Confident Thinking

Posted on March 25, 2022 by Joy Patton, One of Thousands of Career Coaches on Noomii.

As a confidence coach, I am always seeking ways to support my clients on their journey through life. One of my favorite techniques is to invite the client to explore different ways to visualize their current state versus their desired state and analyze the gap that exists between the two states of being. In his article titled The Thinking Path, published as a chapter in the book, On Becoming a Leadership Coach: A Holistic Approach to Coaching Excellence, Alexander Caillet explores how thinking and the impact of thinking influence our moment-to-moment experience of life. In essence, “people’s conscious and unconscious thought processes (their thinking) generate emotional/physical states (their feelings) which, in turn, drive behaviors (their actions) that produce outcomes (their results)” (Caillet 2013).

The Thinking Path methodology provides an excellent framework to help clients understand how their thinking can impact their outcomes. Here’s how you begin:

Select a real issue or challenge. For me, it was finding the courage to build a coaching business that could thrive without a Plan B (a fallback position that served as a financial safety net).

Identify your thinking feelings, actions and results as they are occurring presently in the issue or challenge – this is the current state. For me, it was dwelling in a perpetual state of panic and fear that I would not be able to find clients or that I would fail at building a business. This fear kept me on a perpetual loop of seeking out Plan Bs (fallback jobs that paid well but did not bring any personal or professional satisfaction).

You may use the starter phrases such as “I achieve/accomplish” “I do, say, behave” “My emotions are” “My habits, beliefs are”… then repeat the same questions as you envision the desired state of your situation. In order to deal with the fear, I read books, talked to peers and mentors, gained more professional knowledge through accredited programs, joined mentor coaching groups, and looked within myself to identify my own limiting beliefs. I realized that the gap I envisioned at the beginning of my coaching journey felt like a wide chasm or deep abyss. However, the more I explored my feelings, and visualized my desired state, the more confident I became in my thinking. Instead of viewing the creation of a coaching business as a impossible distance to cross, I began to see it as more of a step across a small stream. It started out with a simple introduction to people who asked me, “What is it that you do?” Instead of running through a laundry list of various roles and identities and stumbling over my answer every time, I envisioned my desired state as that of a confidence coach. As a result, my responses became clearer and more concise with practice and determination: “I help people find confidence in their personal and professional lives and I do this by…” Slowly, over time, the desired state became a reality.

Can you imagine your current and desired state of being? Where does your Thinking Path take you?

—Joy

Work Cited: Caillet, Anthony. 2013. “The Thinking Path.” In On Becoming a Leadership Coach: A Holistic Approach to Coaching Excellence, edited by Christine Wahl, Clarice Scriber, and Beth Bloomfield, pp. 243-258. New York: NY: Palgrave Macmillan.