A Coaching Model Created by Holly Hansen
(Empowerment and Transformation Coach, UNITED STATES)
A powerful diagnostic and planning structure for bringing about significant life transformation
There is an Indian proverb or axiom that says that everyone is a house with four rooms, a physical, a mental, an emotional and a spiritual. Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time but, unless we go into every room every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not a complete person.
The muse awakens from her ancient indian slumber
My wife and I love to treasure hunt at garage sales, estate sales and thrift stores. There is a secret thrill you get when find something “just right”. On these adventures, you never know what you will find, so it can range from disappointment to excitement.
It was on the beautiful shady tree lined Walnut Street in Santa Cruz, California, a sleepy little beach town in Northern California, at an Estate Sale that my wife picked up a book with a collection of inspirational quotes and the Ancient Indian Proverb was one of them.
That one little quote woke something up in both of us – and that was the beginning the Four Rooms in our lives… which eventually led me to creating a whole and powerful coaching model around it….
Visiting the four rooms for the first time on a new years day
We decided that we would experiment with looking at our Four Rooms on New Years Day. It seemed like a fun way to start the new year – by looking at the state of those Four Rooms from the previous year, and make a holistic plan to visit each of our four rooms in a more balanced and regular way.
Having celebrated New Years Eve in San Francisco, on the fresh new year day, we headed over to get breakfasts at this French restaurant called Cafe De La Presse. On top of the white linen table clothes , were placed large white sheets of butcher paper, and as we sipped our cappuccinos and waited for our breakfast to arrive, we pulled out pens and each drew in front of us a big plus sign to make a grid space for each of the rooms. Then in each quadrant wrote out the Four Rooms – Mental, Physical, Emotional, Spiritual.
Taking on each room quadrant, we started filling out how we wanted to visit the Four Rooms in the New Year – It
The Birth of a powerful coaching model
At that French Cafe, we filled out each room quadrant. We filled out how each section, writing out how we wanted to visit the Four Rooms in the New Year – asking our this two key question …
” How do I know when I am visiting the Emotional Room? ”
” What would I be doing or experiencing when I am visiting the Emotional Room? ”
By the end of Breakfast we had filled out each of the Four Rooms – and carefully ripped and removed our handiwork – and at home, we hung them on a wall at home to remind us of our New Year Commitment to visit each of the four rooms on a regular basis.
The results were for each of us, really transformative in a wonderful way. And as I started my coaching practice – I knew there was so much more that could be done with this powerful quote… so I called my Coaching Practice Four-Keys and built this very Coaching Model you are reading about now – The Four Rooms
A simple tool for profound discoveries…
From that New Years Day Activity, I continued to explore new ways to use the Four Rooms as an Exploratory, Gap Analysis and Planning Tool in every aspect of Life. So much so, that I have decided to write a book about the Four Rooms to share in detail how to use the Four Rooms to Transform, Heal , Grow, Plan and Thrive in just about ever aspect of life.
Some of the ways the Four Rooms can be used as a powerful tool are:
So what does this look like in action?
Just like that morning in San Francisco , we begin with creating a 4 square grid and naming each section
What do you need help with?
Next you decide what area of your life you need help with… A Good Example is “Life Balance”
What might this look like?
The beauty of this structure is there are no wrong answers… only right answers for you
What can we learn from this?
Take some time to look over what you wrote… what patterns do you see, where are the gaps?
Now…Create a plan for a “A great life” Balance
Now that you have an idea of what your current “Life Balance” Looks like, and you gained some insights from that exercise, its time to come up with a vision of what a better “Life Balance” would look like.
Take a fresh sheet of paper and draw the grid again. Now you can fill it out thinking about how you want your “life balance” to look like within each of the Four Rooms… and with this you can make a plan to achieve it!
Taking a four rooms deeper…A client story
The Model adapts itself to each scenario it is being used for – and can even evolve to include gathering deeper insights to clarity and meaning beyond the base experience of:
“What am I doing today?” and “What do I want to be doing going forward?”
Recently during a coaching session, a client wanted to discuss how they could “Think Bigger”. He claimed he felt like wasn’t challenging himself enough to make bigger plans, and bigger decisions, and was worried that he was being too modest, to complacent in his situation – and was looking for ways to break out of this limiting mindset.
After listening to his concerns, I suggested we might try the Four-Keys exercise as as a tool to help in this situation, he eagerly agreed .
After sharing with him how the Four Rooms Model worked we began.
Taking a four rooms deeper…
Here is how we went through the Four -Keys Room but added layers of insights to provide him deeper insights and also awareness of key values he needed to be aware of to “Think Bigger” about his life and his work.
+ First he filled out the Four Rooms based on how he currently Modestly thinks about his life and his work
+ Next I invited him to write out two things : What “Living out his Big Thinking” VALUES were important to him in each of the rooms What FEELINGS did he want to experience in each of rooms when he was “Living out his Big Thinking”
+ Then it was time to Imagine it was 5 years from now, and he was Living out his Big Thinking Life and Work and I had him write out how he envisioned what that would look like in each of the Four Rooms
+ Once that Future Vision of the Four Rooms was completed I had him take a look at what he had written and check for two things:
Are the things you listed for your Future Four Rooms…
1) in alignment with the Values and Feelings you listed earlier in the exercise
2) what you desire/need for yourself for “Living a Big Life” OR are they other people’s definitions of “Living a Big Life”?
+ After he reviewed and refined his list based on these insights… next we worked together to help him create his plan for making his future “Living Big Life” a reality