With a diverse background ranging from coaching scuba diving to soccer, Coach Rachel joins us today to discuss positive psychology coaching. She defines positive psychology coaching as a way to help individuals achieve their goals, in a holistic way, and also look at what the client is good at already. The essence of positive psychology is to help increase your positive emotions and sense of meaning, boost your mood, and increase both confidence and happiness. Join us to learn how to incorporate positive psychology into your daily routine and achieve these benefits as well!
Episode Transcript:
Narrator [00:00:00] Successful individuals use coaching and mentorship to help them unlock their potential. Not all coaches are created equal and that’s why we work with the top 5% of coaches at ideamix. Welcome to coaches you need. Brought to you by idea mix.
Jamie Kosmar [00:00:14] Welcome to coaches to know a podcast short by Ideamix radio. This brief podcast is designed to demystify coaching and help you, our audience, understand what coaching is and how it can help you. I’m your host, Jamie, and today I’m here with Coach Rachel. Coach Rachel has a background in coaching, particularly in soccer and scuba diving, which she is an expert at helping people overcome their fears and she is well versed in education and has an M.A. in Positive Psychology coaching. She has worked for three years as a career fulfillment and leadership coach. In addition to her deep background in education. Her clients are people seeking a meaningful career transition growth and in their current industry, where they work on gaining confidence and leadership skills. So welcome Coach Rachel and thank you for joining us here today.
Coach Rachel [00:01:25] Thank you so much, Jamie, and thank you for that introduction.
Jamie Kosmar [00:01:29] So today we’re briefly going to discuss what is positive psychology coaching. So let’s open up with that question. And if you could define for us and our audience today what is positive psychology coaching.
Coach Rachel [00:01:47] Yes. Thank you. So I always like to kind of give a definition to a positive psychology beforehand. A lot of people aren’t as familiar with that science, and it is fairly new and it’s applied science and sees me with the history, with positive psychology or psychology in general. It used to have three main missions which was helping the lives of people seek more fulfillment in their life and then identify and nurture higher talent and then treat and cure mental illness. So those were the three main missions of psychology prior to World War Two and then after World War Two with PTSD and other issues we have with like Veterans Association psychology just started shifting to mainly focusing on mental illness and cure of people. And we kind of stepped away from looking at what people already do well, how to make people thrive. So positive psychology and the founder with Martin Seligman, he wanted to bring that back because we were kind of missing that in a lot of the psychology practice. And so positive psychology coaching is a way to help people work toward their goals, looking at their lives in a holistic way, but looking at what people do well already. So it’s a scientific study of what gives meaning and purpose to life and studying people’s strengths and virtues so that it enables individuals and communities to thrive. So what that means is when I’m coaching somebody is positive psychology coaching, I’m incorporating that science and those tools into my coaching practice. And the I would say the biggest example would be when I’m working with a client rather than trying to focus on things they need to improve that they don’t do well, that maybe they’ve been told they need to improve over the years from being socialized or just that work demands with their job. Instead, what with my coaching in positive psychology coaching, it’s looking at what people already do well and focusing on that and then finding ways to educate them on those strengths, strengthening them. So focusing on how can we take steps to start incorporating them in to their lives professionally and personally. And then positive psychology also focuses on the things like gratitude, enriching positive emotions, aligning your goals, motives and values, and then working toward goals that are important to you, but not just important. They’re meaningful and satisfying.
Jamie Kosmar [00:04:39] Thank you, Rachel. Yeah, a lot of good, good information there. So it’s quite interesting. First, I just want to recap the history, which psychology used to have a much broader scope, more three focuses that were not just focused on problems. Yeah, but we’re focused on the individual and the sort of mental space, generally speaking, and the human generally. And then because of World War Two and PTSD, the the definition or practice narrowed. Maybe, also because of specialization and how we increasingly specialize, maybe that had something to do with. Well, yeah, but you know, that’s quite interesting. And so now your practice, particularly as I understand it, focuses on helping people figure out what they’re really strong at and then using that knowledge or self-awareness to then excel from a leadership perspective or excel in your career or maybe in your life. Is that correct?
