Mentor-coaching Tool:
Remarkably, we are a quarter way through the school year. And if you are like me, the wear and tear over the last 3 months seems to have taken a lot more energy and stamina than budgeted. Carrying the emotional and psychological load that comes with living amidst a pandemic back and forth to work every day, takes its toll. The weariness tells me that I need to figure out how to make this feel easier and more hopeful.
So as coach, I’m calling a first quarter timeout.
I’m inviting you to join me in stepping back, checking in and recalibrating.
To help structure this timeout, I’m offering up a list of some of my favourite coaching questions to help you, and your mentee, step back and create some space in your thinking. Questions can lift us up above the constrained thinking (assumptions, givens and barriers, etc.) that comes from being too close for too long. Questions can also shift people’s mental and emotional state faster than anything else, so let’s leverage the power of an inquiring stance!
Why am I sharing this?
Because if we don’t take the time to step back and check-in, particularly when we’re carrying a heavy load, we run a very real risk of either opting-out (mindset) or worse, burning-out (mental and physical exhaustion). Both are bigger problems and take a lot more work to remediate. And both are avoidable.
“There is the in-breath and there is the out-breath, and too often we feel like we have to exhale all the time. The inhale is absolutely essential—and then you can exhale.” – Joan Halifax Roshi, 2012
First Quarter Timeout: Questions to support stepping back, checking in and recalibrating.
Instructions:
In a discussion or journal, consider the questions below. It’s important to consider the questions in all three groupings. Respond to the questions that feel most relevant and valuable for you.
Once you have explored these inquiries, I invite you to take this list to your next mentor-coaching conversation or coach-like conversation with a teacher, mentee, colleague or student.
Current Reality
- Stepping back, what do you notice?
- Where are you now?
- What ground have you claimed?
- What’s feeling good? (Focus the question on a core value. E.g. What’s feeling successful, energizing, like a win, rewarding, engaging, etc.…).
- What’s feeling like a challenge for you in this?
- What’s missing?
- When you reflect on the last 2-3 months, what do you notice about yourself?
- What matters for you in all of this today?
Destination
- What do you want?
- How can you get there?
- What’s the desired change?
- What are you creating?
- Where are you in that picture?
- What do you see at the end of this?
- How can we simplify this for you?
- How can your learning from the first quarter contribute to your vision?
Next Steps
- Where do you need to put your effort and attention in order to continue moving forward?
- What seed, if planted today, will make the biggest difference for you?
- What specific actions are you stepping into?
- What will it require of you (doing and being)?
- What are your first steps?
- What strengths might support you? What support do you need?
- What may get in your way?
- How will you hold yourself accountable?
For more on questions, join us on Twitter and Instagram!
I’ll be posting other ideas that I hope will help to inspire you,
