kinda relaxing too, but then I have a couple phone calls this afternoon with my learning partners and class at 7. Then it's back to work tomorrow.

I guess I could talk a little more about the details of my work since I haven't done that yet. So my company acts as the face of different companies through which people get their insurance. We're kind of the middle man between the companies and the gov't agency that they (the insurance companies) have to submit the applications to. I work on the applications for 4 companies, 2 of which offer prescription drug plans and 2 of which offer plans that cover doctor, hospital, and prescription drugs. So basically everyday I get assigned a number of incomplete applications to research. Sometimes I'll have to call the applicant for information, sometimes it just involves searching databases, sometimes the issue can be resolved and sometimes it can't (in which case, the application gets denied). Either way, I have to make notations in the system and on the spreadsheet that lists all the applications I've worked on.

It's sort of interesting when you get different scenarios, but there is some repetitiveness to my days in an overall sense. I think that's one of the most trying aspects of any job. If you have to do the same thing over and over, it wears you down. It's better when you can grow from day to day or learn new things. Is that possible when you're bound by a particular profession that you practice everyday? Sure. For example, if I'm coaching clients, I might be doing the same activity, but each client would be different and each conversation would offer new insights. Or if I were a book editor, I'd be reading everyday, but I'd be reading different things. There are lots of possibilities. When you're in a job that doesn't offer those possibilities, your mind sort of starts to look for little differences that don't really matter. Like whether you worked for a longer period of time before taking a break or for a shorter time. You wonder what the best pattern is and whether it's good or bad if you stray from it. Will you feel just as good doing things one way versus doing them another? One of the great things in life is not having to decide things like that and just letting individual circumstances dictate what you do. But it's hard sometimes when you have to work within a certain structure. I'd say my job now offers a little more autonomy than others I've had in the past, but it still has the set hours and the feeling that I have to constantly monitor how I'm feeling physically. How I feel physically is the measure of a good day for me. Is that abnormal or neurotic? Most people probably don't have to “monitor” the way I do or be as mindful as I feel myself being, but the only reason I do it is because I don't have the other challenges I just mentioned about personal growth and change from day to day to distract me. Right? If I had them, would I still fixate on the little things I fixate on now? It's a question I'm still exploring (and one I feel I've been exploring my whole life). In my last post I mentioned feeling lucky that things were going pretty well for me physically, but should it always feel like luck if things go well?

On to coach training. (By the way, there might soon be a segue from the stuff I just mentioned to my coach training because we will be talking about our own personal wellness visions again in the near future. But we've been focusing more on coaching skills lately). Last week we honed in on the nonviolent communication thing I mentioned in my last post. We were put into pairs a couple times during the class to practice discerning when an observation was being made and when an evaluation was being made (by the client). I think the point of that tool / skill, though, is for us as coaches to have a better handle on when WE make observations vs. evaluations. We also combined steps 2 and 3 of NVC in another exercise where we identified feelings and needs in the client. We used a template for an empathy reflection that involved saying “It sounds like you're feeling ___ because your need for ___ is /isn't being met.” Both of those exercises were kind of challenging. They don't sound challenging when you think about them, but like I said in my last post, doing them in practice is often different than simply thinking about them / comprehending them.

Another valuable nugget I gained from the class that I thought I understood but which really clicked when the instructor said it was the reason to avoid sympathy. Being sympathetic is a natural human tendency, but when you express sympathy, you're making things more about you than about the client. You're essentially saying “I know how you feel because ___ (insert whatever it is that makes you identify).” Does that really help? Likewise, showing pity is bad because it victimizes the client. (“You poor thing.”) Empathy, though, is when you restate the client's situation to show you understand (or are trying to). That's what we're supposed to focus on in coaching. 

Perhaps I'll wait til next week to discuss tonight's lesson (so each post will sort of re-cap the lesson from the previous week). But just to preview a little, it's on appreciative inquiry. And the field of positive psychology. Martin Seligman made a good statement in his TED talk that we had to watch. He said “increasing happiness is different from relieving misery.” Hence the growth of the field. In earlier days, most of psychology's focus was on curing the mentally ill. Now it encompasses so much more. Because psychology IS more than just that. Amen!