Coach Rachel [00:05:50] Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Jamie Kosmar [00:05:52] Okay. And so could you speak a little bit further about. Sort of given, you know, provide us with a little bit of a concrete example of, you know, a client what when they come to you. Is there a trigger moment that normally happens that they sort of come to you with? Or is there a typical example of of why a client comes to you? Mm hmm.
Coach Rachel [00:06:20] Yeah. And I that’s why I like using the term career fulfillment, not just career coaching or career transition, because positive psychology is not just looking at, okay, what are your goals, but it’s also looking at, okay, what are your goals but with a purpose? And then how does that bring meaning to your life? Because those are all attached to positive emotion, increased happiness. And so, A, typically, you know, somebody is coming to me, they’re for a career change, but they’re looking for and or, you know, leveling up in their own career with leadership development. But they’re looking for more meaning and purpose. And so a lot of times what we’ll do is looking kind of get the clarity on what are your interests, what are your values? And then take it a step further. And then what are brains and how can we kind of combine the two? Where’s the where can we align your, you know, what your natural skill set are with what your interests and what you feel like. Maybe a higher purpose is in your life.
Jamie Kosmar [00:07:23] That’s amazing. That’s a very approach to helping. Helping. I feel like people find that fulfillment in life and in work I like more and more. You read about how people are leaving jobs or they feel fulfilled or they feel burnt out. Yeah, I believe a lot of that is connected to the fact that people, you know, they work in a job. Maybe they have goals without thinking about that additional layer of purpose and which provides them with the meaning in working towards those goals.
Coach Rachel [00:08:03] Mm hmm. Yes, exactly.
Jamie Kosmar [00:08:05] How long do you normally work with clients and sort of how long does the does it usually take to refine, you know, what the what the goals and purpose is for a client?
Coach Rachel [00:08:20] Yeah, I think it depends too, on obviously what the client’s end goal is. If they’re looking to step up in a leadership position, a lot of times there’s we do want to look at the strengths because how can you when we talk about strengths too, it’s also a source of sustainable energy. So too oftentimes when we feel burned out, when we feel like at the end of the day, we just don’t feel satisfied or very tired and drained. It’s often because we’re working outside of our strengths. And so if you’re stepping up in a leadership position, there’s also going to be more demands, more hours potentially, and you really need to be operating with those natural strengths as much as you can so that you’re getting that fuel. That’s sort of like a sustainable energy that you can tap into. So that’s kind of like what I like to say to people. And then the other the other aspect with people who are looking for career transitions, just yeah, how to look at, like I said before, how to align this with their interests. And then so for something like a leadership, I would, I would say usually the sessions can be anywhere from 6 to 8 sessions. And then with career transition, it might be a little longer. There’s that time of, okay, maybe they want to change industries. Oftentimes people do. And hitting a roadblock if you’re stuck. Not satisfied, I think. And in particular with the pandemic, I had clients who it really was a time for self-reflection. I think for a lot of us, but especially people who may have lost their jobs or were like, This is not what I want to be doing with my life. And so there’s that added clarity piece. And so people who are looking for career change and might be anywhere from 8 to 12 sessions, just so we kind of develop that clarity, the strengths aspect, the confidence piece, and then getting an action plan to help them move toward their goals. Because, you know, a career change can be a big it can be a big change in your life. So not making it this quick process, really thinking about it, especially if people want to make it in an intentional change or they want more satisfaction and fulfillment in their career.
