COACH YOU BLOG

Be more dog
31/1/2014

“I don’t want to be a robot” was the cry of one of my clients recently … and I have since reflected that this is the misguided belief of many others around what coaching delivers. Far from squashing emotional responses and being always in a controlled and contained state of being, coaching encourages us to play in our full emotional range – when we choose to.

I often work with senior executives to support them in fully expressing their more extreme emotions in a safe and supportive environment. Corporate life frowns upon free flowing emotions but they tend to leak out somewhere … in vicious office politics or in rants to our loved ones and in extreme cases, their internalisation can damage our health. So much safer then to have a sounding board who is supportive, challenging maybe, but always on your side.

Of course we wouldn’t want our limbic brain (stoneage/teenage/lizard brain) to have free flow triggering our flight/flight/freeze/appease response can be taxing for our hormone levels and, let’s face it, pretty exhausting for everyone around us. So there’s a lot to be said for taking a breath and choosing how we want to respond rather than reacting. Cats can be great at this … impassively perusing a situation before choosing how they wish to respond.

Dogs on the other hand, in my opinion, and I know this is going to create all kinds of controversy, are far more reactive. They respond quickly but most often joyously to situations … we know when a dog’s happy because they engage their whole body … wagging, barking, jumping with joy, delighting the recipient!

Sometimes, wouldn’t it be better to express our positivity more overtly? Leaping with joy at the water cooler might turn a few heads! Yet, if we make an effort to notice the people around us, smile and share a joke where we can, it will release tension and endorphins, make us feel better and possibly even brighten the day of the people we meet.

 

As Maya Angelou said:
“People will forget what you said
People will forget what you did
But people will never forget how you made them feel.”
As quoted in Worth Repeating: More Than 5,000 Classic and Contemporary Quotes (2003) by Bob Kelly, p. 263

 

If you’d like to understand better how your emotions may be getting in the way of your success at work then do get in touch. I can now offer psychometric analysis on your preferred behaviour at work, a diagnostic tool and follow up coaching to support the development of your emotional intelligence. jill@coachyou.co.uk