I’ve just been for a long run, a time when I reflect and usually come back with a long list of jobs for the team, but today’s reflection gave me something different, a new understanding about hope and such a strong realisation about how it is a catalyst, facilitator, agent in many coaching and mentoring conversations.
My running creates that time for me when I am relaxed and I know that whatever I pop into my head to think about, within 2/3 miles that some wonderful insight will flood into my brain. It is simply new gamma wave brain activity creating new neuro connections. These last just milliseconds but in the same way as can happen in a coaching/mentoring conversation, leave you with a strong insight, providing you record it quickly!
My favourite lines from Emily Dickinson so resonate with me after this occurs:
‘Your breath has time to straighten,
Your brain to bubble cool, —
Deals one imperial thunderbolt
That scalps your naked soul.’
Thunderbolt of hope
Well, today’s run produced a terrific thunderbolt around hope and our role as coaches and mentors. My spiritual mentor Tim, has recently lent me a book on hope, perhaps this is why I was thinking about it this morning. I’ve realised how powerfully hope drives me on with my purpose. It helps me bear and shields me from the inhumanity and injustice of this world. It gives me passion for my mad endeavours. It is the energy which created myglobalconnect.org and my desire to support Bowel Research UK.
What is hope? As a verb, Merriam-Webster defines hope as “to expect with confidence” or “to cherish a desire with anticipation”. I love the word “cherish”, for me this brings in the core of coaching and mentoring. It is the way that the coach/mentor supports their client to hold something dear, to keep an ambition in their mind, or to support with unconditional positive regard when their client is just needing someone to listen to them, without judgement. It is this purity of being a catalyst for hope with the client that really hit me so hard during my run.
Coaching and mentoring as an agent of hope
When I reflect on many experiences of coaching and mentoring, the coach/mentor is so frequently the agent of hope, whether facilitating the hope through the creation of reflective space or by bringing in some of their own experiences in a mentoring capacity. Perhaps it is used to realise a goal or theme for the coach/mentor to support with, or to ascertain the motivation/efficacy of the client to actually move forward.
How often as coaches and mentors do we consider our role of hope agent or catalyst consciously? I don’t mean this question to put pressure on you and for you to think you need to create hope in an artificial or disingenuous way. Hope is the natural product of reflective space, facilitated, nurtured and tended by the coach/mentor with sensitivity, compassionate empathy and balanced optimism. I don’t know anyone in this world who doesn’t need hope in their lives in this world we live in. I think without it we wither and become shells of ourselves.
But how often do we discuss hope with our clients?
Synder’s Theory of Hope
When I teach change and transition, I will always bring in Synder’s Hope Theory. In a nutshell, Snyder defined hope as a system made up of two interacting components:
Agency, the sense of being able to initiate and sustain movement toward goals, forming a positive motivational state tied to action.
Pathways, the perceived ability to generate workable routes around obstacles, especially in difficult situations.
This is great way to discuss hope with our clients and I will continue to use this theory. However, I feel we need to be far more aware as coaches and mentors of our role as agents/catalysts for hope. Perhaps we are already doing this in our practice and just not aware of our impact, or perhaps it is something to reflect on further?
Stories of hope through coaching and mentoring
“I hope it cools down soon”
During my very hot run this morning I thought how wonderful it would be to collect stories of hope created through coaching and mentoring. So, I would like to invite any of you whether coach/mentor or coachee/mentee to share your stories of hope and I will compile these to share with our coaching and mentoring communities.
Hope is powerful.
Hope is strong.
Hope creates energy and movement.
Hope drives us forward.
Hope keeps us alive and functioning.
Hope gives courage.
Hope is needed more than ever in this cruel world.
Thank you to all of you who create hope with your clients. I look forward to hearing your stories of hope.
Emily Dickinson
Finally, I would like to share more words from Emily Dickinson in a poem about hope.
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
