Someone on twitter says:
- Will women ever be able to trust themselves or have enough self esteem to acknowledge that their doubts are usually right??!
Brian says:
There are three parts to this I’d like to comment on.
How can women acknowledge what is true?
Are women’s doubts usually right?
How does this affect women’s self esteem?
How you answer the questions can have quite an effect on your self esteem.
Let’s take the first question; How can women acknowledge what is true?
We tell ourselves a lot of things in the day. “We’ll get there on time.” “It’ll be OK.” “I look well wearing this.” “He doesn’t like me.”
Let’s pick up on the last one. “He doesn’t like me.” A good coach can ask you questions about it. I’ll imagine a conversation.
Coach: And how do you know he doesn’t like you?
Client: He doesn’t look at me much and he didn’t offer me a drink when I finished mine.
Coach: And he didn’t look at you and didn’t offer you a drink. And is there anything else about him?
Client: He should have offered me a drink.
Coach: And he didn’t look at you much and didn’t offer you a drink. And is there anything else about him?
Client: He did say he had a bad day and had damaged his car. Maybe he was distracted.
Now, by asking very simple questions, the coach has gently found out more about the situation and started to find evidence that both challenges the first conclusion and supports other opinions. This coaching process encourages the client to separate out their opinions from objective facts. It also allows them to acknowledge whatever they know, feel, sense as intuition or sense physically. People know things in these different ways, and the coach allows them to acknowledge what they know and to separate it from their conclusions.
The client is gathering evidence that supports new interpretations of the situation.
- He damaged his car and is obsessed with it. This has nothing to do with how attractive I am.
- He might like me but is too distracted right now.
So this is a way to acknowledge what is true (what you know, sense, have intuition about) and to be able to separate it from what is an opinion, an interpretation or a conclusion. The coaching technique here is called Clean Language and it’s great at helping a client understand what’s going on without confusing the issue with offering the coach’s own interpretations.
Are women’s doubts usually right?
That’s a pretty broad question.
What kind of doubt are those doubts?
How do you know if those doubts are right?
The original statements often change after some good questions. “Men are bad” may change to “The guy last night was rude to me”. “I won’t be able to convince my friend” may change to “I’ll have to give my friend a great reason to do what I want”.
This leads me to my re-interpretation of the question “Are women’s doubts usually right?”. “Women have enough evidence both to support and dismiss their doubts so they may want to find out a bit more about the situation.” You may have a different way of saying it.
How does this affect women’s self esteem?
The “Clean Language” process here is about looking at the words, slowing things down and realising exactly when we jump to conclusions. It’s a bit like showing you that jump and asking if you want to do that jump. For some reason I’m reminded o the book title “Fear the fear and do it anyway”. The author acknowledges a subjective truth of feeling fear and chooses to do it anyway. There is self esteem in those choices.
Clean Language coaching helps clients separate out the feelings, the interpretations and the actions. It still takes work and patience, but the results are impressive.
Will women ever be able to trust themselves or have enough self esteem to acknowledge that their doubts are usually right??!
How about:
When women acknowledge the truth, they will both trust themselves and have high self-esteem.
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Tags:Clean Language
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