Coaching as Instrument: From Languishing to Finding Flow

This Week's Attunement 

What's Keeping Me Current
So that I have a better understanding of my client's context

The number one most-read article in the New York Times in 2021 was by the psychologist, Adam Grant, about the pervasive pandemic experience of languishing.

I've experienced it. Have you? Your clients?

He described it this way: "Languishing is a sense of stagnation and emptiness. It feels as if you’re muddling through your days, looking at your life through a foggy windshield."

Languishing, like many of our mental and emotional experiences, can feel like something that's happening to us, like something we have no choice about. And so for the most part, our clients don't show up to coaching sessions saying "I'm languishing and can we talk about how I can change that?" It's up to us as coaches to notice within our clients (and ourselves) the signs of languishing. Signs might include a lack of engagement or keeping the work at the surface or simply going through the motions.

In the article, Adam Grant goes on to talk about the antidote to languishing — flow. He describes flow as "that elusive state of absorption in a meaningful challenge or a momentary bond, where your sense of time, place, and Self melts away."

And that's something we can help our clients do — find their flow.

What I'm Learning
So I can improve myself as a coach, as a human 

I’ve been learning how to help clients find their flow. Here are a few things I’ve been doing. First, a more traditional step by step process:

1. Educate the client about what flow is and its benefits
2. Tease out when the client has experienced flow in the past, what were they doing, who were they with 
3. Anchor the feeling of flow - how did the client experience flow, what emotions did they experience, where did they feel it in their body
4. If possible, create the experience of flow in the moment as an experiment - how could you do that?
5. Ask the client what they might want to do as a baby step toward the regular experience of flow
6. Specify when, how, how often they want to do that
7. Explore what could get in the way and devise strategies for removing obstacles to the experience of flow.  

Another, perhaps more fluid method of supporting our clients in experiencing flow, is by being in flow ourselves as we coach. I find that when I'm in flow, experiencing an exclusive relationship with the client and the field in the present moment, my client is more present, more engaged and we are more likely to find flow in our sessions. It's kinda magical.

How will you find your flow? And help your clients find theirs?