Since I became a Master Certified Coach a few weeks back, I have mastery on the brain. But not mastery for coaches, mastery for thinkers. How can you, as the thinker, master your thinking?
William Buist writes about Intentional Mastery. He suggests that:
- Mastery is enhancing and honing your wisdom.
- It’s about who you are versus what you do – your identity, not your profession.
- It’s about having a single vital common purpose for all that you do, in this case, a single vital common purpose for your thinking. What is your single vital common purpose?
If your single vital common purpose is to deepen your thinking for its own sake, here are some ideas about how to go about that (and this will help your thinking about any other single vital common purpose that you are focused on):
- Avoid the derailers! [See my previous blogs: Derailers in Coaching – Part 1, Derailers in Coaching – Part 2, The antidote to derailers in coaching]
- Consider that your thinking is not just done in your head. It is also present in your heart and your gut. What wisdom do your heart and your gut have to share with you that your logical head can’t seem to fathom? And what do other parts of your body have to tell you? Are you paying attention to them and their less logical, but nonetheless useful wisdom?
- What’s the wisdom of the system around you? If you were to look outward, as well as inward, what would you notice that could be useful to your thinking? What do your stakeholders have to offer by way of insight? Don’t try to mind-read, ask them! What perspective does nature have for you? What is the world asking for that might be in your sphere of influence?
- How can you be fully present to your thinking, within coaching and in between coaching sessions? How can you remove distractions to your thinking? How could you slow down to really think more deeply, to get to what might currently feel unknown, but will show itself if you give it time and attention?
- How can you get out of your own way? How can you set aside any shame you might be feeling, to be really honest with yourself and your coach? Brene Brown has some great insights on busting shame in this 2-minute video.
- Start a reflective practice, so that you stop and think more frequently than you do today in between coaching sessions. For ideas on how to do this, read Michelle Lucas’ book Creating the Reflective Practice
- Carve out dedicated time for deep work, deep thinking, and progress. Yes, over and above your coaching time. Coaching is not going to be there forever, so start to build some other good habits that will enable you to continue your deep thinking once your coaching is finished.
- Get off the treadmill of doing and ticking things off your to-do list and start thinking – have a to-think list instead!
- Ask good questions! Not just the easy ones to answer, but the ones that take you somewhere new. Look through different lenses. What would your big toe ask you? What would your favourite singer ask you? What about your competitor?
- Pay attention to what you don’t know, not just what you do know. That’s how TED Talks started, to connect people to thinking in other fields that might be useful in their own.
I didn’t mean to come up with a list of ten, but there you have it, my top ten tips for mastering your thinking with or without a coach! And bear in mind that your team’s thinking ability will also be influenced by the environment around them, so how are you helping them to think more deeply too?
