Progress-focused

By looking at your problems from a distance, by taking a third person perspective, you may come to wiser judgments. A powerful tool for making progress in many situations in the perspective-change technique. This tool enables you to look at your situation from a third person perspective. In progress-focused coaching we use this principle by asking perspective-change questions. An example of such a question is: "How would other people notice your situation will have improved?" In this article I describe evidence for the motivating effect of visualizing such a third person perspective. In this article I describe how you can use perspective changes to prepare for difficult conversations. A new publication demonstrates that it is easier to come to wise judgments when taking a third person perspective.

Have you ever experienced, as a coach or consultant, that you were in a conversation with a client and felt that the conversation wasn't going too well? I guess we all have experienced that. Perhaps the conversation wasn't going too well because your own contribution in the conversation was not the best, for example because your questions were not so relevant or your way of responding to what the other person has said was not adequate. Or maybe you were not satisfied with the conversation because your conversation partner did not seem to find the conversation useful or pleasant. You may get such an impression when they frown or seem to have some resistance. Wouldn't you like to be able to reset the conversation in such situations? Well, you can. Here is a simple way in which you can do that.

The knowledge about how we can age vitally grows. Of course, this is not completely under our control but we can increase its chance.  In my book Progressiegericht werken  I conjecture that we can make meaningful progress into old age. I think that we can do a number of things which can increase the chance of ageing vitally. In other words, that we can keep a relatively clear and sharp mind, that we can stay relatively physically fit, and the we can keep enjoying ourselves and stay motivated. If my conjecture turns out to be right that will be very nice. Then, we will not only have been able to add 10 years, on average to our lives, over the last 50 years. We also will be ale to use these years well and live relatively happily.

We can often easily influence how other people interpret their failing. By doing this we may make it easier for them to persist.  In psychology we have discovered that people continuously search for explanations for what happens in their lives. This process, which is called attribution , often happens unconsciously. When people think that causes of what happened and of their own behaviors lie outside of themselves, we speak of external attribution. When they think causes lie within themselves we speak of internal attribution. How people attribute influences both how they view themselves and they choices they make and, because of that, how they will develop.