Coach Biases and Limiting Beliefs_Final
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>> Hello again.
We're going to round up this module
with a brief lecture that covers some ways
in which biases and limiting beliefs affect your coaching
and three ways that you can help clients
challenge their own bias and limiting beliefs.
Consider this a "teaser" for part two of the course
in which we dive more into how to support clients
around emotional eating.
Here are a few questions
to continue thinking about as we proceed.
What are your biases and assumptions
when it comes to health and emotional eating?
What are your limiting beliefs?
How do these biases, assumptions, and beliefs
affect the language that you use with clients?
And how do they influence your approach
to goal-setting with clients?
In this course, we provide plenty of opportunities
for you to reflect on the material by journaling.
You might find it helpful to keep your journal handy
so that you can jot down any new thoughts that arise
based on new material we cover
or on personal experiences that come to mind.
Let's take a minute to highlight a few connections
between biases and limiting beliefs.
First of all, biases,
including the healthy bias and limiting beliefs,
keep us stuck in our unique but limited perspectives.
Remember that a perspective is just
one way of looking at things.
Also, remember that like our beliefs,
our biases are based on our previous experiences.
However, one might say they're "justified"
and they can inhibit connection with others
and can stand in our way.
Are you familiar with the phrase,
"Put yourself in my shoes"?
It basically means trying to see a perspective
other than your own.
For example, I might be really angry with my friend
for arriving very late to our lunch date,
however, after learning that her work meeting ran late
and she also got lost multiple times,
I might understand
that she's probably very stressed at the moment.
My anger might shift to compassion
because I can put myself in her shoes and recognize
that I would be late and stressed out if I was her.
In other words, I can empathize with her.
This is a struggle for all of us at times.
Sometimes, we're so set in our ways of doing things
that we can't wrap our heads around other perspectives.
As a result, we might form unfair judgments
or assumptions like biases.
We also might hold limiting beliefs
that prevent us from unsticking ourselves
and seeing other perspectives.
In other words, left unchecked, bias can block empathy.
Are you with me so far?
Secondly, both biases and limiting beliefs
can lead to pigeonholing,
putting people in neat little boxes
and making assumptions about them
that might or might not be true.
Take the healthy bias for example.
Imagine you're working with a client
who looks very fit and "put together" on the outside
and imagine that for you someone who looks like that
is someone you'd assume is probably very healthy.
You assume that this person eats well and exercises well
and is "healthy" overall.
Now imagine that you learn that she, in fact,
suffers terrible heartburn and is always tired and irritable
and she actually eats a lot of junk food
which affects her sleep.
Whoa. Mind blown.
This is what's known as cognitive dissonance,
a helpful concept to know when coaching emotional eating.
Dissonance means lack of harmony,
like two musical notes that clash with each other.
Cognitive dissonance is when your brain tries to hold
two clashing or conflicting ideas at the same time.
Here are three ways to think about it
in relation to beliefs and biases.
When something challenges our deeply-held beliefs or biases,
our brains don't know how to handle it.
This is because the information
clashes with our perspectives
which we believe are the right perspectives.
When we try to hold two competing or contradictory beliefs
or biases simultaneously,
our brains don't know how to handle it.
For example, I once met a British bulldog named Princess.
I found it very funny because my idea of a "princess"
was definitely not a British bulldog.
And when we act in ways
that don't fit with our beliefs or biases,
it can lead to emotional discomfort.
For example, when I experimented with veganism in college,
I would sometimes wear leather shoes
which made me feel conflicted.
When we experience cognitive dissonance,
we seek consistency.
In other words, we want to eliminate
inconsistent beliefs or biases.
We might try to do this in one of three ways.
One, we can change the beliefs or biases,
the ones that lack harmony with the rest.
However, changing ingrained beliefs or biases
is challenging as you know.
Two, we can acquire new information
that outweighs our dissonant beliefs or biases.
For instance, when I met Princess the British bulldog,
she was very sweet and well-behaved
which helped reduce the inconsistency in my brain.
Three, we can reduce the significance
of our beliefs or biases.
For example, telling yourself that life's too short,
do what makes you happy
might help you justify eating delicious junk foods.
Why?
Because this belief decreases the significance of the belief
that eating healthy foods increases quality of life.
In other words, it tips the scale
in favor of living a "happy life" through junk foods.
As an Integrative Nutrition Health Coach,
you can always go back to two of your most important jobs.
