Historically, psychology is a ‘problem-focused’ endeavour.
Athletes often seek psychologists to help with difficulties in their life – transitions when moving between squads or into retirement, managing challenging relationships within their personal and performance environments, chronic performance drops, injury, nerves and shaky confidence.
It’s bread and butter stuff, and there are textbooks filled with ways of making sense of and managing such ‘problems in living’.
But crucially, these issues fall into the category of ‘what’s the matter’.
Whether you’re working as a psychologist, coach or parent, I invite you to try an ‘experiment’. Specifically, try shifting from exclusively focusing on ‘what’s the matter’ to ‘what matters’ to the person you’re speaking with at that moment by asking questions such as:
- Given all that you’re up against or having to deal with, what would you want instead?
- And if there was a bit more of that in your life, given everything that’s going on for you, what difference would that make for you?
- What might that start to make possible for you?
Such questions, when done empathically, start to help the person describe what they want, and what’s important to them. From here, motivation may begin to sprout and a sense of clarity congruent with their values can be worked with further…
Give it a go – see what differences it makes…
N.B.: In a previous blog, I’ve sketched out how I use the ‘tip’ above to work 1-to-1 with sport psychology coaching clients to help them make the changes they want to see in their life and get the best out of themselves.
Simply Perform 