Work and coach training, revisited

Well, I survived my first 6 day work week (week 3 of the job). Part of me thinks if I hadn't been lucky that first day /week in getting off on the right foot, things might not have continued to go as well as they've been going. So that's good. Yesterday was actually the busiest day up to this point. There was a brief period of overwhelm (when a bunch of things get piled on you at once), but it's kind of good when you're kept on your toes. For the higher level staff, I could tell there was stress going on with other high-level processes, and at one point one of our websites was down. But everyone has seemed to be keeping a level head so far. I hope it remains so. From what they've said, it gets busier as the annual election period is well underway (like November). I think our working Saturday (yesterday) was due to some system issues and quality control that needed to be taken care of so things are able to run more smoothly when the rubber meets the road. So we'll see what happens. It's cool they let us have tomorrow off so we still have a 2-day weekend. I don't know if that will always be the case. But I'll take what I can when I can.

Last Saturday I did the lesson preparation for today's wellcoaches class (#5). That was made possible because last Sunday (lesson #4) didn't have any prep. It was just a practice session. So I took the opportunity to get ahead for today. My plan is to do the prep for next Sunday (#6) tomorrow since I have the day off. Whether I'll work next Saturday or not, I don't know. I'm gonna have to take things week by week. I know I mentioned a little about the content of the classes in my last post. And like I said in this post, we did some practice last week with reflections and open-ended inquiries. When practicing, there often seems to be 2 tracks your mind has to juggle. One is obviously listening to the client and responding and being present in the moment. And the other is making sure that your responses are in line with the processes you're being taught. The best thing is when whatever comes naturally to you is already in line with what's being taught. But it doesn't always happen that way (as much as you might think it would). I guess in time the things might merge a little easier. But overall, the concepts we're learning DO seem natural and smart to me. Don't advise people. Let them listen to themselves, let them do the work. When they know someone is simply listening and providing an outlet, things will come to the surface. And when people step back and sit with silence for a while, it can be effective because it's probably a rare thing to have silence in life.

Other things we covered were self-care and surveys of our signature strengths. My top 5 were: love of learning, self-regulation (which our instructor said was the least common one among people in our country), honesty, judgment (thinking things through, not jumping to conclusions, having the ability to change your mind), and appreciation of beauty and excellence. Tonight's lesson is about motivational interviewing which entails expressing empathy, developing discrepancy, rolling with resistance, and supporting self-efficacy. Within the empathy facet is non-violent communication which entails making observations instead of evaluations, expressing feelings instead of thoughts, identifying needs instead of strategies, and making requests instead of demands. So I'm basically just reiterating my textbook here, lol. Oh well. Now I guess I'll enjoy the rest of my Sunday :)

Work and coach training

First week at my new job is done. Wow, is it demanding! We had to learn all the rules and regulations of medicare (and get tested on it), and next week we move to the “floor” for hands-on training. One good thing is that the trainers and my fellow trainees are cool. And young. That helps. And just knowing that you're in it together.

Schedule-wise, I was worried about (a) adapting my body to the hours, and (b) having enough time to get things done in the few short hours between getting home at night and going to bed for the next day. Surprisingly, though, I managed. And I'm remembering now that sometimes being busy can be good. It can make you rise to the occasion. Isn't that what I want? To be stimulated / challenged? It's true that I'd rather be challenged by something more fulfilling (the wellness coaching I'm studying now), but I think working in general is helping me anyway. When I have fewer choices of how to spend my time, it forces me to focus my attention differently. Or to overlook little body sensations I might feel from time to time. In my non-working life, they'd pose a problem. But when I can't afford to focus on the problem because of work, it kind of gets better. I hope I'm not speaking too soon on this, it's just that I'm hopeful in general about improving.

The wellness coach training is going pretty well too. I just did the reading / assignments for lesson 3 today (and the conference call for it is tomorrow). (I'm really hoping the overtime that's coming up at work soon won't make things too hard...but again, I'm optimistic that I can do it). I've gotten to talk to a few different people in the class (“learning partners”) for the hands-on application. I like it so much! And part of the object IS for us to be the client (in addition to the coach) while we're learning. We do get to help ourselves / work on ourselves. We have to be well to help others, right? We're not exempt from needing to grow and improve. So that is awesome. Because I've been wanting it, lol. In the first hands-on exercise, it was kind of hard for me to articulate what I wanted. But my partner said, “you may think you don't know, but you do.” She's probably right. I think I was having a hard time figuring out specifics of the physical health domain, but as I've said before, I think the physical might be taken care of when the career fulfillment happens. If you're unhappy in life or aren't challenged by what you do, it can result in physical manifestations. Other things we've covered include things such as mindfulness, open-ended inquiry, reflections, building on people's strengths, and getting them to come up with their own answers rather than telling them what to do. I think it is truly great.