First, continually identify
and challenge your own biases and limiting beliefs
in order to increase self-awareness.
As usual, we're providing
plenty of opportunities in this module.
Secondly, help your clients identify
and challenge their biases and limiting beliefs,
which leads them to see things how they think they are
instead of how they actually are.
This requires creativity
because biases and beliefs are tough shells to crack.
Here are three ideas to get you started.
Number one, try the ABCD approach.
In his book, The Happiness Advantage,
Shawn Achor describes a helpful framework
for challenging beliefs.
A stands for adversity.
Adversities are challenges that we face,
things we can't change.
As hard as it might be, we need to learn how to accept them.
B stands for belief. We can influence beliefs.
For example,
Achor talks about how, when faced with adversity,
we can either bounce back
or use adversity to help us bounce forward.
In short, beliefs are mindsets, and they're malleable.
C stands for consequences of our beliefs.
Shifts and beliefs affect consequences.
For example,
if I believe that eating a giant ice-cream sundae
will make me feel better,
I'll be more likely to eat a giant ice-cream sundae.
If I believe that it will give me a stomach ache
and make me feel guilty, I might not eat it.
D stands for disputation.
This is perhaps the most important piece of the equation.
It means recognizing that a belief is just a belief,
not a fact.
In other words, it's about challenging beliefs.
When working with clients,
it's helpful to continually return to questions like...
"Are those emotions serving you?
Are those beliefs serving you?
Are those habits serving you?"
We can get so stuck in our ways of thinking and doing
that we might not ever step back
and really think about how they affect us overall
until someone, like a Health Coach, asks us to do so.
You'll have an opportunity to practice this framework
in the chart and challenge beliefs handout.
For now, let's move on to number two.
Help clients see other perspectives.
Changing a bias or removing a limiting belief
means opening yourself up
to all the possibilities out there.
As a coach, you can open your clients up to options
they might not have considered before
or that they pushed away
because they created cognitive dissonance.
Remember that cognitive dissonance creates discomfort,
and we want to avoid discomfort.
Another way to think about this
is creating new and empowering beliefs.
Again, this is a process. It doesn't happen overnight.
Our reptilian brains like to follow
familiar patterns and routines.
However, like habits, ingraining new beliefs or perspectives
through mindsets and behaviors can lead to change over time.
Number three, focus on neutrality.
Biases aren't bad, beliefs aren't bad,
we all have them and we develop them for valid reasons.
Viewing them from a stance of neutrality
can spur honest inquiry and open the door
to insight and forward movement.
Can you help your clients take a step back
and examine their biases and beliefs
without judgment or shame?
As a coach,
it's so important to keep returning to this basic idea
when working with clients,
especially in sensitive topics like emotional eating.
As we discussed earlier,
a healthy bias can perpetuate emotional eating cycles.
And as a coach, you want to help your clients
move towards positive cycles
and health promoting relationships with food.
You'll see neutrality woven throughout this course
for good reason.
Let's recap.
Biases and limiting beliefs
keep us stuck in our own perspectives
and can lead to pigeonholing.
Cognitive dissonance is when something challenges
our deeply-held beliefs.
We act in ways that don't fit in with our beliefs
or when we try to hold two competing
or contradictory beliefs simultaneously.
Cognitive dissonance creates feelings of discomfort,
so we might see consistency by
changing the beliefs or biases,
acquiring new information,
and reducing the importance of our beliefs or biases.
As an Integrative Nutrition Health Coach,
two important jobs are to continually identify
and challenge your own biases and limiting beliefs
and help your clients identify and challenge
their biases and limiting beliefs
by trying the ABCD approach,
helping them see other perspectives,
and focusing on neutrality.
In part two of this course, we'll discuss in greater detail
how to apply these ideas to emotional eating coaching,
but we want to encourage critical thinking
by having you brainstorm first.
Are you ready to practice this?
This week, sit down with a coaching partner
and guide your partner through the chart
and challenge beliefs done-for-you handout
in the Business Toolkit of your Learning Center.
Think about this particular person's way of thinking.
An analytical thinker might relate more to the ABCD approach
while an intuitive thinker
might prefer a less structured approach.
As always, practice using high-mileage questions.
Send out any insights to the Facebook group,
making sure to keep your partner anonymous.
And finally, share this information
with someone in your life who might value it.
I'll see you back here again soon.