The CTL Blog
Stages of Coaching: Stage 3 - Rehearsal
Executive Function is the learned ability to plan, steer our attention, organize our thoughts, and coordinate multiple tasks.
Executive Function coaching helps people learn and strengthen these abilities.
Our coaching process follows a pattern of personal transformation. People usually follow this sequence, but they also move back and forth as they encounter new challenges.
Contemplation: the awareness of an urgency to change as well as the need for help in doing so.
Collaboration: identifying a partner in change and creating a plan with actionable steps.
Rehearsal: doing the steps of the plan with feedback and support from a partner in change that focuses on the process as much as the outcome.
Remoralization: the experience of feeling capable and competent again after successfully rehearsing and executing plans.
Growth: working through inevitable setbacks and recognizing that success in one thing leads to new, bigger challenges. Then the process of collaboration, rehearsal, and remoralization repeats.
To better understand these stages, we will introduce you to “Erin”, a composite of many of our clients and a case study of what Executive Function weakness looks like in a young adult. Through her story, you will get a detailed sense of what Executive Function is and how coaching can help.
Next post, we’ll continue to follow Erin as she Rehearses her new skills, and we’ll introduce the cycle of Remoralization and Demoralization that leads to long-term Growth.
Until then, why don’t you try a time audit of your own? Use whatever tools are most intuitive for you, either digital or on paper. Once you’ve prepared for your time audit, the work of the audit itself is all about noticing and staying present. Do your best to stay out of your judging mind. If you watch three hours of Netflix, log the three of Netflix. An honest baseline will help you chart a clear path to the changes you wish to make.
Stage 3: Rehearsal
What comes to mind when you hear the word ‘action’? On a movie set, the word ‘action’ means ‘go NOW’. There are stakes baked into the word which can seed it with an anxious tension that gets in the way of progress. So how can we turn down the heat?
Directors often help actors lessen their performance anxiety by telling them to “treat it like a rehearsal.” In rehearsal, there exists freedom to make mistakes, try things, discard what doesn’t work, and keep what does. Rehearsal takes us out of the result and back into the process. It also hews more closely to the actual definition of action, which is “the process of doing something.” Gaining executive function abilities is really about becoming interested and then mastering processes for how things get done. For this reason, the actual work of coaching is process-oriented, and so the idea of Rehearsal is a useful framework. Rehearsal is not just a phase of coaching, but a way of practicing that underlies the entire coaching process and beyond.
Last post, we followed Erin through her initial Collaboration with her coach. That collaboration continues as Erin and her coach begin to “Rehearse” different organizational, structural, and motivational techniques.
Erin’s Transition to College
Erin and her coach begin by assessing Erin’s current relationship with time. “During our first meeting, you told me that you want to know how much time your homework is going to take because that will help you worry less. We’re going to try a time audit exercise that will help you notice and reflect on exactly how you use your time.” A time audit will guide Erin to build a more detailed awareness of how she habitually spends her time, to identify where she has opportunities to spend time differently, and to empower her to cultivate a more active relationship with time.
First, Erin and her coach look at her upcoming month and select the first full week of classes to time audit in order to get a more accurate sense of her regular workload. Next, they select a time-tracking tool that Erin will actually use. She carries her phone all the time and already occasionally uses her calendar app for important due dates so they agree that her calendar app is the best place to start. Additionally, Erin’s coach recommends and demonstrates an app that will invite her to log more specifics about her activities.
Then, Erin works with her coach to visualize a productive day. In addition to her classes, Erin blocks out time in her schedule for study, exercise, mealtimes, and recreation. She also schedules reminders to alert her ten minutes before each block of time begins. Her coach is careful to emphasize that this exhaustively scheduled day is meant to function as both a visualization and a memory tool, and should not be used as a measurement of success or failure.
Let’s pause to take a closer look at some of the tools in use. A time audit is a form of habit tracking, a powerful technique that helps make idealistic goals more tangible and realistic. Erin and her coach chose two apps, one that is built in and familiar to Erin (phone calendar), and another that she was able to learn to use over the course of a few minutes. Erin’s coach installed the new time-tracking app right beside the calendar app, so that she wouldn’t have to go hunting for it. All of these steps are examples of reducing friction, or making a task easier to accomplish by removing as many impediments and distractions as possible. Erin and her coach took advantage of some of her existing habits in order to help her build new ones, rather than forcing her to start entirely from scratch. We also saw an example of prompts, or anything that facilitates an action. By programming reminders into her calendar, Erin won’t have to work hard to recall how she planned to spend her day - her phone will give her a nudge much like a director gives an actor a cue during rehearsal. We also saw a small example of positive associations and reinforcement, when Erin’s coach encouraged her to think of her schedule as a tool, not a test.
Erin and her coach take a look at her packed calendar together. “I feel like I don’t have any free time. What if my friends want to hang out?” Erin’s coach smiles. “I’m really glad you brought that up. It’s not going to look like this forever, I promise. We’re accounting for everything right now because the first moments of trying to do something different are the hardest. All of this is here to support you through the hardest part.” Erin’s coach reminds her that she has time in her evenings that are free to spend with her friends. “So, if a friend reaches out wanting to hang out, what could you do?” Erin looks at the calendar. “I can tell them that I’m free on Wednesday night.” “Right.” “What if they can’t hang out on Wednesday night? What if they only want to hang out when they text me?” Erin’s coach thinks for a moment. “Well, you always have the choice to hang out with them right away. But that means putting off your work, which might cause you more stress later. If you delay hanging out with your friends in order to get your work done, you avoid that stress, and you won’t feel guilty while you’re with your friends. You can just have fun.” “But I can have fun if I hang out with them right away.” “Sure, that’s true. But this is the pattern that you’re trying to change. Sometimes it helps to remind yourself why you’re trying to change it in the first place.” “Right. I’m doing this for a reason. I want to get a good grade in Creative Writing.” “Is that a strong enough reason?” Erin considers, and then says. “I want to be a writer.” Encouraged by her coach, she writes this larger goal down on a post-it note and sticks it to the wall next to her desk.
This exchange is an example of obstacle planning. Erin’s coach is helping her prepare for the potential overwhelm of habit tracking, to predict the habits that she might fall back into under stress, and to preemptively identify some solutions for when those setbacks arise. Her coach is also pointing out when to keep the stakes low, and when to raise them. As she works to follow her schedule, Erin’s coach reminds her that she is not being asked to pass a test, she is just working to develop a better understanding of her patterns. But when she is faced with a distraction that challenges her ability to stay on task, Erin’s coach shows her how having a strong, high-stakes goal can help to keep her focused. This is an example of connecting with intrinsic motivation, because it’s tied to something of deep personal significance.