Graham deep dives into what mental fitness actually is, who the people are that seek out our mental fitness coaching, and the outcomes from their coaching.
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I thought this week, I'd revisit one of the subjects that we've talked about several times previously, and that's the subject of mental fitness, but from a different perspective - a deep dive into the kinds of people that seek mental fitness coaching.
Before I do, I'm just going to revisit the definition of mental fitness; Mental fitness is really in simple terms, the ability to respond to life's challenges in a more positive way than you might otherwise have done.
We all know life's a challenge as part of the human condition, things happen that we don't like; Not very nice emails, difficult conversations, awkward people that we work with, the pressures of having to do a presentation, going to a very challenging meeting - all of these things are true for us. So, if that's the case, mental fitness is the ability to look at those challenges, and see how to handle them without getting dragged down into the negative spiral of negative thoughts. You have a downward vortex of negative thoughts like fear, disappointment, guilt, shame, and fear, and replace them with more positive thoughts, creating a more positive vortex lifting you away from those negative thoughts; Thoughts of I will make the best of this, I can find an opportunity here. This isn't an advantage to me, I didn't choose this, but I can make the best of it by doing this.
The way in which mental fitness works is that it starts with a degree of awareness; Firstly, understanding that these negative thoughts are all self-inflicted, that you're doing it to yourself, and therefore, you can choose not to do it to yourself. Secondly, giving you the techniques to seek out these positive opportunities, the ability to get the best out of a bad job or to make the most of the difficult situation on an ongoing and continuous basis so you spend more of your time in a positive frame of mind than a negative frame of mind.
The mental fitness program that we run is all science-based. They're not philosophical, and the learnings and awareness that we give you are for the long term. So, once you have the awareness and you've got the tools, it's then all about practice, practice, practice, practice in exactly the same way that physical fitness is. It's one thing with physical fitness to know you need to go to the gym to get fit, it's another thing to go and keep going. The starting point of today's conversation is about how you spend more time in a positive frame of mind responding to life's challenges than a negative frame of mind.
So, who are the people that we see going through our mental fitness programmes? Well, the truth of it is this – it’s the human condition - every one of us suffers life challenges whether it's a junior person or a very senior person, life's happening to all of us, and things we would choose not to happen, happen. So, the first thing is it's not simply the boss, or the board of directors that we see exclusively in our training programmes - it just isn't like that at all. Equally, it's not the senior managers or the high fliers, the people that perhaps are in need of some kind of support; it's not that either. In fact, it's the full cross-section; whether it's a relatively junior person, or whether it's a really senior business owner, or a business leader because as I say, this is the human condition.
We all suffer these sorts of challenges. Therefore, the benefit to us is exactly the same. The ability to find the positive in a difficult situation, and the ability to spend time thinking more constructively than negatively and destructively benefits everybody in the same way. Inevitably it is not limited to work, inevitably it spills over into our private lives.
So, who do we see in our training programmes - the answer is everybody; every age group, men, women, senior and junior staff, people from all around the world, people entering into this programme where English is not their first language, and so on. It's not cultural, it's not about the West versus the East, educated versus uneducated, it's got nothing to do with that. It's about embracing the reality of how you can choose how you respond to life's challenges. Once you recognise that and learn the techniques to do so, it can benefit you as much as anybody else, in any walk of life at any level. And that's been enlightening to me. That's, in many ways, one of the great joys of being involved in mental fitness coaching.
As a coach, you really want to help as many people as you can. This is an area of coaching where you can do exactly that. As a mental fitness coach, one of the beautiful things is to see people go through the six-week program that we have, and pop out at the end with an entirely different perspective on their lives, without turning into some kind of evangelists, some kind of strange person that nobody remembers. People embrace the mental fitness coaching program and we take them through in a very positive, a very constructive way. They add it to their skill sets and they become more capable of dealing with life's challenges, which makes it easier to deal with the people around them, but doesn't make them, as I said a moment ago, some stranger no one's met before.
So, there you have mental fitness coaching, and who goes through it - the answer is everybody.
That was the latest edition of The Coaching Conversation. I hope you found it interesting. I hope you found it useful. You can find out more about our coaching programmes at theexecutivemindset.co.uk
If you want to reach out you can send us an email at theexecutivemindset@sagegreen.com you can book a free 15-minute coaching session at theexecutivemindset.co.uk which will give you a really good feel for how coaching can help you.
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