Jamie Kosmar [00:10:42] Yeah. I think that, you know, change takes time and reader mentality. Particularly. I would even say that, you know, I personally grew up where, you know, if you weren’t good at something, you just tried harder. You could be good at it. Right? And the whole yeah, I work hard at the things you’re not good at and you will get good at them. Sort of. That was the formula, at least. You know, when I was young. And. And I think that when you lean into your strengths and you use that, as you said, as the sustainable fuel, you can actually probably then accelerate change a little more quickly than if you’re trying to be perfect at everything. Right.
Coach Rachel [00:11:30] Yeah, exactly. That’s a great example. I think, like I was saying earlier, with being social realized, you need to do this better. You need to do this better. And if it just doesn’t feel like you, it’s not who you are and you’re trying and trying. The science of positive psychology says actually you’ll reach thriving and flourishing faster and more when you’re operating in the things that you that come easy to you and that you enjoy. So that’s kind of the basic definition of a strength is something you enjoy doing that you are also good at naturally.
Jamie Kosmar [00:12:04] Yeah, that’s a very, very interesting. Um, I just one final question before we wrap the day. You know, one of the things that you had highlighted is that positive psychology coaching is directly connected to wellbeing. And I would love to for you to unpack sort of that connection, which I think we’ve already done a bit more explicitly. And our, our final question here.
Coach Rachel [00:12:32] Yeah. So there’s I mean, that’s kind of the essence of positive psychology is to help increase positive emotions and sense of meaning in people’s lives, increase confidence, boost mood, increase happiness. So it’s very overlapping with this idea of wellbeing coaching or well, increase wellbeing in general. Um, you know, I like to think of as when people are making these changing changes, they’re making it in a sustainable way that’s looking at them holistically. So it’s not just, okay, how can I get to my goals? It’s not just how can I get to my goals, but am I going to enjoy those goals? Am I going to enjoy this process? And is does this fit me well? Is this going to be something that I’m going to enjoy doing for a while? And I like, for instance, one example. An exercise I might offer to a client is rather than a. Gratitude journal where you’re writing down things that are thankful for. I always like to say that sometimes I can get. It can get I mean, for me, at least personally, can get old because it sort of sometimes becomes repetitive. The same thing. What you can actually do is a different exercise, and at the end of each day write three things that went well and can be really simple, like someone complimenting my hair or I got a free cup of coffee or things like that. Because sometimes we tend to, at the end of the day, focus on, Oh, this, this issue came up, this problem came up and, you know, this driver cut me off. And so if you can pick out those three things and I suggest to people try it for a week and see see if you notice any changes and that kind of thing can again boost your mood, emotions. And then the other piece with, you know, with the career fulfillment coaching and the coaching that I like to do is helping people find I think a lot of people are yearning for this sense of purpose and meaning in their lives. And it’s anyone’s read that. The book Man’s Search for Meaning by Frankl excuse me, Viktor Frankl, the Holocaust survivor who went on to teach about this stuff. Afterwards, he noticed in the concentration camps, you know, obviously going through very inhumane conditions he noticed people who found a source of meeting or purpose larger than the experience they’re having for him. For example, he had this vision that he would teach about this after he got out of the camps. So he kind of held on to that. Okay. This concentration camp, even though it’s completely awful, terrible, it’s serving like it’s going to serve a purpose for me later. And he saw that people who had that tie to a purpose had more hope. And it kind of boosted their overall well-being, like they were able to endure those conditions more. And that’s a very, like, oversimplified explanation of his book. So.
Jamie Kosmar [00:15:37] Well.
Coach Rachel [00:15:37] That’s just an example.
Jamie Kosmar [00:15:39] Thank you for that recommendation. And on that hopeful note, yeah, thank you today for your time and let you know that we appreciate your insight and we look forward to connecting with you again.
Coach Rachel [00:15:54] Yes. Thank you so much, Jamie, for having me on.
Narrator [00:15:57] Thanks for listening. Please subscribe wherever you listen and leave us a review. Find your ideal coach at www.theideamix.com. Special thanks to our producer, Martin Milewski and singer songwriter Doug Allen.