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Seeing Things As They Are vs Seeing Things As You Are
Updated: Dec 24, 2020
From time to time, I get asked what life coaching is. Well, basically, coaching in any niche is really about transformation, creation, and perspective. Life is a process of transmutation, renewal, and discovery.
When we embark upon a Life Coaching journey, neither myself as the coach nor my clients really know where it will end. I’m a strategic planner as an entrepreneur, but as a coach, you can’t even plan for a session, because you don’t know where the coaching conversation will lead.
I often ask my clients at the beginning of their coaching journey if they are ready to change the way they see. Not just see different things, but to see differently. There’s a big difference between the two. It’s the difference between opening your eyes and looking around you to see things you’ve never seen before, and…changing how you know what you see. I’m a firm believer that we don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are. I have never met a person where that truth does not apply.
Our mental models play into everyday life. Yes, every person has a mental model. Mental models are simulations of the world that your mind constructs when you think and reason. According to Princeton University professor, Philip Johnson-Laird, and University of Dublin professor, Ruth M.J. Byrne, “Mental models are based on a small set of fundamental assumptions (axioms), which distinguish them from other proposed representations in the psychology of reasoning.” (Johnson-Laird and Byrne, 1991)
If I’ve been walking around staring at the ground, I will see what’s on the ground, but I will be missing out on a lot of other stuff. And if I lift my head up and look around me, I will see things I’ve never seen before.
But what if I could change what I see? Like putting on a pair of new eyeglasses. But there could still be a problem with that.
If my eyeglasses are obscured by the dirt of negativity, I can try and squint through the dirt, but I will always have a gloomy view.
And if my eyeglasses are rose-colored, I will see things through a rosy haze. Maybe some of my relationships are unhealthy, but until my coach helps me replace my rosy lenses with clear ones, I won't have the clarity to see my relationships as they really are.
The incredible awareness and freedom that comes from replacing the lenses through which you view your life is an excellent coaching tool in the hands of a great coach. It's an extraordinary and empowering tool they can offer you.
An effective and empowering life coach helps you clean your eyeglasses to see the same old things in a brand new way! That coach is effective in question mastery, they ask the right targeting questions, to help their client gain new perspectives. I like to say, the wrong question will get you the wrong answer, any question will get you any answer, the right question gets you the right answer. However, the right question asked at the right time gets you the right solution. We then realize we are now empowered to see things beyond as we are.
By the way, there is a significant difference between an answer and a solution. Check out my article Solutions vs Answers: Making the Distinction.
At the start I stated coaching is really about "transformation, creation, and perspective. Life is a process of transmutation, renewal, and discovery." I encourage you to not let your own mental models lock you out of seeing beyond as you are. Discovery is also about seeing in ways you could have never seen before.
Perhaps a life coach would be ideal for helping you with your own transformation or transmutation. Perhaps not. Either way...are you ready for your journey of discovery? Your time is now. It's time to see beyond as you are.