📅 Thought for today:
‘Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question.’
— E E Cummings
#thoughtfortoday #questions #answers #coaching #psychotherapy #helping #supervision
A good proportion of my work involves listening carefully to what my clients say. As well as how they say it, how they express it (non-verbal communication) and what they don’t say.
Listening attentively, processing the information and then asking questions at the right time.
The questions I ask are not to satisfy my curiosity, they are to unlock parts of a puzzle, or to help a client think about a situation in a new way.
How you ask a question also matters. Questions that start with “Why?” tend to be too intrusive, abrupt, or judgemental for instance.
When I am not working with clients, I try not to be in this mindset – to have “normal” human interactions.
I am always surprised when I meet a professional coach or counsellor and they seem to be stuck in coaching or counselling mode all the time. They might even say “this is my chosen way of being”.
I don’t think it is always helpful, or authentic, and I am happy to revert to being “me”, with all my flaws when I’m not working.
