Build a Healing Plan

Thomas Edison said, “If we did all the things, we are capable of doing, we would astonish ourselves.”

We all hear common coaching myths in our day-to-day lives such as coaching is for people whose lives are a mess, or who have bigger problems, or it is for rich people. Till a certain point in my life, I used to believe this. But when I saw my friends or people around me, making the best of their lives, making great decisions, and looking so much more confident, certainly changed my belief. Because before that I used to think that only famous or successful people needed to have a coach in their lives. I never thought that ordinary people like me would have anything to do with coaching. After witnessing how people around me were flourishing in their personal as well as professional lives, that how a friend of mine told me how her parents helped her get a coach, who helped her in her studies and achieve better results. Similarly, how a relationship coach helped in saving the marriage of my uncle, and how a career coach guided my boyfriend in building his career.

So yes, coaching is not for only a certain type of people, anyone who feels stuck or drowning or like his life has come to a standstill, he knows what to do to break the toxic patterns to be successful but is not sure how to do it. There comes the major role of a life coach in guiding you toward your goals.

How coaching helps in breaking toxic patterns:

Let's face it, almost all of us are held back in our lives due to our negative core beliefs, which gradually became the reasons behind developing the toxic patterns that are now ruining our lives! Through coaching, we not only become aware of what is holding us back and has been the major obstacle to our growth, but we also break free of those toxic patterns and finally be free.

The following ways help out during healing:

• Mindset
• Clarity
• Blind spots
• Accountability

What is a healing plan?

In therapy, a healing plan or a treatment plan is a kind of roadmap that you build in collaboration with your coach to tackle the problems you face whether in your personal or professional life. Therefore, a treatment plan is a good strategy as it makes it easier for your coach to help you in your therapy in identifying your key issues, and how to devise better ways to tackle them in achieving your goals.

What does a healing plan look like?

1. Diagnosis
2. Goal setting
3. Objectives

Why do you need a healing plan?

When you are being hard on yourself and when nothing feels to go right and when you lose all hope, but you don’t know how to heal, then a healing plan is the only thing you need badly! Self-love can help you to pick up good habits. Another benefit of self-love is that it makes you take care of your needs. Self-love also boosts confidence as one starts to try new things. Similarly, self-care is as vital as self-love is! Self-care enables us to take care of our bodies, mind, and spirit. Self-care tips include things like adopting a healthy lifestyle, exercising regularly, and sleeping properly.

Coaching models that help in therapy:

• WOOP
• GROW
• CLEAR
• OSKAR

WOOP:

An effective approach in therapy for coaches to suggest to their clients for healing. First of all, let's know what this strange word “WOOP” is! It's an acronym for:

W for wish:

So, the first step your coach leads you through is to make a specific wish that you want to get fulfilled. It can be anything such as I want to quit eating junk food, I want to start exercising or go to a gym, I want to achieve better results in my exams.

O for outcome:

Once you know what you want, then your coach helps in setting a desired outcome that how it would feel to see your wish becoming a reality. He will then ask you questions such as what would it feel like to see your wish come true. What can be the best outcome for you? 

O for obstacle:

Here, you will be made aware of your major hurdles by your coach like what are the obstacles in your path? What barriers are there?

P for a plan:

The final step is to carve out a solid plan that can facilitate you in achieving your objectives. Devise a clear roadmap along with a what-if strategy that in case things don’t go out according to the plan, then you can change the gears and follow the what-if rule. 

Now let's dive into understanding how this strategy works! Through this technique, your coach helps you to identify your wish and then find out the major obstacle against it. For example, all this time, you wished to go to the gym but your lazy lifestyle was the major obstacle in achieving that desire. In this way, by using mental contrasting, a coach asks the clients about their wishes and then tells them to identify what their major obstacle has been all this time by devising a what-if plan.

We can't go by just doing wishful thinking and hoping that some mysterious force will someday help us meet our goals. That’s not how it is done in real life! So, in reality, research shows that only wishing for or thinking about positive future scenarios isn't enough for people to be successful. They also need to identify their obstacles, set the desired outcome, devise a plan, and then strive towards achieving those goals. 

GROW approach:

So, we have all heard our coaches in therapy sessions asking us questions like:

• What would you like to focus on today?
• What are the challenges that you are facing currently?
• What are your fears at the moment?
• What biggest obstacle is holding you back?
• If you could do one to change, what would it be?
• On a scale of 1 to 10, how motivated are you toward achieving your desired goals?

GROW is an acronym for:

G for goals

R for reality

O for options

W for a way forward

For their clients, some coaches use grow approach in therapy for healing. Here they help the clients in understanding their real goals, making them aware of the current situation, helping them build better options to break toxic patterns, and finally suggest a way forward. The coach makes sure the goals set by the clients are smart!

Smart goals are:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Realistic
• Time-bound

How can setting goals help in therapy?

Defining goals from the start makes the tremendous change as the client can:

• Achieve more
• Be confident
• Take self-care
• Love oneself
• Avoid confusion
• Avoid getting overwhelmed
• Set priorities straight
• Concentrate better

Clear method:

CLEAR is another efficient tool in therapy. This coaching model has 5 following steps:

C for connecting:

In this step, a coach connects with the client and builds a healthy client/coach relationship. This is the essential step in the therapy session, where a coach helps a client to share what he or she is hoping to receive at the end of this session. In this way, they build an unbreakable bond based on trust that greatly helps a client in connecting with the coach.

L for listening:

For healing to work, listening is an integral part of therapy! A coach actively listens to whatever the client has to say and observes both verbal and non-verbal cues of the client. 

E for engage:

To engage on a deeper level with the client, the coach engages him or her in finding out what are the limiting beliefs that are holding them back in their lives.in this way, a coach helps the client in discovering the negative thoughts and ways to tackle them efficiently.

A for arrive:

This is the most therapeutic step where the breakthrough happens as the client arrives at a new awareness.

R for reflecting:

The coach helps the client in recognizing the new habits that have been developed during this healing journey and further encourages building concrete steps to achieve the goals set in the first phase of this model. He also holds the client accountable as accountability is key to getting closer to our objectives.

Other approaches include:

• AOR method (activities, objectives, results
• OSKAR (Outcome, scale, knowhow, affirm an action, review)
• FUEL method:
• Frame the conversation
• Understand the current state
• Explore the desired state
• Layout a success plan
• Solution-focused coaching model

So, if you have been in therapy, what strategies worked best for you?

What was your healing journey like?

How did your coach help you in building an effective healing plan?

How did you break toxic patterns?

What self-care tips have you used?

How has self-love helped you achieve your goals?